[staktrace]

To reply to your first question: if the car decides to emergency brake, you can still override it by pressing the accelerator. In my experience, the braking that happens is "hard" but no more hard than you would do yourself if something suddenly appeared in your drive path, and if you are paying attention you can press the accelerator within a second or so. If the person behind you has adequate following distance it shouldn't be a problem.

If the car loses power entirely then it gives you a few seconds warning in which you may or may not be able to cross to the shoulder before the car coasts to a stop. In this scenario the braking is not "hard", but obviously there is no real way to recover and you'll need to get towed.

I have not experienced any scenario where the car does not respond to steering or acceleration commands when it was physically able to do so.

[mellavora]

> if something suddenly appeared in your drive path, and if you are paying attention you can press the accelerator within a second or so.

So if something appears in your path, the right course of action is to accelerate into it?

within a second or so is great but not if you have 1/4 second time to respond.

> If the person behind you has adequate following distance it shouldn't be a problem.

Nice assumption.

> If the car loses power entirely then it gives you a few seconds warning in which you may or may not be able to cross to the shoulder before the car coasts to a stop.

may or may not indeed.

[jazzyjackson]

> So if something appears in your path, the right course of action is to accelerate into it?

>> ...the braking that happens is "hard" but no more hard than you would do yourself if something suddenly appeared in your drive path...

parent post was just giving a comparison to the deceleration-snap experienced during phantom braking, and saying in the event of a phantom brake, you can cancel the event by tapping the gas (battery?) pedal

[vladvasiliu]

> So if something appears in your path, the right course of action is to accelerate into it?

Not into it, but around it – if possible, of course. It's something you learn in motorcycle school, for example.

The idea is that a motorcycle is harder to maneuver while under hard braking, so you have a better chance of avoiding the obstacle or falling by going around it.

>> If the person behind you has adequate following distance it shouldn't be a problem.

> Nice assumption.

Of course. This also feeds into the above. As in, not only do you have to stop, but also to make sure that the person following you will stop without hitting you.

[staktrace]

> So if something appears in your path, the right course of action is to accelerate into it?

You mis-parsed what I said here. My sentence was probably too long. Let me try using shorter ones. Say you are driving. Suddenly a squirrel appears on the road 50m away. You apply brakes "hard" to avoid hitting it. This amount of braking is what the car does. You can still press the accelerator. The accelerator works as expected, cancelling the software's braking.

> if you have 1/4 second time to respond.

Under what circumstances would you have this short amount of time? IMO only if somebody is following you too closely. Again, remove the software from the equation and insert the aforementioned squirrel. You brake hard for it. The person behind rear-ends you because they were following too closely. Who is at fault?

> Nice assumption

Thank you

[mysterydip]

if it emergency brakes, does steering still work or not until you accelerate?

[jeofken]

Yes - a slight nudge on the steering wheel or pedals deactivates autopilot. You always have full control like when driving like normal.

One should therefore always have the hands on the wheel and feet by the pedals and be ready to drive.

[staktrace]

It does work, yes.

[staktrace]

Self-reply to add: despite (occasionally) experiencing phantom braking and my wife once experiencing the "loss of power" scenario due to a defective drive unit, I'm still very happy with the Tesla overall. In my experience it is the best car I've owned despite the flaws that seem to disproportionately make the headlines.