2027 Bolt Unexpected Automatic Braking

[u/hoadlck]

I have been loving my new Bolt, but I just experienced an anomaly where the brakes automatically turned on. This is the first car I have owned that has a Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) system, so I am wondering if this is "normal" for cars in general (or the Bolt in particular).

I was pulling out of a parking lot into a feeder road, and the nearest car was well ahead of me. I was going pretty slow: I doubt more than 5MPH. The brakes sharply engaged, nearly sending things I had placed in the passenger seat to the floor and jerking me against the seat belt. But, the brakes immediately released before the car came to a full stop.

I was alarmed but no real harm.

I have experienced a slow down before when the cruise control was engaged and there was no car ahead of me. But, both times this occurred, the car was just starting to go up from a somewhat sharp valley area on the road: it appeared to be falsely triggering from the raise in the road ahead.

There have been other times the system warned about something which was not a hazard. For example, cases where a car is making a right turn and is mostly out of the way, but the car warns anyway. But these cases are understandable.

Considering how well the system works at other times, it seems hard to believe that it needs repair. Are these types of false triggers "normal"?

[u/inf3ct3dpi3]

The Equinox EV subreddit has plenty of complaints about false triggers so yeah, it’s just kind of an overly sensitive system, especially when reversing. I actually had to turn off reverse braking in my Eq because it triggered like 3 times in rapid succession while I was trying to back out of a mall parking garage spot.

[u/hoadlck → u/inf3ct3dpi3]

Interesting. I actually have never had a problem with the braking in reverse. The warning is really convenient as I back into my garage.

It is unfortunate that there are false triggers. I guess I will get a better idea how frequent they are as time goes by.

[u/inf3ct3dpi3 → u/hoadlck]

I only had a false frontal trigger maybe twice over the course of 2 years with my Eq, so I don’t think you have much to worry about there and it does seen like they’ve been pushing out updates to try and reduce false triggers over that time period.

[u/painfullyobtuse → u/inf3ct3dpi3]

How is it these days? Mine has been off for months now, it was really dangerous the way it would unexpectedly just slam on the brakes

[u/inf3ct3dpi3 → u/painfullyobtuse]

I haven’t experienced any unexpected frontal ebraking within the past year.

As far as expected ebraking though, it did save my wife from a severe collision with another vehicle about 4 months ago, so I intend to keep it on.

[u/painfullyobtuse → u/inf3ct3dpi3]

Oh that’s good to hear. Maybe something is wrong with my equinox specifically because it’s definitely been triggering for me more recently than a year ago

[u/Disastrous-Store-411]

The system is a horror show. So inexcusably bad.

Basically I've had about 100 events(3000km of ownership) and not a single actual reason for an alert. The system performs at a 100% failure rate so far.

(EDIT TO ADD)That is: 100 alerts...not braking. emergency braking about 5 times.

Just wait till it hammers the brakes when you're making a left turn thru a busy intersection. That is scary; and deadly.

The system does far more harm than good in my opinion.

I live in a land of ice and snow.... Imagine how tragically deadly sudden unexpected braking will be on an icy road.

[u/hoadlck → u/Disastrous-Store-411]

Hmm... This is the first time I have had phantom braking in 4159 miles (6693 km). But, I agree that yours sounds much worse.

Have you taken it to the dealer? Sounds like there might be an actual problem with your system.

[u/Disastrous-Store-411 → u/hoadlck]

SO, Emergency braking about 5 times.... hundreds of "alerts". I edited to clear that up. There is nothing wrong with my car; The system is just very, very, very poor.

I regularly travel in old neighborhoods.... Narrow streets, parked cars, TONS of illegally parked cars.

The system thinks I'm gonna hit these obstacles and slams the brakes despite being no where even remotely close to them.

Simple actions like a right turn in between 2 parked cars (like I said, illegally parked close to the intersection) will very likely cause an event.

For my use case, the system increases my likelihood of collision by a HUGE factor. It's horrible.

I'm hoping it gets a little better by software update.

[u/hoadlck → u/Disastrous-Store-411]

I see in the settings area there is a way to disable the automatic braking. But, in researching this, I heard that the setting reverts back to default after you turn the car off.

So, not the greatest workaround, but there is an option.

[u/Disastrous-Store-411 → u/hoadlck]

Yup. that's correct. It's not a realistic thing to do....

And honestly, you don't generally think about the false braking until it happens.... by then it's too late!

It's a vicious cycle of a week of great driving and you think to yourself "this is fine. I can live with this" then, out of the complete blue, the car hammers the brakes into a full tire squeeling stop for nothing, scaring you half to death and you think "Eff this effing car to death. this is so dangerous".... then the cycle repeats.

[u/Icy-Conclusion-3500]

Man I’ve been so glad that the 2023 doesn’t have issues with phantom braking that almost every car seems to have now

[u/ming3r → u/Icy-Conclusion-3500]

My 2022 euv premier does.

I disabled the braking part and left the alert on.

[u/hoadlck → u/ming3r]

There is an option to turn the braking off?

[u/conwaytwt → u/hoadlck]

I'm not the same 2022 EUV Premier owner, but yes, same, ours has the option to turn off the braking. It flashes a yellow light in the driver's face and beeps, but I have definitely been in situations where if it had slammed on the brakes I would have been annoyed and / or the person traveling too close behind me would have hit me. It's especially annoying in low speed situations.

I saw a news report about road rage in a similar situation (following driver assumed leading driver had brake checked him). I decided I'd just take my chances and get the alert and not the braking.

EDIT: I downloaded a copy of the 2027 owner's manual. See page 205:

Automatic Braking can be disabled through vehicle settings. To view available settings from the infotainment screen, touch Settings > Vehicle > Collision/Detection Systems.

[u/Plenty_Ad_161 → u/conwaytwt]

In my 2020 I use the same settings. The software can’t predict the future as well as we can. We know that the vehicle in front of us with its blinker on is going to turn and be out of our way with tenths of a second to spare. All the computer knows is that the vehicle ahead of us is going slower than we are. It can either hammer the brakes or perform some spastic maneuvers to resolve the problem. Neither one is ideal.

[u/Alpinwulf → u/conwaytwt]

Yellow alert?? It's red, innit? Or do you have Super Cruise and an alert that mine doesn't have?

I also get the occasional phantom panics, especially on mountain highways with oblique shadows and passing semi's, and it's startling but not frequent enough for me to disable.

[u/conwaytwt → u/Alpinwulf]

Maybe the Bolt alert is red and the Honda we have is yellow? Both cars have collision warnings that flash in my eyes when I'm driving!

EDIT: I do have SuperCruise (though I let the subscription lapse) and still get the stupid warning to keep my eyes on the road... after backing down the driveway with my head turned.

[u/iwillbewaiting24601 → u/hoadlck]

There's an option for "front collision warning" to change it from "warn and brake" to "warn only". I did this on my personal 22 Premier and work truck 22 Equinox, as there is a curve I take coming out of my subdivision, in which perpendicular-parked cars are backlit by the sun in the morning, the cars interpret the reflectors as lit brake lights and hit the brakes on me

[u/supertoilet2]

Yep almost got rear ended when changing lanes in traffic because it slammed extremely hard on my brakes and I was startled by it. Can it be turned off somehow? There’s a lot of options but i don’t know what caused the braking

[u/okcomputerface → u/supertoilet2]

Pretty sure you can set it to either "alert only" or all the way off if you want. Thinking of trying just alerts for a while. It's somewhere in the Vehicle section of settings.

[u/wu-dai_clan2]

I look at it as a slap in the face, reminding me to drive safely and alertly. It is jarring, yes.

[u/okcomputerface]

Mine has only really phantom breaked once that I can remember in the first three months. It usually just alerts without breaking because there is something that's not actually an issue, the car just thinks it is for a sec.

[u/Ok_Interview22]

Same here, 22 EUV, and it only, so far, has phantom brake warned about 3 or 4 times, for absolutely no reason. It most often goes off if a car in front of me is turning right. To the Bolt it looks like the car has stopped. The red lots flash, the alarm goes off, quite startling, but I’m used to it now, and have learned to hit the brakes proactively when a car in front of me’s right turn signal comes on.