# Autopilot fooled by strong shadows?



## changsteer (Sep 7, 2017)

Scenario:
1. Driving in right-most lane on a clear-marked highway with Autopilot on
2. Beyond the rail guard, there are tall trees along the highway
3. On a sunny day and certain hours, the sun creates high-contrast/strong shadows on asphalt surface from the trees. In my lane, it looks almost like an irregular-shaped interlaced pattern.
4. With no car within 500 feet in front of me, Autopilot would suddenly do a hard braking and than speed up to set-speed.

The person following behind me would change lane right away. They probably think I'm crazy to suddenly brake so harsh while there's nothing in front of me. I finally concluded what seems to be causing this misbehavior after it happened to me at least three or four times. I'm curious to know if anybody else has experienced this kind of hard braking when there's no apparent trigger, and what is your scenario?


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## RichEV (Sep 21, 2017)

YES.

https://teslaownersonline.com/search/852232/?q=shadow+hard+braking&o=relevance&c


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## Chris350 (Aug 8, 2017)

Had a little something of that same problem....

Surface streets.... Median on left.... Semi on right....

Tree in median throws dark shadow on street.... Car slams on brakes and veers right...

Glad I was paying attention and have never used EAP on surface streets since.... Strictly highway for the time being...

Oh... That happened on my first day driving it...


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## SoFlaModel3 (Apr 15, 2017)

I have had a few occurrences of hard breaking from shadows that absolutely scares that you know what out of you.


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## PasoWino (Jul 18, 2018)

Yes! I had it happen on the highway the other day. Cruising along at 60 MPH and suddenly the car slams on the brakes. No one near me except for a car a 1/4 mile back.


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## Thunder7ga (May 15, 2018)

I also have it sometimes. I keep intending to try to glance at the screen to see what the car is “seeing”. But it usually surprises me and I am more concerned about how close someone is behind me instead.


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