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When it comes to electric vehicles, few are as known as the 2020 Tesla Model 3. This EV is said to be “built around the driver,” but customers can’t stop complaining. The comments are building up about the service brakes, steering, vehicle speed control and the suspension.
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NHTSA Complaints for the 2020 Tesla Model 3
| Complaint Category | Number of Complaints |
|---|---|
| Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking | |
| Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control | |
| Unknown Or Other | |
| Vehicle Speed Control | |
| Service Brakes | |
| Electrical System | |
| Suspension | |
| Steering | |
| Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings | |
| Visibility/wiper |
Problems with the Service Brakes
On any vehicle, gas-powered or electric, the brakes are required to stop the car before a collision occurs. However, some Model 3 customers are worried this isn’t going to happen.
One NHTSA complaint states, “Regarding the car brakes, they are very hard to fully depress and I believe it’s because of the regenerative braking. For example, when going at highway speed and you need to press the brake pedal hard it literally feels like the car is refusing to let you use the full capacity of the brakes. It’s very scary, it happened to me and I could not press the brake pedal completely down.”
It turns out that Tesla is fully aware the cars have braking issues. Service Bulletin #SB-20-33-001 R1 says that some brake caliper bolts might not have been torqued to the correct internal specifications. This could cause a serious braking issue and even an accident. While the car itself might be built around the driver, the brakes weren’t made for stopping.
Problems with the Steering
Another way to keep a car under control is through the steering system. If this doesn’t function correctly either, customers are further at risk.
One more NHTSA complaint says, “The auto steer in my Tesla Model 3 failed today when the car was turning on a curvy downhill road. I believe it’s because the lane markings on the right side ended just before the curbing started. The car suddenly turned right and hit the curb brushing the right front wheel. It would have been a fatal accident if it hadn’t taken over. Auto steer technology is not yet ready for use on all the roads and it should not be included by default in all the Tesla models. My car did not brake because the cruise control was still on. I am still in shock and afraid to use the auto steer again.”
Sometimes cars can become too advanced for its time, leading to issues if the roads aren’t prepared. However, there are also times when the manufacturer simply screws up. That’s what is illustrated with Service Bulletin #SB-20-32-007. It says that the automaker might not have installed the upper steering column bolt properly, which leads to excessive play. Any time that the steering isn’t in control, an accident might occur. For a car that’s “built around the driver,” Tesla must have thought owners needed more of an arm workout while driving. Maybe it’s possible to skip the gym visit now.
Problems with the Suspension
The suspension is what dictates whether the ride is smooth or rough. For the price paid on a Model 3, the road should feel like the owner is floating on clouds, but that’s not the case.
Here’s another NHTSA complaint. “The front wheel has gone totally whompy because most of the suspension components have snapped. There is hardly any damage to the car except for the suspension having snapped off. There is no sign of an impact severe enough to justify the suspension failure. The car has done just 94 miles since leaving the factory.”
Having a snapped-off suspension is not normal and certainly not what’s expected from a luxury model. However, there are more problems to be aware of. Service Bulletin #SB-20-31-004 says that the front damper assemblies don’t meet the internal specifications. This issue causes a harsh ride, vibration and plenty of noise. Maybe it’s an internal reminder of how the Model 3 is “built around the driver,” constantly singing in the owner’s ear.
Problems with the Vehicle Speed Control
One final stop in the Model 3 investigation brings the research to the vehicle speed control. This is yet another system that seems to be a complete failure.
One owner wrote this on the NHTSA website, “My wife and I live on a two-lane state route in the country. We were headed home from the farmers’ market this morning around 10 a.m., headed down a hill with three cars behind us. There was an 18-wheeler headed up the hill. I had the cruise control on and traveling 55 mph in a straight line with no curves in sight. When the 18-wheeler coming up the hill was 7 car lengths ahead of us in the opposite lane, my car automatically braked hard enough to bring our speed down to 35 mph before I could override and accelerate. My spouse said, ‘I hate this car. It’s going to get us killed one day. We could have been rearended.’ I have used conventional cruise control to drive for more than 20 years, even in town, to keep from inadvertently speeding. Normal cruise control doesn’t behave in this manner. This is my first report of a recurring problem.”
In this situation, Tesla has chosen to remain tight-lipped. Apparently, there is already too much evidence that this car was never built for the driver after all. Instead, it’s just an expensive piece of metal that deserves a lemon-shaped trophy when it gets dropped off at the junkyard.
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Complaint Data
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Mar 21, 2023 |
| State | NM |
| Description | Emergency braking is activated on highway when no obstacle is visible on clear sunny days. This has occurred over the last year but has become more frequent over time. |
| Category | Air Bags |
| Date | Mar 02, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while driving at 35 mph, she encroached into the right light and was t-boned by a bus. The air bags did not deploy upon impact. The contact did not sustain any injuries and a police report was not filed. The contact managed to drive the vehicle away from the accident despite damage to both the front and rear passenger side doors. The manufacturer had yet to be notified of the failure. The contact stated that the lane assist feature failed to operate as needed. The vehicle had yet to be repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 22,000. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 27, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I get "phantom braking" on average about every 2-3 hours of highway driving with cruise control enabled. All of a sudden without any road obstructions or vehicles ahead, the car will suddenly break hard even at highway speeds. Sometimes it happens when I approach an underpass or get to a section where the pavement is darker than before. |
| Category | Exterior Lighting |
| Date | Feb 24, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was driving to work on the morning of february 24th 2023 and it was raining. After some time, and while on the freeway, I noticed that my low beam headlamps icon (green telltale) on the center display was not showing. As I always drive with lights in auto, and since it was raining (windshield wipers were activated automatically), I expected the headlights to turn on automatically. I worried that I would not be seen well by other drivers, and had to navigate to the controls on the center display and switch the headlights from auto to on manually. The headlights then turned on (I assume, since I couldn't see indications on whether they were on or off on the outside, but the green icon did appear after I pressed the "on" button). Given that it was raining outside, relatively dark, and the windshield wipers were on, I would expect the headlights to be activated while in the auto mode. I have never had issues with this before, and wonder if this came from a software update. The switch to go from auto to manual lights isn't very easy to reach from the driver seat so I would expect the auto mode to work well so this situation doesn't have to happen. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Feb 23, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The backup camera on my car (and countless others posted online) sometimes has a 1-2 second delay in starting when in reverse, and often will freeze momentarily while in motion. This problem was introduced when tesla updated their software some time in 2021, where it was livable but noticeable. Then in a subsequent update, the lag and freezing became extreme and rendered the backup camera useless at times. Then, another software update completely fixed the problem. However, one of the recent updates has reintroduced the issue, albeit not as bad as at its worst, but still a safety risk as unexpected freezing of the rear camera, even momentarily, could cause a potential collision with an object that may appear behind the vehicle. I love the software update model tesla has. But safety features code needs to be walled off from other functionality so it cannot be impacted by updates. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Feb 18, 2023 |
| State | WI |
| Description | The adas system for the car includes automatic steering, which only works at the speed limit detected or less. The car incorrectly sets the speed limit in many instances as much as 30 mph under the limit. It isn't safe to drive the car at such a different speed than the rest of traffic. Tesla claims it relies on map data and can read speed limit signs. Most rural roads have no posted limit, so they default to 55 mph. Even in the presence of a posted speed limit, the car defaults to their bad map data within seconds of passing such a sign. Tesla has no mechanism for reporting this bad data to get it corrected. This has been ongoing for more than a year. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 16, 2023 |
| State | AZ |
| Description | My car was running in auto-steering mode. Last year it did phanthom breaking 3 times in freeway ( arizona I-10 from casa grande to tempe direction). Same happened on 2/14/22, it did phantom breaking for no reason. Speed dropped from 80mph to 55mph. Luckily no one was ahead or behind me. This is high risk for drivers behind me. |
| Category | Electrical System, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Feb 13, 2023 |
| State | NY |
| Description | The problem is my car has been in the shop six times for an issue that tesla claims it is unable to fix. I started smelling a burning smell (smoke coming from my air vents anytime the air is on) and brought it in. The first three times they were unable to find anything the fourth time they noticed debris that was embedded in the heating fins. They replaced that unit. The fifth/sixth time they actually took the hvac unit out and noticed the entire plastic underneath was melted and warped. Since the smell has continued and I'm worried that it's dangerous, I had the air quality tested. The formaldehyde levels were 50 times higher than the epa recommends as a safe level. (hch0 level of 6 ppm) I've submitted all this to tesla and they said they are currently working with their legal team to figure out if a buy back as possible. The new york attorney general told me that the car is not viable for a lemon law due to the fact they didn't do three chances to fix it in 90 days. (the first 2 appointments were in the 90 days but the 3-6th were just past it) the car is not safe to breath air in and my lungs hurt from even spending a few minutes in the car. I'm worried about the effects it has on my health and I feel morally wrong to sell it to anyone else. Please help. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 01, 2023 |
| State | NJ |
| Description | Driving on interstate 295 (it is unclear what the official direction north, south, west). You are going south toward philadelphia. Some signs say north but in reality it is only for a mile or two then the road bends due south. Every time I travel on this road and just before the scuddersfall bridge, the car brakes to 30 mph and it does it again on the other side of the bridge (the same direction). I have reported this many times on tesla's "bug report" and for the 2 years + nothing has been done to correct the problem. The car doesn't have a problem in the opposite direction. I usually take it off the autopilot at this location to prevent the braking. |
| Category | Electrical System |
| Date | Jan 31, 2023 |
| State | CO |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated he was not able to operate the rear windows in the vehicle. The contact referenced his concerns about regulation federal motor vehicle safety standard: 571-6; not allowing him to open or close the rear windows. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure through the app. The failure mileage was approximately 44,300. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jan 31, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Using autopilot on an empty highway at appx 65mph, the auto pilot system began to brake aggressively without any obstacles in front of me. As it approached 40 or 30 mph, I pressed on the brake to cancel the autopilot before I was hit from behind. Scary. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Jan 30, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | This is regarding the computer and the cameras on this car. From the first day that I got this car, I have had the issue that when I use the cameras or the backup camera on this it laggs and this is part of safety issue because I was going to ran over some people when I was reversing. The lagging is very noticibale and I took the car to tesla multiple times and said is ok but when they send technician to my house, we went for drive and I showed him the cameras and he duplicated the problem. The problem is getting worst and last month the computer was blacked out while I was driving. I need you guys to help me out to either put a recall on this car or return and get my full money back for this junk. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Jan 29, 2023 |
| State | AZ |
| Description | On a recent trip, while using the adaptive cruise control on a divided, straight, flat four lane highway, the vehicle would randomly slam on the brakes for absolutly no reason, endangering us and other vehicles behind us, who were not expecting a random slam of the brakes. Driving conditions were ideal - sunny, excellent visibility and very low traffic. There were no oncoming or road-crossing vehicles and no vehicles in front of us on the divided highway to trigger the reaction. This happened 14 times over about 200 miles of driving on our return trip home and over 30 times on the trip out. On the outbound trip, I was using it on both the divided highway and sections where there was only one lane in each direction, so decided to just use the cruise control when there was a divided highway. This is a recent phenomenon, as cruise control has never done that before. The semi-autonomous mode does it all the time as well, so we stopped using it for fear of causing an accident. |
| Category | Tires |
| Date | Jan 13, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | On october 29, 2022 the michelin tire on my 2020 tesla model 3 that had 16,000 miles on it, suffered catastrophic tread loss while traveling at 70 miles per hour on california route 110. The tire was the original equipment tire supplied with this vehicle when my lease began in january, 2021. The dot number on the tire was b9 el 04 ex 0419 and the tire size was 235/45r18 98w. The tread did not wear out, the tread delaminated from the tire and was lost on the side of california route 110. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection |
| Date | Jan 05, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | My car is affected by a product defect where tesla model 3's which have blind spot monitoring cameras (all model 3s) during a certain time frame have extreme glare at night, preventing the driver from safely using the blind spot monitoring system. The camera is basically unusable, and this is a feature that drivers rely on to safely view their blind spots. I have done lots of research online, and tesla repeatedly refuses to fix these product defects under warranty. There are tens of thousands (potentially hundreds of thousands) of affected vehicles, and I'm sure that tesla is trying to avoid a costly recall, so they refuse to admit that this is a major safety issue and say that it is "within spec". If you search "tesla model 3 side camera glare" in google, you'll find that there are thousands of complains on forums. Tesla fixes some under warranty, and refuses to fix others. I am aware that there was a recall on model 3 vehicles already due to the rear view camera going out, which the nhtsa deemed a safety issue. I would argue that the defective blind spot cameras are a far more significant safety issue, because the rear-view camera is used almost exclusively during slow speed maneuvering into tight spaces, while the blind spot cameras are used on freeways for high-speed (60-70mph) lane changes. I have reached out to tesla and requested that they fix this under warranty as it is a major safety issue, and they told me that newer production models have had the problem fixed, but that my model year needs to pay to have it fixed by tesla. I have attached pictures of my conversation with tesla to this complaint. Please take action against this company, which is putting its customers at risk because they don't want to bear the financial cost of fixing their product design defect. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jan 04, 2023 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I don't think tesla has dealt with recall 22v-702. Tesla has not notified me of the status of the recall. Please let me know if they have solved the problem. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Jan 01, 2023 |
| State | MD |
| Description | This is the first and only time this has occurred as of today, 1/1/23. Around 11:45am est, I was driving down a side street with no traffic coming towards me, behind me, or in front of me (and with no objects in the road). Suddenly, my brakes were aggressively applied and a warning came up on my screen saying it was the automatic emergency braking that had been applied. It then released a few seconds after. I do not have the autopilot option on my car, and I did not have any type of cruise control engaged at the time. If this had occurred in traffic for no reason it easily could have caused an accident. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Dec 31, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was on the exit lane coming from costco on 12/31/2022 at around 12:20 pm with a speed of about 40 miles . My exit is about 100 yards away. Tesla model 3 that I'm driving suddenly accelerated at high speed and pulled towards right and hit the wall next to freeway exit lane. Then it hit the wall on rear tailgate and rolled to middle of freeway within a fraction of seconds. Two vehicles coming on the freeway hit my car and after second hit my car completely stopped in the middle of freeway. I was able to come out safely and later chp officers came and towed the vehicle |
| Category | Exterior Lighting, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Dec 29, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Recall 21v-00d was registered dec 2021, notice said waiting for parts. It's been over 12 months and no parts yet? Also, the phone number tesla has listed on the recall notice and their recall info on your website goes to a self-service site that states to use your tesla app to schedule a repair so there is no way of contacting the company directly to find out about the status of the recall. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes |
| Date | Dec 27, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | This vehicle has the phantom braking issue whether you are using adaptive cruise or autopilot, and has happened at least 15 times in the past two years. Because of the sudden braking, we almost had a collision with a semi-truck coming up behind us on I-5 heading south the last time and the driver thought I was brake-checking him, making him very angry and giving obscene gestures at us for it. We reported it to the tesla service center, and they basically said it happens, and they disclosed it in the operator manual. That is unacceptable. This is very dangerous, and lives could be lost in the circumstance where someone is following close behind. Tesla basically is saying it can happen and there is no fix which absolutely unacceptable and this car is dangerous to drive. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Dec 24, 2022 |
| State | NV |
| Description | While using the autopilot function car unexpectedly brakes almost to a stop for no apparent reason. This happened in different driving conditions, day, night, other cars around and on empty roadways, both divided and connected two and four lane freeway and side highways. Brakes so hard that objects fly off the seat and cars traveling behind my vehicle have had to break themselves and or change lanes. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Dec 22, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Was driving tela on 237 clavaras blvd heading towads 880 south just before abott ave in mlipitas town california tesla model 3 acelrated suddenly hitting the car in fronts, emegency automatic braking did not kick n. Earlier it had autopilot set not sure if it tured off. We were surirsed, my wife was driving and I was I passenger seat none of the safety measure worked in the tesla. My car is totaled. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Dec 21, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | Phantom braking: while in cruise or autopilot mode, it suddenly brakes on freeway without any obstacles observed. |
| Category | Electrical System:adas:autonomous/self Driving, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Dec 07, 2022 |
| State | CT |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed on the highway, the vehicle was experiencing phantom braking. The contact stated that the failure reoccurred while driving at various speeds with the cruise control or while using the autonomous self-driving feature. The contact stated that the battery warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was not taken to an independent mechanic or local dealer to be diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Nov 30, 2022 |
| State | IA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while utilizing the adas features including the adaptive cruise control, the vehicle independently applied the brakes while driving at highway speeds. No warning lights were illuminated. The vehicle was not diagnosed. The vehicle was not repaired. The dealer nor the manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 25,000. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Nov 29, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Phantom braking issue. Cruise control set at 68mph. Medium freeway traffic at 7pm. Noticed disabled car ahead on the shoulder. No danger. As we approached the car, my car went into a panic stop as if it thought a collision was ahead. Car braked and skidded. I was able to regain control and accelerate and avoid a rear end collision. No waring or repair issues |
| Category | Back Over Prevention, Electrical System, Visibility |
| Date | Nov 21, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact received notifications of nhtsa campaign number: 21v00d000 (electrical system, back over prevention, visibility) and 22v702000 (visibility) however, the parts to do the recall repairs were not yet available. The local dealer was contacted. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The contact had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention, Electrical System, Visibility |
| Date | Nov 21, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact received notification of nhtsa campaign number: 21v00d000 (electrical system, visibility, back over prevention) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The local dealer was not contacted. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue and informed the contact that a request was not needed at this time and that he would receive a notification for an appointment for the recall repair. The contact had not experienced a failure. Parts distribution disconnect. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Nov 21, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Phantom braking issue. When car is in autopilot or enhanced autopilot mode (an upgrade I purchased after I bought car), will brake suddenly and firmly at high speed for no apparent reason. Until september 2022 car would very occassionally brake too easily in autopilot mode (perhaps 3 times in two years), but it was not sufficiently forceful or frequent to cause alarm. However, on 9/26/22 and 9/30/22 during daytime driving car violently braked on highway at least 6 times over approx 500 miles of driving. Fortunately, these incidents caused no damage, collision, or injury. There was little additional traffic on the road at the time. However, items in car, and two cats in carriers on back seat were thrown forward and displaced, and the incidents were very frightening. When I realized this was happening in autopilot modes, I stopped using feature completely and have not since. At 11/19/22 service appt for issue at alhambra tesla dealer I was told this was a "known issue" with no current solution; however, I was told that the more I used autopilot and hit accelorator during phantom braking, the faster car would "learn" not to do this. Given that taking the risk of continuing to use autopilot at all poses a serious risk of injury, I am truly shocked at the suggestion that I continue to use this feature and essentially train my car not to be dangerous. Via tesla app I gave information and dates to tesla prior to service appt and was told that they would attach vehicle log to file for service visit. |
| Category | Air Bags, Air Bags:sensor:occupant Classification:driver, Seats |
| Date | Nov 19, 2022 |
| State | AZ |
| Description | The driver seat occupancy weight sensor has to be replaced twice now. The car does not recognize someone is in the driver seat. It is unclear whether the airbags would deploy if I was in an accident as the car is unsure if someone is even inside. When I get out of the car it stays on. When I put it into reverse without having the seatbelt on it slams on brakes. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Nov 19, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | When using autopilot cruise control, the car will brake hard for no apparent reason. I only use cruise control on limited access highways. When this happens, I immediately disengage cruise control and drive manually. This can happen at any time. I have driven the car cross country several times, driving all day. Some days it won't happen at all, and on some days it can happen several times. I'm concerned that if someone is close behind me, they could hit me from behind. This has been happening for the past two years |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Nov 13, 2022 |
| State | MN |
| Description | Phantom braking/slowing. Also, please do what you can to stop deployment of fsd by the end of 2022. Not only is the car and drivers not ready for it, the infrastructure is not as well. In addition, the 100% reliance of cameras for auto aware cc and fsd is absolutely flawed. Tesla must add radar—better yet, lidar—to their vehicles irrespective of fsd but, absolutely for fsd if they insist on pushing it before drivers, infrastructure, and the vehicles are ready for it. My opinion, fsd should never be allowed on any vehicles—maybe by the 22nd century… |
| Category | Structure:body |
| Date | Nov 08, 2022 |
| State | WA |
| Description | The 2020 model 3 uses a fiberboard front skid plate, that is intended to protect coolant lines that protect the battery. When wet, the fiberboard front skid plate degrades and exposes the coolant lines to damage from road debris, which could lead to a battery fire. Attached are photos of this damage. Tesla should be required to use a sturdier material to protect against this risk, and replace existing fiberboard front skid plates with the sturdier material. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Nov 06, 2022 |
| State | MO |
| Description | Ever since a recent software update was downloaded and installed, my model 3's incidence of "phantom braking" events while using traffic aware cruise control/autopilot has gone up by a very noticeable degree. It has always been a known issue, however since the redundant safety systems (radar and ultrasonic sensors) on my model year vehicle were disabled by one of the recent updates, phantom breaking events that can possibly cause a collision event or loss of control of the vehicle happens far more frequently. Instead of occurring once every 1000 or so miles, it now occurs two or three times every 250 or so miles, judging from performance on recent cross-state road trips. My car does not use the "full self driving" package that tesla offers. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Nov 03, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Phantom braking when using cruise control. Happens practically daily, but most recently this morning at 9:25am. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Warning, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Nov 03, 2022 |
| State | NV |
| Description | Side repeater camera are blurred because of light at night. Cannot see when switching lanes |
| Category | Electrical System |
| Date | Nov 01, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The car broke down completely saying that "electrical system failure". It is immobile. This is dangerous as I was driving on the freeway and it suddenly started showing lot of warnings. Warning included "12v power system failure", "electrical system failure". "brakes might not work". Somehow I got in to the garage and the car is now immobile. It does not even lock. It is in the same condition as I parked. Cannot open other doors. This could have been life threatening if it had stopped on the freeway. With the price and safety rating, I never expected tesla to have total failure. |
| Category | Exterior Lighting, Lane Departure: Assist, Steering |
| Date | Nov 01, 2022 |
| State | WA |
| Description | This cocksucker blasts oncoming traffic with disco highbeams every single fucking time there's a lonely oncoming car on the highway. Someone's gonna shoot my ass for blasting them repeatedly with highbeams. Because autosteer is connected to auto highbeams, I can't turn it off unless I turn autosteer off and drive like a 1995 peasant. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Nov 01, 2022 |
| State | NM |
| Description | Traveling on a clear, dry highway on a sunny morning and once again the next day we experienced phantom braking. This occurred three times in two days. In all cases we were traveling at 75mph and were using the adaptive cruise control. In all cases there were reflections in the road from the heat mirage or from something far down the road. The car acted as if it saw something in the road and braked sharply. The driver had to accelerate to override the braking. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Nov 01, 2022 |
| State | NV |
| Description | The turn signal is attached to the left and right side blindspot camera. When using the blind spot camera at night, the turn signal light “bleeds†into the camera blocking your view. So it becomes a safety issue when switching lanes at night, especially on a dark freeway. I have contacted tesla and stated that “the camera performance on older vehicles is neither a defect of materials nor workmanship… which is has been enhanced in newer vehicle production. “ |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Oct 31, 2022 |
| State | NV |
| Description | This vehicle has frequent episodes of phantom braking at highway speeds. No obstacles, stop lights or other vehicles in proximity |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Oct 30, 2022 |
| State | RI |
| Description | Last march we drove to tampa florida and on 3 occasions using cruse control the car came almost to a stop felt like I hit brakes very hard. Each time we were in the middle of a highway with no cars around us. I called tesla they said do report a bug. The weird thing is each time it was at dusk. I just read an article and thought to report it. I am not sure if tesla reported it. It has not happened in the last 6 months but very scary when it happens. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Oct 29, 2022 |
| State | AZ |
| Description | Phantom braking has occurred numerous times on cruise control. No cars or other objects nearby. Set up appointment with dealer but the service dept said they are aware of the issue and at this time nothing can be done. |
| Category | Electrical System |
| Date | Oct 26, 2022 |
| State | HI |
| Description | The 12 volt battery on my t2020 tesla model 3 failed without warning last week when I entered the driver's side and closed the door. There was a very brief warning on the control screen that the "12 volt battery should be replaced soon." then the screen went blank and all controls to the car were rendered inoperable. I could not open the door. I had to go on line on my mobile phone to the tesla website to get the manual to remind myself how to use the mechanical latch on the door. I then exited the car, and could not re-enter the car. My biggest concern is that if a child or an animal were in the back seat there would be no way to get them out without breaking a window. The tesla technician came the next day to change the 12 volt battery. To do this on a tesla model 3, he first had to use an external 12 volt battery to open the "frunk", which he did. However, the car's 12 volt battery was so dead that he could not jump it. He then had to "break in to the car" by inserting a pneumatic pillow into the driver's side window so that he could insert a coat hangar he made himself (he told me tesla does not supply them!). It took him about an hour of fumbling before he was able to open the mechanical latch on the driver's door; this allowed him to disconnect the main battery unit below the rear seat so he would not be electrocuted when he changed the 12 volt battery in the frunk. So even if I had had a set of jumper cables and an eternal battery at the time the car's 12 volt battery failed, I would have had to break a window to get into the car to rescue a child or animal who might have been trapped in the car. This is clearly a design flaw that should be corrected to improve the safety of a car that I otherwise like very much. I should mention that the tesla technician said he was seeing a lot of these 12 volt battery failures; he had 4 more to address that very day. Thank you. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Oct 26, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | While in cruise control the car baraked excessively on a straight 4 lane divided highway even though there was no other vehicles in front, to the side or coming on the opposite direction. This happened on 101 north of paso robles |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Oct 18, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I had 2 incidents of "phantom braking" in the vehicle this past week. I was just in cruise control, and the roads were in good condition, visibility and skies were clear, there were no cars in front or behind me, and we were cruising about 70 mph. In 2 cases, the car just slowed by itself for a few seconds and then I disengaged the cruise control. In 1 other cases, the car made an abrupt braking from 70 to about 40 mph. I disengaged and then did not use cruise control any longer. I've been told by tesla service that the car's "radar" feature was replaced/disengaged in lieu of tesla vision, which apparently is in "beta" phase. In any event, this should not be happening, especially in just basic cruise control under ideal road conditions. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Oct 18, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | While driving on an open highway using the tesla auto pilot (adaptive cruise control, not full self driving), we experienced 3 separate instances of unexpected braking. In each case, we were on flat terrain with no vehicles in front of us for hundreds of yards. The weather was sunny and warm with few clouds in the sky. We were driving westbound between 10am and 1pm at the time of the incidents. During the first incident, the vehicle began to brake sharply and violently enough to startle, awake and scare a sleeping adult passenger in the front passenger seat. From memory, the braking rapidly dropped our speed by 15-20 mph. Thinking it was a simple glitch, I attempted to re-engage the system two more times and the same type of behavior occurred each time. I drove the remaining hours of our drive without engaging auto pilot. After researching the issue following the drive, I learned of the "phantom braking" issue many customers have reported. We then reported the issue to tesla and created a service appointment to check out the vehicle. Tesla responded back that the ran a full remote diagnostic and the vehicle has no hardware issues reported by any sensors and said the service appointment was unnecessary because there was nothing to look at. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Oct 13, 2022 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Car randomly apply brakes when no obstacle present while auto pilot is engaged. Also gives a lot of false collision warnings. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Oct 11, 2022 |
| State | UT |
| Description | Driving on cruise control (not autopilot), in the following conditions: on an interstate highway with all lanes in the traveling direction clear, no obstructions and no traffic to the front or to either side of the car, on a straight road with no bridge or on or off ramp in front of the car, daylight and no rain or or other participation, the car can unexpectedly and without warning aggressively brake. If the driver does not immediately regain control of the speed (by pressing the accelerator, or turning off the cruise control) the braking has caused the speed of the car to go from 75mph to 30mph. Unlike other tesla accident avoidance features, the braking occurs with no indication that an obstruction is being avoided. I have owned the car since it was new and until saturday 8 october 2022, the adaptive cruise control worked as expected. Since that saturday (less than a week) the braking has occurred several times. Each time it required a sudden depress of the accelerator pedal to recover speed control of the car. The first photo I've attached shows a screengrab of the moment of one deceleration on monday 10 october saved as a dashcam video. As you can see there is no obstruction and no other traffic around the car at the time. The second photo is a snapshot of the chat session I had with tesla service where they claim that this behavior is caused by a curve, off ramp, a bridge, a two lane road. As you can see in the first photo, none of this is the case. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Oct 05, 2022 |
| State | OR |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving 75 mph with the cruise control activated, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired by an independent mechanic or dealer. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and informed the contact that a technician would inspect the vehicle at the residence. The failure mileage was 26,498. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Oct 04, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Autopilot has repeatedly slowed down very quickly and suddenly on multiple occasions over the past year for no reason on a completely clear road. It's the same “phantom braking†issue as described in this article: https://www. Cbsnews. Com/news/tesla-phantom-braking-nhtsa-750-complaints/ |
| Category | Structure:body |
| Date | Sep 23, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | My roof glass cracked from inside of the glass that is sandwich to it. They replace the roof glass for free. A few months later, when I pull into a parking lot at an angle, the windshield is cracked from inside of the glass just like the roof glass. No damage from outisde and inside of the glass. But tesla want to charge me for new windshield. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes |
| Date | Sep 21, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was driving on a deserted highway on interstate 395 heading from la to mammoth lakes. There were no cars behind or in front of us. I first put the tesla into auto steering mode, and things were fine for a while. Then I experienced "phantom braking" with no warning. The car started to brake on its own, and then I disengaged auto steer and drove manually. About 30 minutes later, I put the car into simple "cruise control" and things were fine for a while. Then again with no warning, the car started to hit the brakes. I disengaged the cruise control and took over again. In both cases, there was nothing around us. The weather was clear and sunny. This shouldn't be happening. There was a recent tesla software update where tesla apparently discontinued its use of 'radar" for the auto steer and is only relying on the car's cameras. I don't know if this is the cause of my recent phantom braking, but this is concerning to me as it is a safety problem especially if there were any cars behind me. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Sep 20, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | The forward collision warning censor gives an absurd number of false positives. I have tesla insurance, and the insurance rate is heavily affected by forward collision warnings. Nearly every day, one is triggered with -nothing- in front of me. I mean empty road ahead. Or, a car is about 7 car lengths ahead of me, they begin to slow down to make a turn, begin their turn, and nearly exit the lane. Without slowing down, and still 3 car lengths ahead, I get an angry forward collision warning and a major increase in insurance with -zero- risk of accident. It seems to happen most frequently at low speeds |
| Category | Power Train |
| Date | Sep 20, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while reversing or driving forward, while depressing the accelerator pedal and adjusting the seat, the vehicle independently shifted to park abruptly. There were no warning lights illuminated. A software update was previously completed. The local dealer was not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was contacted and suggested a reboot and service on the vehicle. The approximate failure mileage was 20,000. |
| Category | Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Sep 20, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The other driver hit the rear of my tesla model 3 which cause the car accelerate fast about 40-50 miles, the brake is not working either. I can not brake or slow down the car. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Sep 18, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Tesla software version 2022. 24. 8 that I currently have installed has switched off the vehicles equipped forward facing radar. I can't find any method to undo their software update, I'm unable to find a way to contact a person via their website. I've lost control of my lights and wipers when the vehicle is using autopilot. Both of which are set to automatic leaving me the driver with absolutely no way to turn them off short of turning off autopilot which I've paid money for. I'm unhappy that a vital safety feature that I'd paid for (radar) has been switched off by the manufacturer without any means whatsoever to turn it back on. I do not want their software overriding my decisions as the driver, radar needs to be on and I the driver need to have full/complete control over lights and wipers. |
| Category | Service Brakes |
| Date | Sep 08, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The car has regenerative breaking where the car is supposed to slow down when you lift your feet off the accelerator. Since a new update, some times (10%), when you lift off the accelerator the car does not slow down and will maintain speed. This inconsistent behavior is extremely dangerous and you don't know if the car will slow down or not. Tesla refuses to acknowledge this is an issue. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Aug 21, 2022 |
| State | KS |
| Description | The car has randomly braked multiple times, for no reason at all. Maybe shadows or mirages? |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jul 29, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Body control module failed. Car locked my wife inside the car when the power for the entire car shut down. Managed to get her out. Car was towed by tesla to their repair facility in pensacola fl on 6/22/22. It has been there since with no eta on repair, they cannot get body control modules to repair the car. This was a previously known defect (see article https://hackaday. Com/2021/02/11/tesla-recalls-cars-with-emmc-failures-calls-part-a-wear-item/ ). Tesla staff in pensacola said they had 6-7 cars at their facility with the same exact issue. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure: Assist |
| Date | Jul 27, 2022 |
| State | VA |
| Description | On or about june 15, while driving my teslai received a notification from my tesla that the automatic emergency braking was disabled. There were also notifications that autosteer was unavailable, and so was cruise control. I made an appointment with a tesla repair center for repairs to the car under warranty. My initial appointment was postponed to enable remote diagnosis. On july 6 I brought my car to a tesla repair center. After looking at my car, tesla informed me that the car had no then current alerts or faults. They "were able to confirm this is known firmware characteristic. Tesla is working to to resolve this in a future firmware update." it's not clear to me what they are saying and whether this was a false positive from the firmware error reporting system or a transient fault that they could not reproduce. In any event, the fault reporting and the failure of tesla to repair its firmware for a 2 and 1/2 year old car is a concern to me. |
| Category | Electrical System, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jul 13, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | The contact's husband owned a 2020 tesla model 3. According to a police report, while traveling at 70 mph, the vehicle veered across three lanes of traffic and hit a light pole. The contact was wearing a seatbelt and the air bags deployed upon impact. The paramedics arrived at the scene; her husband was intubated and taken to the hospital. Her husband was pronounced brain dead due to injuries suffered in the accident and passed away two weeks later. According to the police report, witnesses stated that no effort was made by her husband to avoid or slow down prior to the collision. The contact disputes this claim and stated that her husband was not a reckless driver and would not have intentionally hit a light pole. The contact believed that the cause of the accident may have been related to a mechanical failure and would like an additional investigation conducted about the accident. The vehicle was towed to an independent tow yard and destroyed. The manufacturer had yet to be notified of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection |
| Date | Jul 11, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The recall nhtsa recall number21v-00d has not been fixed by tesla on my car. I have scheduled service multiple times and they continue to deny availability of parts to repair. This is frustrating! How can this manufacturer have all the parts for nee car sales and not for a government mandated recall?? Can you do anything?? Please, advocate for me a tax paying consumer. Raul martinez |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Jul 10, 2022 |
| State | NV |
| Description | Phantom braking: while driving down the highway for no apparent reason the car brakes and one time we had a car behind us that almost hit us. This is very dangerous and tesla need to fix this asap. This has happened multiple times since around march 2022. The passengers in the car are slammed forward without any warning. Today was the scariest because we were almost rear ended and my 6 year old granddaughter was slammed forward. This is unacceptable. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jul 06, 2022 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Cars computer froze and I was stuck in cruise control. Hitting the brake would not disengage. Pressing up on the stalk would not disengage. I could manually slow/accelerate the car with the brake/accelerator but after letting off the car would continue on at that speed while everything else remains frozen. No turning signal function. I was afraid to attempt to stop the car fully as it would not disengage. Screen eventually went black and reset after what felt like forever. Functions returned to normal. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Departure: Assist |
| Date | Jun 25, 2022 |
| State | MD |
| Description | The tesla lane assist and adaptive cruise control failed while I was driving on the highway (I-295 in dc). I have not paid for the full self driving, so I was using the autopilot every model 3 uses by default. The car skidded into the barrier on the side of the highway and tore up the back left tire and scraped the car. Autopilot was engaged but the car didn't slow into the turn. I started to slow it down manually by down clicking the knob on the steering wheel, but it lost control even though autopilot was on the entire time. I've driven on autopilot on that highway hundreds of times. Autopilot always slows down on its own going into a turn. I was paying attention and am a very attentive driver. But autopilot normally would never have a problem with a turn like that, so I didn't want to hit the brakes or do anything to disengage autopilot at the last second. I thought that would make things worse. I took over manually once it hit the barrier, obviously. At that point, I kept it from veering back into the other lane so that it would not hit the car next to me. Normally, there is more traffic ahead of me when I drive in that lane at that point on 295, so autopilot slows down because there are cars directly ahead of me. In this case, there were no cars ahead, so the autopilot didn't reduce speed until later than normal. But I have been using tesla autopilot for almost 3 years. It normally works quite well. The issue here seems to be that the autopilot does not see far enough ahead. Even though a sharp turn was coming up, it did not slow down at all until it was very close to the turn in the highway. The reason I am reporting this now is that tesla ignored me when I reported it. I brought it in for service, and it cost me 00 for tesla to repair the wheel after the crash. But tesla didn't investigate the failure by the autopilot, or pay for it. And I saw on the news that you are investigating autopilot failures, so I thought you should know about this one too |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Lane Departure: Assist |
| Date | Jun 23, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | On 6/18/2022, nearly all visual based safety and convenience features of my car ceased to function randomly. I was given errors/warnings on the screen that cruise ("autopilot") control was unavailable and that automatic emergency braking was unavailable. I drove the vehicle manually to my destination, and after sitting overnight, it magically all worked again. Software on the car at the time was 2022. 16. 1. 1. I am filing this compliant because since obtaining this vehicle in march of 2022, the "autopilot" system has been a constant area of concern. Tesla really needs to get this system working, or perhaps be forced to reduce its functionality (like just have a normal speed based cruise?) until its ready. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Jun 12, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Autopilot regularly will panic brake (phantom brake) it also will often randomly change the set cruise control speed from 70 to 35 or from 75 to 35. This is a dangerous system that should not be allowed on the road. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jun 07, 2022 |
| State | NC |
| Description | Car was stopped at a red light. All of a sudden car speeds up & was out of control despite applying brakes |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Jun 05, 2022 |
| State | WA |
| Description | The car suddenly brakes when the accommodative cruise control or full automatic driving is engaged. This happens at random times when driving on the highway. The braking is sudden and severe requiring driver intervention. Only happens with cruise control or full auto. Has happened several times since the car was purchased. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Jun 05, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | My car when passing under signs or on two lane undivided roads will hit the brakes very aggressively. It's difficult to reproduce and catches me and other drivers by surprise. The car didn't do this during my first year of ownership, but now it happens several times a week. This will happen when using cruise control and autopilot. To me it's rendered both features unusable. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Jun 04, 2022 |
| State | NJ |
| Description | While traveling on highway with full self driving engaged car would occasionally brake and had to quickly press on the gas pedal for fear a car would hit me from behind. This seemed to happen when I approach an overpass but not most overpasses and typically happens once or twice during highway trips of about 80 miles on nj garden state parkway. I had not reported this to tesla or had the car checked for this issue and report it now seeing that there were formal reports filed on this issue to nhtsa. I do not recall whether any warning lights or audible alerts occurred during these incidents. First occurred after I took possession of car a couple of years back. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Jun 03, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was driving on highway 205 near tracy ca. I was in the left lane approaching a left curve in the road. The right lane to me was occupied by a semi with "wide load" on the back. It was in its lane and just ahead of me. As we both approached the curve in the road, my car experienced a "phantom brake" episode thinking it was going to hit the truck. Again both our vehicles were in their respective land and the truck was not crossing over the line. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Jun 03, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | In moderate city traffic, the emergency braking system sounded and engaged prematurely and harshly. I was not using any automatic driving features and was driving “manually.†a vehicle in front of me stopped, and I intended to slow then stop in a reasonable fashion. I have 25 years' driving experience, and am well-experienced to do this safely. The emergency braking system suddenly engaged at about 25 mph, grinding my car to a halt. The driver behind me was not expecting such a short stop, and rear-ended my vehicle. No one was injured in this crash. My seatbelt trigger deployed, which tripped the pyro fuse, rendering my car undriveable. I could not move my car off the roadway and caused traffic clogs. The repair bill was roughly 00 for my vehicle. The weather was clear, the street was dry and the sun was near high noon. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | May 26, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | I have reported multiple times that the car suddenly brakes in the middle of the express way with no apparent reason. This issue is known as phantom braking. Tesla postponed the diagnosis of the car multiple times and I was told by the service department that the problem was going to be fixed by replacing the radars when I left the car on may 16, which they did not do. The last events of phantom braking occurred multiple times and even I continued stepping on the accelerator, the car continued to engaging with the emergency braking. This is a safety issue and the company has failed to fix it |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | May 25, 2022 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Phantom braking issue is very real and very dangerous on my vehicle. Problem occurs while operating the car with autopilot engaged such that the adaptive cruise control is in operation. Problem happens with or without also having the auto-steer function engaged. Problem is that the vehicle will suddenly, very unexpectedly slam on the brakes. This can cause the driver of the vehicle to go into panic mode and for obvious reasons is also very dangerous for vehicles that are following the malfunctioning tesla. Sometimes, this sudden, hard braking occurs when a vehicle coming toward the tesla makes a left turn in front of the tesla at a very far away and very safe distance - so safe that the driver of the tesla is caught completely off guard when the tesla decides to slam on the brakes. And cars behind the tesla are also caught off guard. Other times, this "phantom braking" happens for no apparent reason at all - totally out of the blue. I am now very leery to use the autopilot feature, even though that was one of the vehicles biggest selling points. I am positive that only reason I have not been rear-ended is I have quick enough reflexes that I have been able to push my foot on the accelerator quickly enough to over-ride the sudden braking before the car behind me hit me. I have called tesla's service department about this issue. They do acknowledge the issue, although in a vague manner as if they are reluctant to fully admit how prevalent and serious the issue is. I've asked if there are any adjustments I can make to the various settings that might reduce this problem. The representatives that I spoke with had only anecdotal experiences from conversations with other customers complaining about this problem. My tesla has several control settings which could be related to this problem. They are not well explained in the owner's manual, plus some settings appear to overlap or conflict with similarly named settings. Confusing! Many incidents, so is date is not specific. |
| Category | Electrical System, Forward Collision Avoidance |
| Date | May 24, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving approximately 20 mph, there was a loud sound coming from the vehicle. There was a warning message to take control of the vehicle displayed. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The contact related the failure to nhtsa campaign number: 22v063000 (electrical system, forward collision avoidance). The approximate failure mileage was 9,800. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | May 20, 2022 |
| State | TN |
| Description | When using the adaptive cruise control phantom breaking occurs. This is extremely dangerous because at times cruise is set to 60-75 mph and car will randomly hard brake. If someone was following me this could definitely cause an accident. It's also so abrupt that it jolts your body forward. I have not taken the car to any service center to reproduce. There are no warnings, no indications of anything visually on the screen that the car would see to cause the breaking. There is also one spot on my route it consistently does this on. This issue has been occurring since early 2021. I take the same route daily for school drop off purposes. It's a 45mi trip one way. The issue will consistently occur at least twice one way on the trip if I'm using the adaptive cruise system. I do not use auto pilot only the cruise. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | May 18, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | The car exceeds the speed limit with adaptive cruise control/autopilot, despite all the available settings being set to strictly obey the speed limit. Driving on the highway in a 60mph zone enabling autopilot will set the speed to 60mph, as expected. If the speed limit increases, the car will change to the new speed limit, e. G. 70mph. Now, if the speed limit drops back down to 60, the car will not slow to 60, although the correct speed limit is displayed. Also happens on streets. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | May 17, 2022 |
| State | MA |
| Description | We were pulling our car from 5th floor of a parking garage and as the car was coming down the ramp into the 4th floor, it accelerated itself to a high speed, hit another parked car, and came to a stop hitting concrete pillar in the garage. Our car was damaged severely and all the airbags got deployed, smoke came out it. We are still in shock from the incident and it was a traumatic experience for all 4 members of our family including two of our children. It would have been catastrophic had there been another person around or if something more had happened. Our car unexpectedly accelerated and none of the warnings worked. Tesla car usually gives us warning (a shrilling beeping noise) when an unexpected obstacle, be it another car or a trash can or a human, is within a short distance of the vehicle. This warning sound comes up even when no automatic driving feature is used. But on that day, the warning sound did not come and we think the vehicle may have malfunctioned. When we searched in the internet, we found many incidents of unexpected acceleration with tesla model 3. When we brought our concern to the insurance, we were asked to report to nhtsa. The car is now with insurance and the manufacturer has not looked into it as we haven't informed them yet. The car was in excellent condition and there were no warning or failure lamps on before the incident. This warrants your attention and hence we are writing this to you. Please advise us the next steps and if we need to preserve the car to retrieve any data recorded in the vehicle. For the safety of other drivers and pedestrians, this needs to be thoroughly investigated. Kindly do the needful. |
| Category | Air Bags |
| Date | May 12, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Front passenger seat seat belt gives me an error saying front safety restraint system fault. Tesla says it's not a problem and will not fix it |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection |
| Date | May 12, 2022 |
| State | WA |
| Description | The blind spot warning is non-functional, plus the camera image system is defective in low light conditions as the image displayed is obscured by the glare of the turn signals |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection |
| Date | May 10, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | When I signal to change lanes the side cameras show the blind spot. At night the camera is blinded by the light from the turn signal due to a fault in the camera, tesla has a fix but want hundreds of dollars to repair. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | May 05, 2022 |
| State | PA |
| Description | Vehicle at least once per day automatically brakes. Phantom emergency brakes for no reason randomly when going straight on the road no objects come into obstruction for the cameras. Common tesla problem. This needs to be fixed. It has almost caused a few accidents for me now. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention, Electrical System, Visibility |
| Date | Apr 29, 2022 |
| State | HI |
| Description | The contact's granddaughter owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while her granddaughter was reversing, the rearview camera failed to turn on, causing the rear end of the vehicle to crash into a cement post. The contact was unsure whether there was a warning light illuminated. There were no injuries sustained. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a tesla-certified autobody mechanic but was not diagnosed or repaired. The vehicle was then towed to the contact's residence. The contact later received notification of nhtsa campaign number: 21v00d000 (electrical system, visibility, back over prevention) however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure but did not provide any assistance. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 400. Vin tool confirms parts not available. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes, Steering |
| Date | Apr 17, 2022 |
| State | VA |
| Description | Sporadically when driving at highway speeds, car will experience an error. Steering assist immediately decreases (wheel harder to turn), cruise control (if enabled) will disengage, and following error codes appear on flatscreen : - vehicle hold feature unavailable - tire pressure monitor system fault - automatic emergency braking disabled - abs (anti-lock brakes) disabled - regenerative brakes disabled - steering assist reduced - traction control disabled unsure of which component is at fault. Tesla service center (norfolk va) has pushed off appointment for more than 30 days but has acknowledged that there is an issue. Safety: loss of abs is a major safety risk to occupants. Loss of steering assist also puts driver and others at risk due to increased steering effort. Loss loss of regenerative braking also a safety risk due to the instantaneous change of vehicle braking behavior when regenerative braking switches off. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Apr 16, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Shift stalk also serves as fsd disengagement- to shift into reverse with a regular car, it's a very explicit mechanical shift with either the manual or automatic gear box. So consider this scenario where I nearly back crashed into the car behind me. In fsd, it can be disengaged either by 1) braking, (2) breaking torque with the steering wheel or (3) lifting the gear selector stick. So, I arrive at a stop light, I brake because fsd driving is producing an alarm that it came too close to the car in front of me (not me, fsd too close). Being human and not realizing that fsd disengaged when I hit the brake, a then lifted the shift stalk to disengage fsd to get it to shut up with the alarm. Actually what this did was shift me into reverse. Light turns green, I step on the accelerator and I go backwards. This event would be impossible with a conventional shifter. The other major issue is in a school zone. I acknowledge that the software appears to have placeholders where it recognizes a school zone, brakes and proceeds. The issue however is, when on the zone, in fsd and having manually set to the zone speed, the crosswalk guard flags the lane to stop, fsd instead, proceeds to snap to the left and attempt to pass the car in front of me, breaching all zone protocol. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Apr 15, 2022 |
| State | GA |
| Description | The emergency automatic brake, cruise control and auto pilot feature gets disabled frequently. All 3 features gets disabled at same time. Contacted tesla service center in decatur-ga. They are saying they cannot find the problem and hence cannot solve it. They say the engineers are looking into it, and my car needs a firmware update. No estimated time to fix these issues is given. The service center advised that the car is safe to drive! Please help. Thanks. |
| Category | Wheels |
| Date | Apr 08, 2022 |
| State | KS |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving 30 mph, he heard an abnormal noise. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact continued to drive to his destination. The contact stated he parked the vehicle, he noticed that a large section of the front passenger's side rim was missing. The contact filed a complaint on the tesla application and made them aware of the failure. The contact purchased the front passenger side rim from the tesla website. The contact took the vehicle to an independent mechanic and had the front passenger's side rim replaced. The contact stated that the vehicle was still driving to the right. The vehicle was repaired. The contact attempted to reach the manufacturer but was unable to speak to a representative. The failure mileage was approximately 28,500. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Apr 07, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | I'd like to register a complaint that features and functionality were removed from my vehicle at the request of the nhtsa inappropriately and for without justification. Several features including the ability to play sounds out of external speakers while moving were removed without any real study or analysis provided to justify the action taken. You did not provide any evidence for this change. No proof that it was a safety hazard at all. This is bullshit and I want my feature back. If you think this is an appropriate use of your authority you're a disgrace and a waste of government time and resources. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Mar 29, 2022 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Car engages self breaking while on autopilot without any particular reason. Repeated brhavior happened and almost caused rear end collision. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Mar 27, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was traveling on the 91 freeway headed west in corona, ca. I was in the fastrak lane approaching an overpass. I was using the cruise control option and going about 73 mph when out of nowhere my vehicle acted as if someone slammed on the brakes. We were moving with the flow of traffic and luckily I had my foot resting over the gas pedal so I immediately pushed down to override the system. The car behind us had to change lanes to avoid hitting us. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Mar 22, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | Vehicle was at a stop with brake engaged and then it proceeded to go full speed into a vehicle two meters away without acceleration pedal engaged. Emergency brake did not activate during or slightly before the collision. The brakes had to be engaged manually, but vehicle was already past a certain velocity on its own accord to be able to stop properly without damaging property or harming pedestrians. |
| Category | Electrical System |
| Date | Mar 21, 2022 |
| State | MD |
| Description | Need to ship vehicle to hawaii however the remedy for the active recall is currently unavailable. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Power Train |
| Date | Mar 18, 2022 |
| State | CT |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving at various speeds and using self driving feature, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact depressed the accelerator pedal and continued to drive the vehicle. Additionally, the contact stated while reversing, the vehicle inadvertently moved forward and slightly bumped into a guardrail. There was no further information provided. The contact depressed the brake pedal and was able to successfully reverse after several attempts. The contact also stated that the vehicle would fail to make normal beeping sounds and alerts while reversing. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and informed the contact that unless he provided the specific time and date of the failure, they could not assist. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 10,000. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Mar 14, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | While driving at highway speed, the vehicle's automatic emergency braking unexpectedly activated, without cause or warning, which caused a very rapid deceleration of the vehicle. Fortunately, the traffic on the highway was light and no other vehicles were around, but this "phantom braking" had the potential for a major collision. This is the first time this has happened on this vehicle. The vehicle has not been inspected by the manufacturer and there were no prior warnings. |
| Category | Suspension |
| Date | Mar 08, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The upper control arm on my vehicle creaks and it is a known issue amongst the tesla model 3 owners. This creak can eventually wear to the point the ball joint will separate during driving. This is a safety issue that can cause an accident. Tesla denied the warranty repair due to some after market parts. This is not a valid reason to deny me warranty because this issue is prominent in all cars of this model and year regardless of aftermarket parts or not. Currently the issue is present at low speeds. Tesla applied a "patch" to keep water from getting into their poorly designed ball joint. Unfortunately by the time they got to this repair for my vehicle it was too late. And water had gotten in and caused the damage and now it is a safety concern. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention, Electrical System, Visibility |
| Date | Feb 25, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while the vehicle was in reverse, the rear camera would intermittently fail to operate as needed. The contact had previously received notification of nhtsa campaign number: 21v00d000 (electrical system, visibility, back over prevention) but stated that the vehicle was not included in the recall. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer had been notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 20,000. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 24, 2022 |
| State | OH |
| Description | My tesla model 3 is equipped with standard auto pilot (no full-self driving) and traffic aware cruise control (tacc or otherwise known as adaptive cruise control). While engaged, I experience, on average, per 60-mile trip a minimum of 1 phantom braking event. Note this is not on residential, county or state roads, this is on divided highways. The vehicle will slam on the brakes for no reason and will at times activate the forward collision warning system. It's so bad I've disabled many of the safety systems for fear I will cause an accident. Traffic aware cruise control on a two lane road (this does not steer or lane center the vehicle), is unusable because it constantly brakes for oncoming traffic in other lanes, or aggressively brakes for vehicles turning in front of you, even with plenty of distance to clear. The system will even continue to brake, after the turning vehicle has fully cleared the road. This requires the driver to slam the accelerator to cancel the braking action. When I first purchased the vehicle in february of 2020, there were no issues with phantom braking. This issue has become worse with over-the-air updates. I canceled my full-self driving subscription because the phantom braking was even worse with that software. Additionally, tesla uses a driver safety score to determine insurance rates if you are using their branded insurance program. When these phantom braking events occur it sometimes registers as an emergency braking event which deducts from your overall score and can ultimately cause your rates to increase. When I enrolled in fsd, before tesla would release the software, they required a certain safety score over a week's time. During that time the system falsely reported running red lights, emergency braking events, and aggressive stopping, while only using the regenerative braking system. They system will also flag you for tailgating with auto pilot engaged. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 21, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | There is a complete failure of the autopilot (cruise control) feature and sudden braking when using. There is an extreme risk to personal safety when using this feature. On several occasions, I have been using this feature on the highway while going the posted speed limit of 65 or 70 mph. Suddenly, the vehicle will decelerate aggressively and violently causing any vehicles behind me to slam on their brakes to avoid a collision. This feature of the vehicle is not recognizing road signs, or other inanimate objects, correctly and mistakes them for some hazard that requires braking. Very dangerous. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Feb 20, 2022 |
| State | MD |
| Description | During regular driving at highway speeds, and using adaptive cruise control and auto steer feature, the car would suddenly brake substantially for no reason. There was no object or anything that in the road. If there was a car traveling behind me closely a sever accident could have happened. This has happened on more than 10 occasions since owning the car in 2020 new from manufacturer. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection, Lane Departure: Warning, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Feb 20, 2022 |
| State | NC |
| Description | The tesla rear facing repeater cameras show the driver's blind spot when changing lanes. The cameras are also used during automatic lane changes when the car is in drive-assisted (fsd) mode on the highway and in city (fsd beta). The cameras have a manufacturer defect. At night, light from the turn signal led is blinding a large part of the vision field of these cameras. This renders the blind spot vision for the driver but also the computer assisted automatic lane changes for the car partially obstructed. Tesla has acknowledged this defect by redesigning the rear facing cameras so the blinding is remedied. Tesla is refusing to fix this issue under warranty and requires owners to pay for this safety fix. Tesla's statement on this issue: "hi stephan! The blind spot camera performance on your vehicle is neither a defect of materials nor workmanship. It is a characteristic of the product. And it's a characteristic that has been design enhanced in newer vehicle production. If you wish to upgrade to newer camera technology, you have an option to purchase the upgraded cameras and have them installed." I am having my cameras replaced, and will pay for it. I believe tesla should, however, seeing how this is driver safety related even if they are unwilling to acknowledge this. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 19, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Phantom breaking on my car, just like everyone else. In autopilot on the highway my car will break pretty hard when there is nothing in front of it. Seems to occur when approaching bridges and large signs. If I drive on the highway every day, it will happen to some degree at least once a drive. At least once this nearly caused an accident (I was almost rear ended because my car braked for no reason) |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Feb 18, 2022 |
| State | WA |
| Description | In numerous instances since the vehicle was purchased in december 2019 and with all software versions to date, the vehicle has suddenly and with no warning or reason rapidly and forcefully applied the brakes while adaptive cruise control was set. This has happened on four lane interstates at speeds between 65 and 78mph and on two lane highways in both day and night. The "phantom braking" is worst on two lane highways and makes the use of cruise control at night on a two lane highway nearly impossible to use due to the frequency of occurrences. This braking has nearly caused accidents and has resulted in my wife's neck aching due to the unexpected and forceful application of the brakes. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 18, 2022 |
| State | VA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving 45 mph and turning left, the vehicle experienced “phantom braking). There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was not taken to be diagnosed or repaired. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer had been notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 12,000 |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Vehicle Speed Control, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Phantom braking can occur when vehicles are passing at night and during the day for no reason. There is no adequate control to enable the windshield wipers. Many menus to access the wiper controls. Not safe |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | MN |
| Description | Late november of 2021, sunny weather, dry pavement. I was driving with auto pilot (auto aware cruise control) on a 2-lane highway in rural mn. No traffic, I came upon a shadow cast by trees across the highway and the car suddenly braked. Later that same day, I was driving on a 4-lane expressway in a rural area—again with cc on. I was approaching an overpass that cast a shadow onto the roadway and the car suddenly braked. In both cases the car did not come to a complete stop but significant reduction in speed. Luckily in both cases no one was following close behind me. I have no interest in fsd and don't agree with it as our highway/roadway infrastructure is a long way off from being ready. However, cruise control should be solid and I am now wary of using it and am tense under same conditions—I can't rely on it. Tesla (elon musk) made a bad directive to have this system rely on cameras only. This system should also have lidar or at least radar. I informed tesla of this issue. They acknowledged receipt of the complaint but never offered what they would do about it. Phantom braking is a big issue and fsd ought to be outlawed until infrastructure, vehicles and drivers are ready for it. For the life of me, I don't understand why anyone would want fsd. Anyway, the issue with my car is not with fsd. Thanks |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | CO |
| Description | On to different occasions while vehicle was in enhanced autopilot the car braked hard for no apparent reason. If another car had been close behind it might have hit me. Problem has not been confirmed by a service center or the dealer, nor has the vehicle been inspected by anyone. The described actions happened in a construction area on highway I-25, both northbound and southbound. Problem appears to occur at off ramps. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | MA |
| Description | My car has experienced phantom braking for no apparent reason when on cruise control or auto pilot. Tesla claims to have to looked at the cars programming remotely and found no problem. I took the car to a tesla dealer for a seat belt recall and asked them to also repair the phantom breaking. Again they said that they found nothing wrong with the car. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The car braked from 65 mph to 35 mph with no obstructing traffic, the car has done similar things on many occasions however. On the occasion of the most recent occurrence, I noticed that the car indicated a change in the posted maximum speed for that location from 65 mph (normal highway speed) to 35 mph, at which time it began slowing to the erroneous 35 mph limit. There was no reason for the change in speed, as there was no posting, construction or traffic. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | MD |
| Description | I have had too many phantom braking incidents to count, it has happened hundreds of times since I bought the car. Most incidents were mild slowdowns (3-10 mph) on some two lane roads through interstate and but some were quite quite violent, 20 mph or more slowdowns in a second or two. For example, using only adaptive cruise control or with autopilot also engaged and no other vehicles nearby, the car suddenly slammed on the brakes before I was able to step on the pedal and stop the deceleration. If there had been a truck behind me following close, it would have rear ended me. This sort of instance happens regularly, at least once or twice a week. Mild slow downs, as noted above, happen a handful of times most every time I drive the car. It happens when roads are empty or full, and slow downs also occur even when lines in the road are clear, there is no traffic. It also can occur when I am cresting a hill or making a blind turn |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 17, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | While driving down interstate-5 my tesla has been known to automatically brake from traffic safe speeds down to 40 immediately. It has happened multiple times. I have video to prove it as well. My video is too large at the moment but it does exist. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes |
| Date | Feb 12, 2022 |
| State | ID |
| Description | Countless times, while driving on a two lane highway at speeds from 45-70 mph while on adaptive cruise control, the car unexpectedly braked when a vehicle was in the oncoming lane. This became so much of a problem that I needed to keep my foot on the accelerator if there was a car or truck in the other lane. It was dangerous because a car following me could have run into me or I could have skidded on ice. This has been happening for about a week. I think it is called phantom braking. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention: Rearview System Braking, Back Over Prevention: Warnings, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Feb 11, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I recently brought my car in for routine servicing and informed the tesla service technician that I've been experiencing significant lag with the rear (reverse) camera video feed since roughly early-december 2021. The rear (reverse) camera lag makes reversing hazardous, as any reliance by the driver on the the rear (reverse) camera feed can cause serious (potentially fatal) injury and/or property damage. I asked the technician to look into and address the issue; I told him I was aware there had been a recall and that I received a notice. He informed that they were unable to replicate the issue—which I find hard to believe, given it happens constantly—and that rear (reverse) camera lag is common in model 3s as they age. My car is less than two years old—hardly classifying as “agedâ€. In looking at internet forums, this appears to be a very common issue with model 3s, and one that has yet to be resolved by the manufacturer through either hardware or software update(s). |
| Category | Electrical System, Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes |
| Date | Feb 10, 2022 |
| State | SC |
| Description | Car will brake without any warning and with not reason to brake. Many complaints I've read online call this phantom braking. It has happened over ten times now and can be extremely dangerous as it will brake the car almost instantly and I have almost been rear ended because of it. Only matter of time before this happens and it results in a wreck. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Feb 09, 2022 |
| State | AL |
| Description | The vehicle's side cameras (those near the wheels) have a defect that lets internal light shine through 3 holes in the pcb of the camera. Since the side cameras are mounted in the same assembly as the side blinkers, whenever the blinkers are on (hazards or turn signal), the side cameras become almost unusable either by the driver or, seemingly, by the car's computer to give any blind spot warning. Result: blind spot warning / automatic lane change is not working as expected when in total darkness and turn signal / hazard is on. When asked for a repair under warranty, tesla refuses, saying that this is not a defect. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Blind Spot Detection, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Feb 08, 2022 |
| State | TX |
| Description | Tesla model 3 has side repeater cameras that work as blind spot monitor cameras and provide visuals for safe lane changes. However, my model 3 suffers from a manufacturing defect in the camera assembly which causes the visuals to wash out at night due to light bleed from the turn signal. This caused an unsafe condition where I almost ran into a car in my blindspot being unable to see them on the camera visual. I raised the issue with service and they do not consider it a manufacturing defect. The defect however has been confirmed by independent researchers like here https://www. Youtube. Com/watch? V=_bupsjguqdy |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Feb 05, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Automatic braking happens for no reason. Happened multiple times on freeway . |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 04, 2022 |
| State | NJ |
| Description | On tuesday 2/1/2022 approximately 9:20am est, as I was sitting in a stop-and-go traffic, as the traffic was freeing up and started moving going roughly 5 to 10 mph, the vehicle automatically applied phantom brake - with a notification of emergency braking applied. I was not on cruse control or autopilot. I was in full control of the car yet it suddenly applied the ebrakes nearly causing someone to rear end me since the traffic had started moving. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 03, 2022 |
| State | PA |
| Description | Emergency braking kicks in at times when there's an oncoming vehicle in the opposite lane. It happens on straight roads in normal traffic when the oncoming vehicle is maintaining it's lane. The car will suddenly slam on the brakes when there's no chance of a collision. Afraid of getting rear ended, I avoid using the cruise control and "autopilot" due to this erratic behavior. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Feb 03, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I read this morning that there have been complaints about the automatic emergency braking engaging when it shouldn't and I would like to add my car to the list. I've had my tesla a little over two years and turned off the feature about a year ago because it would hit engage the emergency braking when there was no reason to. After a software update a month ago tesla reactivated the feature without my permission and the only reason I knew it was activated is because the brakes slammed while I was on the freeway. The forward collision warning also activates often when there is no threat of collision of near by. The details below are an approximation of the last time the emergency braking engaged but this happened probably 4-5 other times during the year I had it activated. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings, Service Brakes |
| Date | Feb 03, 2022 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Car decides to apply brakes for no reason |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings |
| Date | Feb 02, 2022 |
| State | OH |
| Description | Vehicle approached an upward slope which triggered a forward collision warning and (unsafe) emergency braking. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Service Brakes |
| Date | Feb 02, 2022 |
| State | PA |
| Description | There are two problems: (1) braking and (2) windshield wiper operation. (1) braking: when driving on a highway and going by an on-ramp on the right side, without any warning, the vehicle would, al of a sudden, slam violently on the brakes, even though the cars entering the highway are nowhere near where I would be driving. This has happened repeatedly to me, creating a hazard of a rear-end collision. The tesla model 3 in such cases would already be in a mode that would drive itself (by me having clicked on the right stalk twice). Additionally, the car often misreads a traffic sign for a different part of the road, such as a stop sign for a side road. The violent braking would take place in such a scenario also. (2) windshield wiper operation: I'm not sure if this would qualify as a safety issue, but the windshield wiper operation doesn't work in automatic mode. I rely on this while driving in a rainy or snowy day so that I can concentrate on the driving itself without worrying about something else to do (turning on the windshield wipers). This is problem that has plagued the car right from the beginning, and to me, it presents a safety hazard. For example, about a week ago, I drove in bad weather (snowy) on a turnpike to get to a medical appointment. The weather turned bad, and cars would pass me by, splashing water/snow onto the car's windshield. The automatic mechanism should have kicked in to help me focus on the driving, but it did not. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 02, 2022 |
| State | AL |
| Description | My car has experience phantom breaking issues since 1 month after purchasing in december 2019 when using autopilot. Each time phantom braking so far only happens during interstate driving. During the two year period, it has happened over 10 times. Fortunately, no vehicle was very close behind me when phantom braking occurs. Oddly, no forward collision warning occurred during the phantom braking. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 02, 2022 |
| State | OH |
| Description | Vehicle was driving on concrete-divided highway around 70 mph. An ambulance with flashing lights came around a bend on the opposite side of the highway from the vehicle. Vehicle began to unnecessarily slow upon detecting the flashing lights. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Feb 02, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I have experienced phantom breaking twice with my model 3. The first time was on the 101 freeway near santa clause lane outside of santa barbara. There was no car in front of me or a hazard on the road but the vehicle made a sudden stop while I was traveling around 55mph. The second occurrence happened on the 101 freeway near santa maria. Again, the vehicle made braked suddenly while traveling around 65mph. The closest car in front of me was about 100 feet away. There was a car behind me but I was able to quickly hit the gas peddle to avoid an accident. I searched online at the time to see if anyone else had this issue but didn't have much luck. I'm thankful that I saw the washington post article. |
| Category | Air Bags, Electrical System:adas:autonomous/self Driving |
| Date | Jan 27, 2022 |
| State | GA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while driving on the right side of the road at 35-45 mph, on autopilot mode with a passenger in the front passenger seat, the vehicle drove off the road independently and crashed into a tree. The air bags failed to deploy. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact's face hit the steering wheel. The contact sustained a black eye with laceration, bruised ribs, head, neck and back pain, sprained left ankle, bruises on her thigh, may have sustained nerve damage on the right side of the face that hit the steering wheel and sciatic nerve damage on the right side of her body. The occupant of the front passenger seat sustained neck, back and clavicle injuries. The contact sought medical assistance the next day. The vehicle was towed to a tow lot, then it was towed to a tesla certified specialist body shop. A police report was filed. The contact has not been able to get a hold of the manufacturer. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was 55,000. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jan 16, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Tesla is putting passengers at risk by how much they are changing their user interface. They are moving critical safety around which makes the car more un-usable and drivers more confused and distracted. Here are some of the features they changed in their software update that creates danger to drivers: 1. Front seat heater settings are no longer on the home screen 2. Front/rear window defog buttons are no longer on the home screen 3. User profiles are no longer on the home screen. This controls the seat, mirrors, and temperature. Instead they have made non-safety features forefront: 1. Theater mode 2. Arcade please view this forum of hundreds/thousands of people complaining about how their safety is put at risk by this update: https://teslamotorsclub. Com/tmc/threads/v11-software-update-sucks. 251711/ |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jan 14, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | This is a general complaint: the new control panel user interface v11 is unsafe. It now promotes/requires distracted driving to use. The previous version was a bit busy, but most all needed controls were on the screen or one touch away. With v11, one must now navigate menus to get to hidden controls that were on the home screen requiring too much attention to the screen while driving. This is what I am finding. I fear accidents will result. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention: Warnings |
| Date | Jan 06, 2022 |
| State | NY |
| Description | After the ota software updated to 2021. 44. 25. 2 there were several changes to the graphic user interface and software system. Two direct issues of the update are: 1) the rear and side cameras that assist during backup now take longer to activate and have very jumpy (laggy) video feeds. So much so that the driver can backup at least 10 feet at low speed before an updated image is shown. This causes a very unsafe condition when backup up as there are multiple blind spots in the car. 2) the simplification of touchscreen controls requires the driver to be more distracted by having to navigate additional menus to turn on wipers, climate control, the radio, and safety features like the dashcam. Waiting on an appointment with tesla but that is at least 20 days away. |
| Category | Seats, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jan 02, 2022 |
| State | CA |
| Description | There was a recent software update and tesla rearranged items on the touchscreen. Passenger was trying to pair his phone with the vehicle, and touched his name as displayed on the screen. This caused the driver seat to slide back quickly to fit the pre-set for his height. He is considerably taller than the driver, and this caused the driver to be unable to reach the brake pedal or accelerator. Therefore, the driver had almost no control of the vehicle. This occurred on a quiet side street going uphill, so driver could steer the vehicle to the curb which caused it to stop, even though she could not reach the brake pedal. However, if this had happened on a busy street or highway, there would have been a terrible accident. Remedy is simple. It should not be possible to activate the driver side seat position pre-sets when the vehicle is moving. |
| Category | Structure:body |
| Date | Dec 30, 2021 |
| State | TX |
| Description | The paint on the car is chipping all over. |
| Category | Exterior Lighting, Unknown Or Other, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Dec 27, 2021 |
| State | VA |
| Description | Tesla issues an update to software that forces drivers to go through a jumble of menus to do important tasks like turning on defrosters and windshield wipers. These used to be one touch items on the home screen, but now require drivers to take their eyes off the road for a dangerous amount of time. |
| Category | Seats, Unknown Or Other, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Dec 27, 2021 |
| State | TX |
| Description | Tesla pushed an update (v. 2021. 44. 25. 2) to my model 3 a couple of days ago that has dramatically altered the usability of the car, and potentially has safety implications. There was no warning prior to the update being applied that such changes to the car's user interface were included, nor is there any option to revert to the prior user interface. Major issues with the changes are outlined below: - 1-button, single-click shortcuts to seat heating, defrost/defog functionality have been removed; when driving in bad weather where the screen may fog up rapidly, you're now required to take your eyes off the road, and click twice on a small target on the touch screen to activate the required functionality. - 1-button, single-click access to the wipers has been removed, now requiring one to either rely on the auto-sensing functionality (which works properly about half the time), or click through the hvac menu to adjust the wiper speed. - the quick access driver profile selection dropdown in the previous interface has been removed. My spouse and I differ significantly in height, and about half the time, the car selects the wrong profile when we're both getting into the car (despite our phone keys being linked to our specific profiles). With the earlier ui, it took one tap on the screen to switch to the correct profile. Now, I have to dig through menus to select the correct profile, while my knees are being slowly ground into the steering column/dash. - when driving, the speedometer, gear selection and navigation look significantly different than in the earlier ui. This is likely to lead to more distracted driving while we get used to the new interface. I filed a service request with tesla, requesting that they revert our car back to the prior version of the interface; this request was denied and the appointment was automatically canceled with a generic message about firmware updates being rolled out on a schedule. |
| Category | Steering |
| Date | Dec 17, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was trying to avoid a car parked on the side of highway on my right going between 45 to 55 miles an hour and slightly steered the car to the left, and the car swerved back and forth at the slightest steering wheel movement as if skidding in the snow. The road was dry (no rain) but the steering was not stable and the car ended up hitting a truck on the left. It caused a very serious accident and we are lucky that there was just a major car damage and no one was hurt. The steering seems to be uncontrollable and loose, and causes major swerving if one has to steer away at a high speed. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Dec 13, 2021 |
| State | OK |
| Description | Using either cruise control or full self driving mode, driving on divided highway, experienced sudden hard braking not due to any highway obstruction, road hazard, other vehicle, or weather. Without warning car dropped out of assisted control and abruptly applied brakes. This happened yesterday at 2:10 pm, 2:53 pm and 3:01 pm. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking |
| Date | Nov 29, 2021 |
| State | TX |
| Description | There is a lot of phantom braking, not just on specific stretches of highway around austin, but almost anywhere. There is a specific spot on us highway 183 north in austin where the speed is set at 65 and the tesla m3 will rapidly brake without any warning. There is a danger of being rear ended. I manually disconnect the adas in anticipation. I shouldn't have to. In general, phantom braking is dangerous and could be attributed to using vision only sensors? |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Nov 20, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Driving on autopilot on a city street at 35 mph speed limit, while passing next to a ups truck parked on the right side of the street at the curb, but slightly protruding outside the parking lane, due to its size, my car sideswiped the parked ups truck, causing scratches on my car and totally obliterating my passenger side mirror. My vehicle did not stop or try to veer away from the parked ups truck, causing at a minimum 0 damage to my vehicle. |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Nov 16, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Https://youtu. Be/_vsgyqx0hzg my car is constantly running red lights when on "full self-driving". They claim that it should stop at red lights but it very often confused the left turn red for the green in the straight lane. The car randomly serves at other traffic for no apparent reason. The car randomly slams on the brakes super hard for no apparent reason. Full self-driving is unsafe |
| Category | Electrical System |
| Date | Nov 08, 2021 |
| State | WA |
| Description | The contact owned a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while his wife was driving at 60 mph on autopilot, she lost control of the vehicle due to an unknown reason. Once his wife lost control of the vehicle, she had run the vehicle into a fence. The airbags deployed upon impact. The contact's wife did not suffer any injuries and did not seek any medical attention. A police report was filed. Due to the failure, the vehicle was towed to an independent tow yard where the vehicle was deemed a total loss. The contact filled out a form online to recover the data from the vehicle but was later informed that only california residence could have access to that information. The vehicle had been destroyed. The failure mileage was approximately 14,000. |
| Category | Air Bags, Electrical System, Structure:body |
| Date | Nov 01, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | While turning into a parking spot in a covered parking garage the car seemed to speed up and lurch. It hit the cement wall and pushed the car back with such force the air bags deployed. Thank god it was just a wall. The car is now at the repair garage and have not heard back regarding how much damage and if the car is going to be "totaled". When I mentioned this at a party we were at, a friend of mine said she had the same problem. There were no collision warnings. It happened in a split second. The parking garage was at my doctors office so I was able to have my wrist x-ryed right then. No serious injury. Just a little leary of driving this model car if not any electric vehicle. |
| Category | Lane Departure: Warning |
| Date | Oct 26, 2021 |
| State | WA |
| Description | The lane departure assistance in my car was malfunctioning. Yes it is available for inspection if you would like. Today I. E. 10/25/2021, I was driving manually on interstate 5. The car wasn't on autopilot or cruise control. I was trying to merge into right lane and had my right turn signal on and made sure there was no one in my blind spot. As I was merging there was a warning signal and message displayed on the screen that read something like- lane departing corrective steering applied. The car was trying to pull me back into the lane I was departing from and it was applying sudden brakes to slow me down. I had to apply lot of force to the steering wheel to pull the car into the lane I was trying to merge. It was rush hour traffic and the cars around me were going pretty fast. It was a really dangerous situation and there could have been a big collision if I didn't apply that force to bring the car into the right lane. There were no warning signs leading up to what happened today. But there was some malfunctioning in my car previously when the car just stopped without any warning on the ramp to my driveway. It's a steep ramp and the car stopped all of a sudden and would not move. I contacted tesla service about this and no action was taken whatsoever. I am really concerned about the safety of myself and the drivers around me not knowing what kind of bugs are going to come up in the future. Please take some action to make tesla responsible for this. |
| Category | Structure:body |
| Date | Oct 26, 2021 |
| State | NJ |
| Description | Aero shield on the model 3 collapses when driving through a puddle of water. Tesla said they fixed the issue. I was charged for the service to do it which was 0. That was in june 2021x and now again today october 2021, the same thing happened and they said that won't be covered under warranty |
| Category | Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Oct 01, 2021 |
| State | MI |
| Description | My front windshield has chipped and then cracked twice in about 6 months. I heard a pebble hit the windshield the first time, but it sounded very small and I did not expect it to chip/crack. The second time I didn't even hear anything hit it. My friend has the same vehicle and her back windshield cracked unexpectedly and another friend's cracked when she hit a bug that was on the windshield with her hand. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Aug 24, 2021 |
| State | FL |
| Description | The contact stated that while idling and waiting to pick up the elementary school kids in their vehicle, a 2020 tesla model 3 suddenly experienced unintended acceleration causing the driver to lose control of the vehicle and crash into the rear of the contact's vehicle and trailer. During the incident, the contact sustained a lower back injury and the driver of the tesla model 3 suffered a chest injury. A police report was taken at the scene. No further information was available. The failure mileage was unknown. |
| Category | Steering, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Aug 17, 2021 |
| State | FL |
| Description | I was driving down the interstate and had my tesla on self driving. For no reason at all it did a aggressive left turn causing me to go off the road into the median. It tore up pieces of my car and tesla wouldn't do anything about it and have no idea why it went off the road. I have a video of the incident |
| Category | Steering, Vehicle Speed Control:accelerator Pedal |
| Date | Aug 17, 2021 |
| State | VA |
| Description | The contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving in the rain with the autopilot engaged the vehicle accelerated without warning and was incontrollable, flipped two times, and hit the curb. The contact sustained neck injuries and medical attention was provided at the hospital. All the air bags deployed. There was no reported fire. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to an independent body shop. The local dealer was contacted who referred the contact to the body shop. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 29,000. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jul 23, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | On july 19th, 2021 at around 2:38pm I was using tesla's smart summon feature to summon my car to me. The car was unoccupied at the time of the incident. The car was in a covered parking space approximately 40 feet south of my location. The app said the car would "come to me" and displayed a blue line which was the path the car should take to get to me. The blue line showed that the car would turn right (north) and come to me. I then pressed the "come to me" button to begin the summon. This is when the car immediately turned left (south), which is the opposite direction of me, and ran into a pole. The user does not have the ability to steer the car and the car acts erratic when using smart summon. It's path is unpredictable and unsafe. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jun 21, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Drive away door lock feature does not lock the doors. After driving several minutes a rear seat passenger attempted to roll down the window but hit the door open button instead. The door opened. Warning message received. Testing again after driving several minutes the lock icon shows locked but front seat passenger able to open the door. The door lock icon changes to unlock. Passenger closed door I hit lock icon to lock, now passenger cannot open the door. |
| Category | Suspension, Wheels |
| Date | Jun 02, 2021 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Driving home at 60mph when the right front wheel fell off the vehicle causing damages to the whole right side on the car. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention: Warnings, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | May 13, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was parking at a trader joe's when the car suddenly accelerated by itself without giving me any chance to break to avoid colliding with the curb. My car got scratched underneath. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | May 13, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | The contact owned a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated while driving 25 mph, the vehicle accelerated independently and jumped forward and hit another driver that was standing outside in between the driver's side front and rear door. The hood opened and obstructed his view which caused him to crash into another vehicle. There was no injuries sustained by the contact. The two other drivers sustained unknown injuries. One driver received medical attention and was transported by ambulance. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a body shop and deemed to be a total loss. The vehicle was currently at the contact's place of business. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was 2,500. |
| Category | Air Bags |
| Date | Apr 24, 2021 |
| State | LA |
| Description | I have purchased a 2020 tesla model 3 back in september 2020 in cash. Only for their to be multiple issues. The most recent issue is a front right safety restraint failure. It has been looked at and unsuccessfully fixed by the tesla service center four times now. Under the louisiana lemon law, I am requesting for a whole new vehicle. I have tried contacting someone from my service center and even straight to contacting tesla. No one will return my calls or help with my car issues. |
| Category | Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Apr 21, 2021 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Light sources such as tail lights of other vehicles, traffic lights, and lit signs, all have an artifact effect - view of the light source has a double that exists right above the original source with a slightly dimmer brightness when viewed through the windshield. This is not an effect caused by poor eyesight, things look normal when viewed directly through an open window. The effect can be reproduced at any time, but it is most noticeable at night when the view of the artifact is in high contrast to dark backgrounds. This effect is most noticeable on led light sources, such as led tail lights. This effect is produced regardless of the state of the vehicle - occurs when the vehicle is stationary or in motion. This is a safety concern as double vision - seeing artifacts on light sources through the windshield can cause excessive strain on drivers' eyes, and can be an unwelcome distraction to the driver. This can also potentially cause confusion in the driver where the location of a lit object may be misjudged by the driver who sees artifacts on those light sources. |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Apr 12, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a tesla model 3 in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39653751? Tenant=us&rownumber=19 all 3 ball-joints on the front rh steering knuckle have popped apart. This is happening so frequently on teslas that it is obvious they are using poor quality suspension and steering components. The owner of this tesla was lucky because only the car was damaged. These failures are certain to cause death and injury if nhtsa continues to stand by and do nothing. This is disgraceful. Please take immediate action. Thank you keef |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Apr 02, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Car parked on the street found out next day that the car was backed into. Sentry mode didn't work. Car alarm didn't go off no notification on my app. Tesla should be held responsible for damages because it was the programs that didn't work properly |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Apr 02, 2021 |
| State | IN |
| Description | We are an car media in china. We leased a 2020 tesla model 3 standard range plus on march 15, 2021, for program shooting. On march 18, when a team member trying to close the storage compartment cover in front of the central armrest box while operating, the cover did not close successfully and popped up unintentionally. A corner of the cover scratched the outer side of his right thumb. Following is his narrative in regard of this incident: when I was driving the tesla model 3 on march 18, 2021, and pulled over the vehicle, I opened the interior cover to store items. After driving forward for a short distance, I attempted to close the cover with my right hand. I tried to push the cover down and closed, and then made a u turn. However, the cover did not close successfully, and instead it actually raised again. At this time, because the right hand did not move out of the path of motion of the cover, the right corner of the cover scratched my right hand. The sharp corners caused a wound of about 9mm*3mm and kept bleeding for about 30 minutes. After referring to the 2019 imported version of the tesla model 3, which is produced in the california factory, the interior cover design and workmanship are the same as those of the 2020 model 3 produced in the shanghai factory. Therefore, we believe that in the u. S. Market before the 2020 model model 3 also has the possibility that the edge of the interior cover is too sharp and may scratch the users. Therefore, we have decided to report this situation to nhtsa to inform more consumers this potential danger. |
| Category | Structure:body |
| Date | Mar 23, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Tl* the contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while operating the vehicle, the driver's side floor mat folded over while attempting to depress the pedals. On one occasion the failure caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle and the vehicle struck the curb. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The manufacturer and tesla service center located at 11163 santa monica blvd, los angeles, ca 90025 were notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 600.*dt |
| Category | Electrical System, Steering, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Mar 15, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | This is a complaint about the beta release autopilot. A random model 3 vin has been used to be able to file a complaint. This complaint applies to all models of tesla. Here is a video of a proud beta tester. Https://www. Youtube. Com/watch? V=pq-rgy1v8ug this owner has a misplaced trust in the safety of the autopilot. He is using it in high raffic areas with pedestrians and cyclists he is also using it at excessive speed on narrow roads only inches away from oncoming traffic. Rather than having his hands holding the wheel in the correct way he only has his fingers touching the wheel with the palms facing the wrong way. If anything goes wrong he will not be able grab the wheel properly in time to prevent a collision. Fingertip driving is unsafe at the best of times. If autopilot has a glitch or a spasm the driver would be unable to quickly regain control. Despite the claims of elon musk such driver behavior does not lead to the beat release autopilot being revoked. This experiment is deadly. Please get it stopped immediately. Thank you keef. |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Mar 09, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | This is a complaint about the issue of popped ball-joints which is affecting all models of tesla cars. Here is just one example of a ball-joint that has popped apart for no good reason. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39240789? Tenant=us&rownumber=3 it is easy to find other examples of this same failure in other tesla at the junkyard. I will attach a few photographs to show you. Thes ball joints are of low quality, undersized, prone to creaking and groaning due to lack of grease which causes the ball to wear down and pop out. The tesla forums are filled with reports about this. Elon musk has addressed this by nerfing the forums. Definitely a genius. Links to other popped teslas. Here: https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39311673? Tenant=us&rownumber=11 popped front and whompy rear https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39310125? Tenant=us&rownumber=15 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39308954? Tenant=us&rownumber=22 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39282369? Tenant=us&rownumber=24 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39280909? Tenant=us&rownumber=30 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39265721? Tenant=us&rownumber=33 popped and then burned to a crisp https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39248729? Tenant=us&rownumber=39 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39245824? Tenant=us&rownumber=51 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39244011? Tenant=us&rownumber=62 popped https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39258823? Tenant=us&rownumber=81 popped see attached pops2 I can find you plenty more. Please investigate. Thank you keef |
| Category | Suspension |
| Date | Feb 20, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a 2020 tesla model 3 in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/39123018? Tenant=us&rownumber=1 the front suspension has fallen to bits. The wheel is displaced backward so that the tire is rubbing against the frame and the battery. The tread on that tire is worn away which is an indication that it was rubbing against the frame while the car was still driving and before the whole shemozzle turned to feculence. This is not good. This is not good at all. If it is not too much bother for you would you make inquiries into why tesla chooses to make suspension components out of cheese. Thank you. Keef |
| Category | Lane Departure: Assist, Lane Departure: Warning, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Feb 18, 2021 |
| State | WI |
| Description | I get repeated warnings that the door pillar cameras are blinded. When I check it is condensation between the camera and the pillar glass. They attempted to repair this last year by removing a seal for better air circulation. The problem remains. In cold weather this happens, and it means that any of the automated functions that depend on the cameras can't work correctly or at all. They have no solution. The front camera actually has a defogger in the glass in front of it. Why tesla can't solve this problem is absurd. This happens while driving on any street or highway and is always the camera facing the sunny side, so moisture is evaporated from around the camera and condenses on the glass, which obscures it. |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Feb 09, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a terdsla in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/38998703? Rownumber=0 the front wheel and suspension have snapped off. Both lower ball joints and the upper steering knuckle ball joint have simply popped apart. It is completely impossible for this to be the result of crash damage.. The wheel and tire are undamaged. Tesla ball joints are a load of old balls. Good heavens to betsy why won't you do something about this? Yours in disgust. Keef |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Adaptive Cruise Control |
| Date | Feb 03, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I was driving in a toll road to the left of the freeway lane which was backed up. I was driving approximately 70 mph, had cruise control activated on a straight stretch of road when the car suddenly braked really hard (reduced speed instantly to about 55 mph). There was an suv behind me driving kind of close but thankfully it was paying attention and had to make a hard swerve out of my lane to avoid a rear end collision |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Jan 28, 2021 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a terdsla model 3 in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/38868112? Rownumber=3 the front left hand suspension has fallen to bits. The lower suspension arm (made from cast monkey metal) has snapped like a pretzel. This is not collision damage. There is no damage to the bodywork and no airbags have been deployed. This is simply bad manufacturing. Teslas are unsafe at any speed. Please investigate. Thanks. Keef |
| Category | Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings, Fuel/propulsion System |
| Date | Jan 08, 2021 |
| State | AZ |
| Description | At a drive thru fast food tapped the peddle and the car launched and hit a truck in front of me |
| Category | Seats |
| Date | Dec 31, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | While driving, the driver's seat will randomly start moving forward, back, up or down with no input from the driver. It is very distracting and can make it difficult to see out of mirrors or reach pedals. Notified tesla and problem continues to happen occasionally after 2 service visits attempting to remedy the issue. Have numerous videos of this happening while driving. This has happened on at least 6 separate days beginning on october 27th, 2020. |
| Category | Suspension |
| Date | Dec 23, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | This is mind boggling! Here is a 2020 model 3 tesla in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/37712955? Rownumber=3 it has not been in a collision, no air-bags have deployed and there is no sign of any impact to the bodywork. The front suspension has simply fallen to bits. All the ball-joints have popped apart and even the steering knuckle has snapped in half. And musk claims that this is the safest car in the world! Pigs bottom! Have a great day and be sure to ban these junkheaps from the highways. Thanks keef |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Dec 01, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Tesla model 3 in the junkyard: https://www. Autoauctionmall. Com/used-cars-for-sale/2020-tesla-model-3-co51960570 front wheels and suspension fallen to bits. Top ball joint popped apart.. Lower ball joints both snapped. Steering arm and lower fore-link busted. Bad day at the tent factory? Please get these lethal contraptions off the roads. Thank you. Citizen keef |
| Category | Electrical System, Forward Collision Avoidance: Warnings, Visibility/wiper |
| Date | Nov 25, 2020 |
| State | NY |
| Description | From the moment I drove my brand new tesla off the lot - the screen - the only way to control anything about the vehicle - would freeze; black out; and take several minutes to reset itself. While in this completely inoperative state: the audio system would emit a high pitch noise; any ability to tell speed; turning signal status; anything was completely impaired; the climate control blasts on high fan a torrent of cold air. At 2000 miles; this has happened several hundred times - on average once every 10 miles driven; though sometimes twice within a few moments (boots up only to reset again) and sometimes it can go as far as 30 minutes without freeze; black; reset. This is easily the most expensive car I've ever purchased; and had nearly 0 miles upon pickup - it is easily the most frustrating experience I've had with a car. To not be in control or have any visibility to the machine driving at highway speeds when everything goes completely black and the computer takes minutes to reset. The repair facility has estimated 00 which they're attempting to charge me. |
| Category | Back Over Prevention: Warnings, Forward Collision Avoidance: Automatic Emergency Braking, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Nov 09, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I bought a tesla model 3 on 9/19/20. On 9/23/20 I was waiting in my car in a line of cars at a fast food delivery window, stopped 8-10 ft behind a large vehicle with my foot on the brake as well as in the park mode because of the slow service ahead. After a while I realized that my tesla had started moving slowly towards the vehicle in front. Pumping the brake, trying to change the gear to reverse did not stop the car. The screen data disappeared and a message flashed saying that all safety features were off. I opened the door which is supposed to stop the car. It did not even after I got out of it. It continued to move even after contact was made with the car in front. The tesla was completely crushed. It was a total loss according to a repair shop where it was towed on tesla's recommendation. When I contacted tesla they informed me that my accelerator was fully deployed. Not true. I bought the tesla because of all the safety features, none of which seemed to work including failure to notice a large vehicle in front, not stopping when the door was opened, starting by itself in the park mode, and the data screen going blank except for the message about safety systems being off. |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Oct 24, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a 2020 tesla model 3 in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/37237764? Rownumber=40 the front wheel has gone whompy. The lower ball joints have popped out but worse still the steering arm has snapped off from the steering knuckle. Looks like the usual fracture of a low quality alloy casting. This could easily have caused a fatal crash. Elon musk blames chinese drivers for driving it wrong. This one is in miami not china. Perhaps elon will blame this one on a latino also driving it wrong. I strongly urge you to take action. I urge you with extreme prejudice. Thank you keef |
| Category | Suspension |
| Date | Oct 16, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Yet another tesla model 3 in the junkyard with a popped out ball joint. Https://www. Copart. Com/lot/42415580/photos/2020-tesla-model-3-nj-trenton the attached photograph shows a clearly defined gouge around the full circumference of the tire. This proves that the suspension broke while the car was travelling along and was not the result of a collision. You should be aware of the case of massoud v tesla https://www. Plainsite. Org/dockets/3z2zftgn3/superior-court-of-california-county-of-los-angeles/mena-massoud-v-tesla-motors-inc-a-delaware-corporation/ the insurer proved that the crash was the result of suspension failure. Photographs of the crash scene proved that the suspension snapped and the base of the car left skid marks on the road before it finally collided with a guard-rail. This case was settled out of court and tesla insisted upon the usual non-disclosure agreement please demand that tesla recall these deadly cars. Thank you. Keef. |
| Category | Suspension |
| Date | Oct 16, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a tesla model 3 in the junkyard. Https://www. Copart. Com/lot/35210670/photos/2020-tesla-model-3-nj-somerville it has travelled just 200 miles since leaving the tesla tent. It is listed as having suspension damage. The front of the car has dropped so far that the wheels are jammed up in the wells. It is insane and ludicrous that these cars do not have limit stops on the air suspension so that a simple air-leak does not lead to a disastrous collapse. In this instance there was not a major crash but that is entirely down to luck. I how many dead and mangled people do you need before you ground these death-traps? Yours in disgust keef |
| Category | Structure:body, Suspension |
| Date | Oct 08, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Both front door at the bottom has sharp edge that slice my leg when I work out of the car. At 65 mph on freway with minor rough surface, vehicle zig zag sway back and forth. Only on minor rough road freeway surface |
| Category | Unknown Or Other, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Oct 08, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Just purchase the auto pilot, when coming to a stop, sometime it pass the white line. While going stright,when signal to change lane to bypass the slow car, it merge into left turn at the stop light. When the vheicle is going around a left corner, it veer to the right and drove on the should lane. The same thing happen going to the right corner. When take off from the green light, sometime it slowly,slowly,slowly increase speed even though there is no car in front of it. When slow down, it wait the last minute and turn the car. All my stuff on the seat fly every where . When approaching a corner, it would speed up and make a quick turn.. When using a navigation, it turn intoi a dead end instead of the right route. |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Oct 07, 2020 |
| State | NY |
| Description | Model 3 makes a very high pitch noise when turning the steering wheel left or right. It does happen when you put the vehicle in drive and stand still on hold. It doesn't happen while driving nor while in park. |
| Category | Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Sep 13, 2020 |
| State | MO |
| Description | I was driving straight on a highway using traffic aware cruise control when the car suddenly braked hard. If someone had been driving behind me too closely I would have been rear ended at a high speed. I've seen online that people refer to this as "phantom braking," and it seems to be a common issue with tesla cars. |
| Category | Electrical System |
| Date | Sep 12, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Charging port, plastic tip of one of the charging pins broke off and was still inside the port. It was obstructing the charging handle, not allowing it to fully seat. The car was showing an error message saying there is a problem with the charging cable. I found the obstruction and removed it with a toothpick. The error message went away however one charging pin is now missing its plastic tip. The one I removed from the port was broken and unusable. Car has only 5000 miles on it. This is the same issue noted in another service bulletin that says it only affects 2018 vehicles. Obviously that is not true. This car is a 2020 and it is still happening. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Aug 29, 2020 |
| State | OH |
| Description | My wife and I live on a two-lane state route in the country. We were headed home from the farmers' market this morning around 10 a. M., headed down a hill with three cars behind us. There was an 18-wheeler headed up the hill. I had the cruise control on and traveling 55 mph in a straight line with no curves in sight. When the 18-wheeler coming up the hill was 7 car lengths ahead of us in the opposite lane, my car automatically braked hard enough to bring our speed down to 35 mph before I could override and accelerate. My spouse said, "I hate this car. It's going to get us killed one day. We could have been rearended." I have used conventional cruise control to drive for more than 20 years, even in town, to keep from inadvertinly speeding. Normal cruise control doesn't behave in this manner. This is my first report of a recurring problem. |
| Category | Steering, Suspension |
| Date | Aug 28, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a 2020 model 3 in the junkyard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails/37237764? Rownumber=6the font suspension giblets haveall fallen to bits. Both front wheels are splayed out in opposite directions which would probably make it a little hard to steer. Iwould you please issue an immediate recall for these tent built defective deadly contraptions. Thank you. Keef |
| Category | Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Aug 27, 2020 |
| State | TX |
| Description | Slowed down to make a left turn and the car suddenly speed forward when I put my foot on the brake. I let go my foot and slammed the brake once more. It took a second to respond |
| Category | Steering, Suspension, Wheels |
| Date | Jul 02, 2020 |
| State | CT |
| Description | Friday june 26th, 6:00 p. M. Public roads. Sunny, dry. Something snapped while driving 5 mph at the moment I started a slow left turn. The car lurched to a halt. The right front wheel was angled left at about a 35 degrees, while the left wheel pointed straight. Tesla sent a flat bed. The truck technician reported by phone that the wheel was separated from the suspension and a tesla bolt was available for him to temporarily hold alignment for safe loading. I understand he left a note and the bolt inside the car. I believe the bolt was part of the broken suspension. The car had 3,300 miles. During my ownership, I noticed a light clicking (or clunking) when the car passed over a 3 inch change in road elevation, such as occurs during repaving when striking a man hole cover or new layer of asphalt. I took this to be a peculiarity of the tesla suspension combined with the 18 inch wheels. The sound was rare, as most roads are quite smooth and I made it a point to drive slowly over sudden bumps. More recently, as our town is repaving, I heard the click more frequently. On father's day, while a friend was test driving the car, he being a car geek, heard the click, called it a "clunk," and told me to get it looked at. I had not yet made the appointment when something snapped on june 26th. Over the weekend I left voice mails and sent to tesla service an email stating tesla should consider giving me a replacement vehicle, but I wished first to hear their report on what had occurred. Tesla service in milford is not open on weekends. Tesla called on monday afternoon seeking my input on what had occurred. Later that day they reported it appeared to them that a critical bolt had not been welded onto the sub-frame. Tesla service in milford ordered a new sub-frame, part number 1044521-00-r, from california. Tesla is researching what occurred. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jun 12, 2020 |
| State | AE |
| Description | I took delivery of my tesla at the beginning of april 2020 - I have not been out much because of lockdown. On one of my early journeys the car spontaneously accelerated. I was shocked but thought I had inadvertently done something eg cruise control or heavy foot even though I believed it was totally unprompted yesterday I was driving at slow speed about 20- 25mph approaching a pedestrian crossing when the car spontaneously accelerated- it was undeniable ! I took my foot off the pedal but it didn't slow - I jammed on the brakes to halt the acceleration. When I arrived home I googled 'spontaneous acceleration ' to see what had caused it and was horrified to discover there is a lot of allegations to tesla which have been denied. I rang tesla and they said they'd send a mobile engineer within 4 days!!! I live in uk but am aware you are collecting data on the matter - I live in uk so filing the form didn't allow a uk phone number- +[xxx] information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u. S. C. 552(b)(6). *cc *tr |
| Category | Exterior Lighting |
| Date | Jun 08, 2020 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Tl* the contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that water leaked into the driver's side rear taillight. Due to the failure, condensation formed inside the tail light socket which caused the light to be dim. The contact also expressed a concern that the electrical charging port was in close proximity to the driver's side rear taillight. The contact notified of the manufacturer of the failure and an appointment was scheduled to have the taillight replaced, which was still pending. The failure mileage was 4,000. |
| Category | Structure:body |
| Date | May 24, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Areoshield underneath car get wet from rain puddles and then when wet ripps off from normal driving. I think due to the weight of the wet fabric. *tr |
| Category | Service Brakes, Unknown Or Other, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | May 16, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | See attached for details. We have experienced at least two unexpected hard braking incidents in our 2020 tesla model 3 equipped with autopilot. In one incident, just as autopilot was engaged, the tesla braked suddenly from 65 mph to 50 mph. Other drivers were forced to brake hard to avoid collision. On the same day, while in adaptive cruise control, the tesla suddenly braked hard at a speed of 78 mph, down to 60 mph. Tesla has been notified by others who have had similar experiences, so they are aware of this hazardous problem. The issue has been reported by many on tesla social media sites since at least 2018. It still has not been corrected. I plan to send a copy of this report to tesla. *tr |
| Category | Fuel/propulsion System, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | May 14, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | I made a right hand turn from a full stop out of the parking lot into the farthest left lane intending to turn left. There were a line of cars ahead of me. As I was turning into the lane and let my foot of the accelerator pedal the car accelerated rapidly into the back of the vehicle ahead of me. It happened very quickly. It felt as though the vehicle took over on it's own. The car hit the vehicle once and then continued moving and it the vehicle again - so twice in all. *tr |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Apr 22, 2020 |
| State | FL |
| Description | Tl* the contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while his wife coming to a stop sign, the vehicle accelerated independently without warning and crashed into the rear of a pickup truck. The air bags failed to deploy. A police report was filed. There was no injury information provided. The vehicle was towed to independent mechanic but not diagnosed. The contact mentioned that tesla performed a diagnostic testing remotely but refuses to inform the contact of the results. The manufacturer was notified of the failure and informed the contact that after an internal investigation the contact would receive a callback. The failure mileage was unknown. |
| Category | Air Bags |
| Date | Apr 04, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | 1 day after taking delivery of my model 3, I was t-boned on the right side of my car while making a left turn by a driver who beat the red light due to being distracted on her phone. I blacked out as soon as I heard a bang and woke up after I realized what had happened. As I looked around the car, I noticed that no airbags were deployed. I did my research and found out that no airbags will be deployed in the passenger seat area if no one is on the seat, which I understand. My concern is that why did no airbags deploy on my side. The car might now be considered totaled due to this accident. I already contacted the car company to do an investigation. I'm sure I hit my head on the window because that night, the left side of my head and neck were hurting. And also, I understand that there's airbags on the seats as well, but sadly, it did not deploy. Now, I have back pains and might need outpatient pt. If I'm paying close to 60k on a vehicle, I would hope that the main safety feature of a car will be activated in a crash of that magnitude. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 07, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | First of all, I was pulling the tesla out of our garage. I was completely out maneuvering the car to make it parallel to the right side of the street when suddenly, I felt the car moved extra backward. Fortunately, it did not hit the neighbors' parked cars. The move startled me. And surprised my husband and son who are passengers at that time. My husband blurted, "what are you doing?". I replied, "I'm driving, I did not do anything extra to make that move. I wondered and also asked, "how did that happen?" and my husband said "I don't know you're the one driving, be careful." my response was, "I am being careful!". My husband thought I pressed the accelerator hard but I know I did not. The conversation almost lead to an argument but we somehow diffused the topic. I don't want to argue and ruin the mood because we were on our way to our son's soccer game that morning. To make the story short. I continued driving until we reached our destination. I chose to park on the right side of the parking lot. As I was slowly pulling the car in, I felt the car suddenly accelerated. At the blink of an eye, our car hit another car parked in front of us and the car next to it. I felt that the car controlled my move before I could even react. For 20 years of driving, I have never hit an accelerator by mistake or caused any collision. I have driven this vehicle a couple of times before this incident happened and I drove and parked it the way I did previously. The unintended acceleration was something new that day. I am deeply concerned with the safety of this vehicle for my family and others. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Feb 03, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | When I shift the car into drive and use the accelerator pedal to move the car forward and it works fine. When I release the accelerator pedal, the car accelerate and requires me to brake. This occurs at low speed. I have taken the car into tesla and they said user error. The cruise control engages when I shift into drive. This has occurred several times since I have purchased the car |
| Category | Service Brakes, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jan 26, 2020 |
| State | WA |
| Description | When I slowed down on a city street, and turned into a parking lot, the car speeded up by itself. And the brake didn't respond when I stepped on it. The car glided into a power post. |
| Category | Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jan 23, 2020 |
| State | MA |
| Description | When on cruise control or autopilot, car stops abruptly going from 65 mph on the highway to 38 mph before I can override and take control. There is no apparent reason. This happens on a clear open highway. |
| Category | Exterior Lighting, Service Brakes |
| Date | Jan 17, 2020 |
| State | NY |
| Description | So regarding the car brakes they are very hard to fully depress and I believe its because of the regenerative braking. For example when going eat highway speed and you need to press the break pedal hard it literally feels like the car is refusing to let you use the full capacity of the breaks. Its very scary it happened to me and I could not press the break pedal completely down. And regarding the lights my car has fog lights installed but I'm unable to turn them on because according to tesla supposedly I did not pay for them but they are installed on the car and they don't want to allow me to turn them on because its controlled via software. This is an unnecessary thing because if they are installed on the car I should have access to them because I bought the car. This could put us the drivers in a hazardous condition in fog or other low visibly conditions unnecessarily. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jan 17, 2020 |
| State | MA |
| Description | On 1/17/2010, at 12:12pm, I departed my house in norwell. After 1. 65 miles, between 99 forest ave and river street (approximately 50 feet from river street), I released my foot from the friction brake, and the car accelerated on its own toward river street. I put my foot back onto the friction brake, and it stopped. The car was not in auto-pilot mode. I am not aware of cruise control being on. In any case, if it was on, I did not put it on on purpose, and further, it should not have been on since I had my foot on the friction brake pedal just before the event. Enclosed is an image of my trip log showing that my drive started at 12:12pm. Also enclosed is a map showing that it was 1. 65 miles from the start of my drive. I do not have dash-cam footage of this since more than one hour has passed and I did not manually tag it when it occurred because I did not know of an investigation at that time. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jan 14, 2020 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Tl* the contact owns a 2020 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while attempting to park in a parking space, the vehicle unintendedly accelerated crashing into a parked truck and pushing it some distance. The contact confirmed that no air bags deployed. The contact sustained minor injuries such as bruising to the back and neck that did not require medical attention. No police report was filed. The contact was able to reverse out of the parking lot and drive to the her residence. The dealer was not contacted about the failure. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and informed the contact no recall was under the vin. The failure mileage was approximate 407. |
| Category | Electrical System, Service Brakes, Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Jan 07, 2020 |
| State | WA |
| Description | While navigating on autopilot on the freeway the car took the intended exit ramp, however never slowed down until I had to intervene. Reminiscent of the characteristics which led to the recent fatal crash reported over the last week. |
| Category | Steering, Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Jan 04, 2020 |
| State | WA |
| Description | The auto steer in my tesla model 3 failed today when the car was turning on a curvy downhill road. I believe it's because the lane markings on the right side ended just before the curbing started. The car suddenly turned right and hit the curb brushing the right front wheel. It would have been a fatal accident if I hadn't taken over. Auto steer technology is not yet ready for use on all the roads and it should not be included by default in all the tesla models. My car did not brake because the cruise control was still on. I am still in shock and afraid to use the auto steer again. |
| Category | Vehicle Speed Control |
| Date | Dec 25, 2019 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Driving in freeway fast lane in light traffic at 10:30 am on overcast morning with tesla adaptive cruise control set for 70 mph and 4-car following distance. The car in front moved 1 lane to the right leaving no cars ahead. My car accelerated gently to 70 and then as I approached an overpass the car suddenly braked (or went to regeneration) and slowed instantly to about 40 mph when I was able to apply the accelerator and return to surrounding traffic speed and move right to the next lane and recovered from the shock and surprise of what other tesla owners refer to as "phanton braking". I was fortunate that no other cars weren't following me or they likely would have crashed in the back of my car. I spoke with other tesla owners who report the same random, surprise, powerful braking when approaching overpasses. |
| Category | Unknown Or Other |
| Date | Dec 24, 2019 |
| State | NC |
| Description | This car forces the driver to look away from the road for a few seconds(at least 10 seconds or more) to adjust common things like adjusting mirrors, changing ac functions,setting wiper speed. As weather conditions change from location to location on a long drive, it is not possible , convenient or safe for the driver to pull aside the vehicle to adjust heat settings or wiper speed or mirrors. This is dangerous than texting and driving. I request nhtsa to recall all the tesla model 3 and have the issue fixed by providing a physical way to adjust many things in the car. This problem occurs irrespective of the vehicle motion status. |
| Category | Suspension |
| Date | Dec 18, 2019 |
| State | CA |
| Description | Here is a 2020 model 3 tesla in the salvage yard. Https://www. Iaai. Com/vehicledetails? Itemid=34632816&rownumber=4&similarvehicleitemid=&isnext=&loadrecent=true the front wheel has gone totally whompy because most of the suspension components have snapped. There is hardly any damage to the car except for the suspension having snapped off. There is no sign of an impact severe enough to justify this suspension failure. The car has done just 94 miles since leaving the factory. Please investigate these systemic failures with tesla suspensions. Thank you keef *jb |
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About the Author:
Brian Jones spent more than 20 years working as an ASE Certified Master Tech and Parts Specialist at multiple dealerships. Brian has become an authority in the industry, traveling across the country to consult for car dealerships and contributing his expertise as a writer for several major automotive publications. In his spare time, Brian enjoys working on pickup trucks, muscle cars, Jeeps and anything related to motorsports.
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I’m having similar braking issues. It appears that with cars in multiple lanes in front of me, and with an approaching overpass, the car “sees” a potential issue and brakes hard. It has happened on 5 occasions in the first 3000 miles. I also feel like the suspension, roll, pitch and yaw of the suspension has changed in just 3 weeks. Sadly I was advised that the only recourse is to “report a bug” on the voice command so that they can collect the data and change the code. The dampening and spring rate seems off on slight bumps, resulting in the car bouncing.
After purchasing the basic auto-pilot with TACC in June of 2020, my 2017 Tesla Model 3 now occasionally (varies from ~20-170 miles of driving) applies the brakes drastically (slows 10 MPH in ~1 second or less) on the freeway without any hazardous conditions in front or anywhere near the car. I feel it is just a matter of time before I get rear-ended in traffic. I have taken the car to a Tesla service center for this problem and consulted with service technicians to no avail. In fact, while talking to a service rep on the phone on 3/9/21 about this “safety” related problem he told me that I must maintain vigilance while driving the car with the “Beta mode” of auto-pilot and I replied that I do, however when the car dramatically slows 10 MPH in <1 second mysteriously (without any reason) how can I possibly prevent this "emergency like" braking from happening as a vigilant driver? He had no response!