2021 Tesla Model Y Complaint Log

I was driving on a large, multi-lane, divided freeway (5 south Interstate just before Anaheim, CA in Orange County, California) and using adaptive cruise control (not autopilot) to maintain my speed in the mid 70s MPH. It was around 9pm PT and there was very light traffic. The next car in front of me was at least 100 feet ahead of me and there weren't any cars on the left or right of me. All of a sudden the car started decelerating really quickly, and by the time I pressed the accelerator to counteract the deceleration, the car was at roughly 60 MPH. There wasn't any indication as to why the car decelerated so suddenly, and there wasn't anything that I could see that might have caused the cruise control to react that way. Thankfully there wasn't a car close behind me - if there had been, it's possible that the trailing car could have hit me and caused an accident at high speeds. I've read online that there are quite a lot of reports of "Phantom braking" from Teslas, and from the descriptions I've read, my experience seems to be exactly the same. I hope that NHTSA and Tesla can work together to get to the bottom of this and prevent these types of scary incidents from ever happening again.

Autobraking works sometimes and it doesn't many a times consistently. Also, there is a bad smell that keeps coming regularly. Not sure where that is coming from.

If you turn the steering wheel in a Tesla Model 3/Y all the way to either direction then apply light force the car will slowly start to push back with a lot of force till the wheel reaches about 45°. At that point if you try to turn the wheel in either direction you will be unable to as it completely locks up for a few seconds. This behavior will happen in any gear including park with the vehicle on. In my case I was backing up onto a busy street and was waiting for a gap in traffic with my wheel turned all the way. At this point it had begun pushing back then when I finally backed out I was unable to turn the wheel the opposite direction and ended up blocking traffic for a few seconds. This was a very terrifying situation and had the potential to go a lot worse. This is a serious safety concern that affects all Teslas and needs to be addressed.

Jan 13, 2023 at 7:02AM PST. While using adaptive cruise control with lanekeeping, I was driving in second lane from the right at a constant speed. There was plenty of room in front of me- no car nearby. As I was slowly passing the car to my right, another car that was behind the car to my right began a normal lane change to its left into my lane behind me. For no reason, my car began to slow down suddenly. Video footage of cameras on my car show the moment when the front of my car pitched down because it was suddenly slowing down. The rear camera view shows when my car's brake lights illuminated for no good reason. I immediately intervened and accelerated back to my highway speed so as to not contribute to the car behind me running into me or having to suddenly brake itself and leading to a problem for yet more drivers. These video files I am linking to show the incident 14 seconds into each video. https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0kGqkRUiGD9Mw9 I've experienced many examples of this phantom breaking since upgrading to 2022.44.30. I wish my car had a feature to enable simple, old fashioned, cruise control so I could use it on highways.

I was using the new version of the full self driving on surface streets. It was my second time using the system (yesterday was the first on the freeway and it seemed odd). Today it sped up and veered towards a car parked in the middle lane. I grabbed the wheel and thought it might have been an innocent error. Then a few minutes later the car took control again and tried to turn (quickly) into the side of a FedEx truck. At that point I knew the first miss wasn’t made up in my mind. I’m so glad I was paying attention, both would have been serious car damage - though not likely to be deadly because they were at low enough speeds.

This has occurred on three different occasions. I was driving on highway five on the way to Sacramento, and as I was passing a truck, I was in the fast lane, and the brakes came on, and the car slowed drastically. I was very lucky that I was able to hit the gas pedal to try to maintain speed so that I would not be rear-ended. I had the cruise control on. It is adaptive cruise control, there were no warning lights , and there was no indication to me that something was about to happen. This occurred on two other occasions always when the cruise control was on. I have not used the cruise control very much at all. I am afraid that the phantom breaking it will occur.

Multiple phantom brakes in a day with nothing in front of the vehicle on an interstate. Terrified drivers behind as a result.

Power Braking Assist Reduced error intermittently appears followed by problems braking. I asked Tesla Service Center to repair but they have not done so, nor have they explained what is wrong or how they will fix it.

While driving, suddenly power steering failed. Impossible to steer for my wife who was driving, I am barely able to steer it. Shut off the veh and let it sit for a couple of hours and it started working. Have had it happen 3 times. Scared to drive it. Extremely hazardous situation.

Car sufferers from “phantom braking” and will aggressively brake while adaptive cruise control is engaged for no apparent reason. No “regular” cruise control is available to over ride this.

I was driving on highway 395 in California on Jan 6th in the afternoon. It was a very clear day. I was driving north on the 2 lane portion of the road north of Adelanto and Kramer junction with cruise control on set to about 72. With no cars in sight in front of me the car hard braked with no cars in front of me. I disabled cruise control and later enabled it again. It happened again. I contacted Tesla and they determined there no hardware issue with the car. I am afraid to use cruise control now in the car.

In a rainy day I drove Tesla Model Y (AWD) on highway 1 in the Raleigh NC area. The highway 1 is under construction. There are only two lanes open with cement barriers on both sides. While I was driving on the left lane, the car suddenly lost control and slide to the right. I tried to hit break and turn left to avoid the SUV on the right lane, but my car end up turning 180 degree and driver side rear-end hit the cement barrier. Fortunately no injury and no other vehicles involved in the collation. It was raining but not hard. I don't understand why the AWD Tesla would suddenly lost control and slide to right. I can't remember if autopilot was on or off. I tried to request data from Tesla but was denied. Their email indicates only California registrant can request data. I believe the Teals driving and EDR data can really help to confirm if it was a weather issue or not. I have dashcam video ready to upload.

The driver side window doesn’t roll all the way up when trying to close it automatically with one button push. It goes partially up the side and then will automatically roll down.

Rear doors are stuck and locked shut, the known defect is on youtube with experts explaining this safety flaw where the door handles get stuck and locked and now TESLA REFUSING TO SERVICE.

I was driving my car when suddenly it started losing power while I was driving 70 - 80mph, and I noticed two messages on the screen: "power limited, schedule service" and "power reduced” and then my car would no longer drive above 50 - 55mph and the heat in the car was reduced . Concerned about the issue, I promptly contacted Tesla to have my vehicle serviced. However, to my surprise, after performing a diagnosis, they insisted that there was nothing wrong with the car. The component I believe failed is the heating pump, which is still installed in the vehicle. My safety was put at risk because I was on a highway with the speed limit was 75mph, and if other people were not paying attention they may have crashed into me due to me suddenly slowing down and also things could of turned fatal if someone were to be stranded in the middle of nowhere without a working heater when it is 0° outside. The issue was confirmed by the manufacturer as a “ engineering issue” that would be addressed with a software update.

While driving on cruise control, the car slammed on the brakes out of nowhere. It was terrifying and we were almost hit from behind. There was absolutely no obstruction or any reason for the car to slam on the brakes. We do not feel safe having our young children in the car. We have notified tesla of the issue many times and they refuse to fix it. This car is unsafe and someone, a Tesla driver or members of the public on the road with this car, is going to be killed by the phantom braking . What is the NHTSA waiting for? Please force a recall. Clearly Tesla doesn’t care.

Phantom braking

Tesla "Traffic Aware Cruise Control" occasionally unnecessarily applies brakes aggressively for no apparent reason when cruise control is in use. This presents a hazard to other driver's who may be behind the Tesla. This phenomena is well known to Tesla owners who have repeatedly posted about it in Tesla's Owners Forum. It is often referred to as "phantom braking". There is no option for the Tesla owner to disable the "Traffic Aware" aspect of Tesla's cruise control I believe Tesla could resolve this problem with a simple software update which would allow the Tesla owner to use cruise control normally without the "Traffic Aware" feature. The "Traffic Aware" feature is part of Tesla's problematic "Auto Pilot" feature. However, my Tesla is not equipped with "Auto Pilot". My Tesla is available for inspection upon request.

I had the adaptive cruise control (Autopilot) engaged on I95 and had it set to 60 MPH. Twice between a minute, the Model Y lowered the cruise speed to either 40 MPH and 25 MPH while on the interstate. No obstacles were in front of me to affect the cruise control system.

This is my second NHTSA report for this car, there was no reply to my first report. Since the manufacturer, without warning or owner consent, disabled radar systems for automated cruise control, the car is now exhibiting a new dangerous behavior when the camera detects the presence of emergency vehicle flashing lights and suddenly, and dangerously applies an emergency brake to slow the car, without taking into consideration the location of the emergency flashing lights relative to my car, or the presence of other cars around me that might be affected by the sudden, un-announced braking of my car. In many cases, the police/emergency lights are on the opposite side and direction of the freeway, 8+ lanes away from my car, and I am under no legal obligation to brake, nor would it be safe to do so. There is no warning by the car, only the sudden braking action and I have almost been hit from behind by other cars who were not expecting my car to brake while at freeway speed. This event has occurred at least 10 times in the past year regardless of time of day, weather or traffic conditions. I would like the previous complaint I filed about sudden, unexpected braking, as well as this new complaint reviewed by the NHTSA, as this is evidence of a critical, significant safety hazard by the car which the manufacturer has deliberately created.

While in autopilot, the Tesla has been phantom braking repeaters. We noticed many time while driving at high speeds on the freeway, the Tesla model y will slam on the brakes for no apparent reason. There are no police reports

No clearing of recall once OTA / Software update was completed

Tesla full self driving drove off highway curb and dropped 10 feet down, vehicle was total loss, airbags popped. There was a car trying to change to Tesla lane, Tesla overacted and took over control, and driver was unable to take back the control while in full self driving mode, no warning sign whatsoever during the accident, Tesla just drove off high way curb by itself. No collision between Tesla and other car. As experienced driver for over 30 years, I have never had accidents at fault, never made such silly mistake to drive off high way.

Regarding a Tesla Y, 2021with 10,000 miles; Durging a recent cold spell, winter driving conditions, the A/C Compressor/Heat Pump failed causing the windshield defrost to cease functioning, causing the visiblity to become poor to none at all, requiring that the vehicle not be driven on the roads until the weather cleared and even then, the driver or pasenger (if avalailbe) has to wipe down the wet windshield from inside to acceptable visibility standards. We did not get in an accident as we quickly abandoned the Tesla Model Y and obtained a ride from another vehicle that had a working windshield defroster. We understand that this has been a problem in Canada and is the subject of a Canadian recall. We contacted Tesla, sent them the computer code "VC front-a447 Cabin Climate Control Issues-requires service" and were advised that they were familiar with this problem and scheduled a repair which included the removal and replacement of the A/C Compressor/Heat Pump and the 'Supermanifold' at a cost of $1,993.55. We were advised that no 'Recall' was associated with this pariticular VIN and nor was there any warranty but this would be a 'customer pay' repair. After exhausting all efforts at writing and calling in an attempt to have a clear defect leading to a safety violation addressed voluntarily by the manufacturer we feel we are left with no alternative but to ask the Goverment to look into this issue for the safety of others who may drive a Tesla with a heat pump in cold weather and very dependant on the proper operation of a windshield defroster (which the heat pump does) for safe visiblity, crucial to proper operations of a motor vehicle, on the public highways. Thanks in advance for looking into this.

In Traffic Aware Cruise Control (aka Autopilot) car randomly changes the maximum set speed. This has caused a dangerous dramatic slowing of the car when highway driving. Car should not change speed setting without human input. I have video of this occurring.

The car stopped suddenly in the middle of the street. By the grace of G-d, this happened on a quiet street because we decided to take a detour and could have instead been on the freeway! We were with our 3 young children (all in carseats). We could not restart the car after it stopped, and there was no warning it was going to stop. We were not using autopilot.

I was driving on the freeway, no one was near me (I had full control of the car, it wasn’t on autopilot) and the car’s brakes deadlocked while I was traveling high way speed and then made a sharp left turn which caused me to crash into the center divide and then hydroplane across the entire freeway uncontrollably

Vehicle has been inspected by the manufacturer and they have advised it has been completed/fixed but it's been in more than four times within the last 12 months.

When i do a full trip level charge on the Tesla Y at home, I leave the house and start down a hill on the way to work. When I brake, the brakes chatter severely and do not slow the car. I pump the brakes and it happens again, pump the brakes and they start working. This has happened numerous times with a full trip charge. it does not happen with a 70% charge. I feel that this is very dangerous and could easily cause an accident if braking is required. I attempted to contact Tesla, there is no easy way to report this problem. So, this is now in your court. Thanks for looking into this. Thomas Cox

Phantom Breaking. On Saturday -12/3/22, around 3.50 PM CST en route to Arlington on HWY 360, I experienced phantom breaking twice in quick succession. I was driving on autopilot at 70MPH and suddenly the car applied brakes and it was very scary to me and all my family. After the second event, I stopped using the pilot and drove with manual control.

I was in a stop and go traffic (car wash line), a sudden unintentional acceleration happened and resulted in a high impact accident

Tesla Y Unintended Acceleration! Driving my Tesla I got a phone call that did not show up on screen then 1-3 seconds later my car took control of itself and rapidly accelerated. I had NO control with no steering or brakes. Powerless inside an accelerating vehicle! The car then crashed up on the median through a private community light post and into a tree. The car did not stop until the battery was severed and destroyed by the tree. All airbags went off and all glass shattered. There was no prior warning at all. Insurance adjuster deemed the car a complete total; not worth repair.

11/29/23: vehicle begins to flash warning alerts (e.g., traction control disabled, lane departure warning unavailable), then power steering stopped working, and brakes pulsed violently when used (almost like ABS was active). Software update was available shortly thereafter, assumed this would remedy the situation. 12/5/23: same problems recur (loss of power steering, odd braking behavior, vehicle alerts). Vehicle was towed to Tesla for service. Tesla was able to ID the alerts in the vehicle history but could not identify the root cause. Took the vehicle one extended test drives, but was unable to cause the problems to recur. Tesla is unable to identify any further actions to prevent recurrence.

I own a 2021 Tesla Model Y. I took possession of it on August 7, 2021, in Santa Barbara, CA. Ever since, I have had more than 1000 instances of automatic emergency braking (phantom braking) episodes while using cruise control or autopilot. ​The experiences of severe phantom braking have been terrifying. The car often slams on its brakes for no apparent reasons on all highways and freeways, mostly where no cars or obstacles are present. I worry about getting rear-ended, which could lead to injury or death. My Tesla has been in for repair five times, and the technicians say they cannot fix it, that only a software update can solve the phantom braking problem They've been promising a software update since August 2021. After 16 months and five service appointments, I expect the problem would be solved by now. It hasn't. Please force Tesla to remedy this very hazardous safety problem. Let me know what you are doing to force Tesla to fix the problem.

On a long trip on I-70 across Colorado and Kansas I experienced 4 instances of "phantom" braking while using cruise control. I had set the speed at 78 and the car aggressively braked itself as if there was an object in the road when there was no object or reason to brake. In each instance if a car had been following closely they likely would have crashed into me. It also causes panic to the driver when the car aggressively brakes. I am contacting Tesla service today to report this issue and hope that it will be addressed but there has not been any inspection at this point. There was no waring or issues with the car prior to this and it has never happened to me before. It only occurred when using cruise control as I do not have full self driving and was also not using lane assist.

I was driving about 65 mph on the highway with my Tesla 2021 Model “Y” in “Traffic-Aware Cruise Control” (not Auto Pilot) when, for no apparent reason, the car decelerated rapidly. This happened four times during a 1 hour trip from Boston to New Hampshire. No accidents occurred due to this incident but it was very concerning. This is not a new problem but it is occurring more often since the software was updated to include “Tesla Vision” instead of radar. I did not report this to Tesla because they are already aware of “Phantom Braking” issues with my model.

Was hit by a F-250 running a stop sign, estimated speed of F-250 was 45 MPH. The airbags failed to deploy in my vehicle.

The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while driving approximately 75 MPH with the "auto pilot" and the "cruise control" functions engaged, the vehicle made an emergency stop. The contact stated that the force of the emergency braking had thrown him forward into the seat belt. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The contact was able to disengage the auto pilot and cruise control and continued his trip. The contact stated that the emergency or "phantom braking" had become a recurring failure. The contact scheduled a remote service for the vehicle and an over-the-air software update had been performed. The vehicle had been repaired. The contact stated that the failure continued after the software update. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 18,000.

Backing out of garage and driveway & heard loud pop. Immediately stopped, put into drive and moved out of street, approx 6' (with car making awful noise and terrible steering wheel feel).. Exited vehicle and observed that drivers side front wheel was aimed straight but passenger side was aimed 20+ degrees inwards. Found both passenger side lower control arm bolts in driveway, and linkage hanging down. Could have resulted in SERIOUS accident if compromised steering happened while driving at speed.

Heatpump failed which caused a lack of cabin heat and in warmer weather would have caused charging issues due to lack of cooling possibly leaving me stranded. This had a warning on screen about loss of cabin conditioning. This happened over a mountain pass and caused the cabin temp to drop to 25F with two kids in car seats. This could be a really bad situation, luckily we had blankets and such to keep warm for the last few hours of the drive. I believe this was caused by an earlier TSB with sensor replacements and a software change done earlier in the life of my car for heatpump issues. This most likely caused wear on the pump and caused it to fail prematurely just out of warranty. The system was replaced by Tesla at significant cost and confirmed metal shavings in the system from the heatpump. I requested to keep the parts and still have them if further investigation is necessary.

Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No 118. Power operated window, partition, and roof panel system

I was driving on highway when the car in front of me brake hard. Tesla failed to detect imminent crash and did not provide warning AND emergency braking. The vehicle has been recently serviced in tesla service center. There were no other warning lamps / messages / symptoms of the problem prior to the failure.

Heard loud clicking noises upfront when turning hard out of parking spot.Immediately I Checked front wheels manually on looseness, but could not detect any movement. Decided to drive home (20miles).I was very careful not to steer to hard through curves. Upon turn into my driveway ( hard right turn which I took very slow) ,left front wheel suspension came unhooked and an approx 3” long x 1/2” galvanized bolt fell onto driveway. My 2020Tesla Model Y was stuck at the bottom of driveway. My company mechanic came about an hour later ,jacked up the left side,removed front left wheel : the bolt as pictured below had loosened entirely from its nut and galled off releasing the wheel suspension and allowing the wheel to come loose . We temporarily fixed the bolt and drove the ModelY into our garage ( flat surface) 500 feet further uphill. Upon further inspection we found another bolt separated from its nut on the other side as well (4) other bolts totally loose almost entirely stripped from its counter nut. We found no sign of LOCTITE or similar. The bolt in question is on bottom of lit up spot ( in below picture) Bottom line: steering suspension bolts should not come loose on a vehicle not even 2 years old!

When using cruise control, the car will suddenly brake for no reason.

The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving at low speeds when making a J-turn beside the contact's steep driveway, the vehicle crashed into the curb then began to roll down the steep hill, and crashed into a tree. The contact stated that the brake pedal was depressed, however, the vehicle continued to roll. No air bags were deployed and no injuries were sustained. The vehicle was taken to the repair shop where the headlight assembly, the hood, and the full front assembly of the vehicle were replaced. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue. The failure mileage was approximately 400.

On November 5'2022 (12.30pm PST), we went to visit local bank. We parked the car and locked it. After locking the car ,we have started go towards bank and suddenly we noticed all four windows automatically started to open (eventually all windows were open and rain water started to go inside). We were lucky that this has happened with stationery car. I am worried if this will happen when car is moving at fast speed , this might cause serious issue .

The rails on my driver seat are causing the seat to rock back and forth. Service center is refusing to replace it under warranty.

I own a 2021 Tesla Model Y. I took possession of it on August 7, 2021, in Santa Barbara, Ca. Ever since, I have had more than 1000 instances of automatic emergency braking (phantom braking) episodes while using cruise control or autopilot. On January 26, 2022, I had 47 episodes, in just a couple of hours. This is typical. The experiences of severe phantom braking have been terrifying. The car often slams on its brakes for no apparent reason, many times on a four lane highway, or on a freeway with no cars or obstacles around. Recently, I had 10 phantom braking episodes within one mile of highway driving. Multiple times, I worried about getting rear-ended. It has been in for repair five times, and the technicians are animate that a software update is coming very soon (they've been promising that immediately after taking possession of the Tesla). After 15 months and five service center appointments, I expected the problem to be resolved by now. It hasn't. Can you please force Tesla to fix this problem immediately? Please provide a response identifying actions you are taking to resolve this very important safety matter.

We were driving 65 miles per hour using cruise control on a flat road with no cars in front or behind us for hundreds of yards on both sides of a two-way highway. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, our Tesla applied the brakes hard as though it was trying to avoid hitting an obstacle on the road. Within a second our speed dropped to about 30mph at which point our Tesla released the brake and accelerated back up to 60 miles and hour before I shut off cruise control.

The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving approximately 75 MPH with the cruise control activated, the vehicle abruptly decelerated to approximately 35 MPH. The contact indicated that during the incident no other vehicles or objects were nearby to cause the vehicle to suddenly decelerate. Additionally, there were no messages or warning lights displayed or illuminated. The cause of the failure was not yet determined. The manufacturer and local dealer were notified of the failure, but no assistance was offered. The failure mileage was 20,000.