Telsa’s already-smudged security repute took one other hit on Thursday because the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration introduced the beginning of a brand new investigation into the corporate — this time, in response to a flurry of complaints by homeowners that their autos would randomly and dangerously decelerate whereas at freeway speeds, which they’ve come to name “phantom braking.”  

Per the NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI), the agency has received “354 complaints alleging unexpected brake activation in 2021-2022 Tesla Model 3 and Model Y vehicles” over the previous 9 months. 

“The complaints allege that while utilizing the ADAS features including adaptive cruise control,” the ODI summary reads, “the vehicle unexpectedly applies its brakes while driving at highway speeds. Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle.”

As such, the ODI is launching this preliminary investigation “to determine the scope and severity of the potential problem and to fully assess the potential safety-related issues” with additional steps to comply with relying, after all, on what, if something, the investigators uncover.

Many of the complaints have come very not too long ago. The Washington Post notes that following one among its items printed earlier this month, the “NHTSA received about 250 complaints about phantom braking during the following two weeks. That compared to 107 complaints in the prior three months — a steep surge of its own — and only 34 in the preceding 22 months.”

“It’s when the traffic is coming towards me that it randomly throws on the brake,” Sally Bergquist, of Alexander City, Al, a 2021 Model S proprietor who skilled the phantom braking impact, advised The Post. “This random braking is really concerning to me.” 

Tesla has needed to situation plenty of remembers for defects in its merchandise in current months, from software program glitches to separating suspensions. Despite these points, Tesla autos stay sizzling sellers within the EV market and CEO Elon Musk stays steadfastly confident in his company’s “Full Self-Driving” technology. 

“It’s not like some little feature,” Musk declared on Tesla’s This autumn earnings name. “It’s like the most profound software upgrade maybe in history.”

This information comes within the quick wake of Consumer Reports naming the Ford Mustang Mach-E its Car of the Year over the Model 3, and phrase that Musk on Thursday accused the SEC of harassment for its “endless” and “unrelenting” investigation into Tesla — not as a result of his private tweets (the topic of stated SEC investigations) violated long-standing federal laws, however as a result of he’s an outspoken critic of the federal government. Tesla couldn’t be reached for remark in response to any of this as Musk dissolved the company’s PR department in 2020.