Tesla Model 3 Complaints (2021)

674 consumer complaints on file.

#11453314February 21, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
This complaint was prompted by reading recent news reports of 'phantom braking' with our model vehicle. Previous to these reports, I did not have an awareness of NHTSA and their reporting mechanism. Driving on a highway, adaptive cruise control application. Sudden braking applied without my foot touching brake pedal. It was a sunny day, without any obvious need for braking. I was able to apply acceleration which terminated the braking cycle. No harm done, however if there was a car behind me there could have been a significant car accident at high speeds (>70 mph). This 'phantom braking' also occurred late 2021, also at highway speeds, on at least two occasion on the same trip cycle, in similar driving conditions (clear, dry). Nothing has been inspected. No indicators or warning lamps or messages applicable.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453296February 21, 2022
LANE DEPARTURE: WARNING
This defect affects the lane departure warning system of my vehicle. In certain situations, the lane departure warning system incorrectly activates when the vehicle is turning (vs. leaving a lane). On one occasion, the system activated while turning from my driveway onto the adjacent roadway. On another occasion, the system activated while leaving a parking spot. On both occasions, the vehicle was traveling less than 5 MPH and was not departing from a lane. When the lane departure warning activates, a loud noise is triggered, along with an alert on the center display. A driver's natural response in this scenario is to slow down mid-turn, potentially resulting in unsafe conditions for both driver and nearby motorists.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453285February 21, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
Three times so far in a week, the car has had extreme hard breaking on the freeway. These were done in full self drive mode. Absolutely terrifying and so unsafe for my family to have this happen.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453116February 20, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
When driving on one way road and a vehicle is travel inbound. The vehicle will stop extremely hard without any notice of anyone or anything in front of me. Even when travel on a open highway the vehicle will sometime stop extremely hard and freak out like something is in front of me when their is nothing.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453096February 20, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
At highway speeds while using cruise control I experienced several times what is now being called phantom braking. I have ceased using the cruise control as this is a scary problem.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453084February 20, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
The car will brake seemingly for no reason while on Autopilot. The environment does not change at all, yet the car will randomly brake very hard as if someone was in front of me and slammed the brakes. It also happens very commonly, more common than tolerable. No warning beeps or chimes or any indication of anything event. I'm not sure if this is inspectable, I have brought the car to service a few times under warranty for unrelated issues. This problem is pretty much widespread across Tesla's autopilot system. This has happened many times, but the most dangerous one by far was on I-75 and slammed the brakes from 85 to 45-35 in a matter of seconds.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453069February 20, 2022
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
I currently drive a 2021 Tesla model 3. When I drive this car down two lane highways my cruise control is almost un usable not to mention auto pilot. Almost every time a larger vehicle, something like a Semi truck comes from the other direction in the opposite lane my car slams the brakes. At night time it’s even worse when headlights are in the distance my car slams the brakes and when the headlights are closer it slams the brakes again. It also has random phantom breaking. I tried the service department and the told me it was a software issue and there was nothing they could do. The technician told me it would improve if I purchased FSD. I don’t believe it, if basic cruise control doesn’t work how is FSD going to work. I don’t know who to contact or even what to do about this issue, the service department refuses to even look at my car.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453053February 19, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: WARNINGS
Driving on an open 2 lane highway between Lecanto and Gainesville, car slammed on the brakes while in autopilot. There were no obstructions or other reason to stop.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453052February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
Similar to the reporting of others, I wanted to confirm that we had a problem with our Tesla 3 auto-pilot feature erroneously triggering emergency braking by misinterpreting oncoming traffic. This happened twice in a similar situation. While driving on a single-lane highway in auto-pilot, the car abruptly braked when a semi-truck passed in the opposite lane. This sudden deceleration could have lead to a rear-end collision but fortunately the driver behind had left enough breaking space. The same thing occurred again on the same road - also with a semi-truck in the opposing lane. This time, vigilant that the auto-pilot might be malfunctioning, the sudden breaking was quickly overcome by pressing the accelerator. There is no doubt on our end that the current version of the auto-pilot will trigger emergency braking mistakenly based on misinterpreting opposing traffic.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453025February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: WARNINGS, LANE DEPARTURE: WARNING
The car was on FSD jerked right toward a semi truck then jerked left toward the posts in the median as it was accelerating and FSD would not turn off. Was trying to control the car but it kept pushing and accelerating causing us to crash in to the median posts. Normally FSD would turn off if it was unsure but this day it would not. Plus other times it would phantom brake if we were on 2 lane road and met on oncoming large truck. We also had other times of phantom braking going over a hill. We have reported this to Tesla but no response yet. We owned this car 11 days when our wreck happened.
Crash:
Yes
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453020February 19, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
While driving on the highway without any cars in front of ours, three times the vehicle slammed on the emergency braking system and attempted to stop the car causing cars behind us to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting ours.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11453000February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: WARNINGS
My 2021 Tesla model 3 has a issue of what is called Phantom Braking. On 2 lane undivided highways and on all types of roads the car will randomly slam on the brakes to what I assume is to prevent hitting a obstacle that doesn’t exist. The car will apply the brakes extremely fast and drop roughly 20 MPH or more in just a few seconds. I am unable to use cruise control on 2 lane highways because it slams on the brakes it seems like anytime it sees a dip in the road or a mailbox on the side of the road it triggers the emergency braking system. I feel lucky that no one has been behind me while these events have happened. It happens almost every time I drive the car. I have contacted Tesla about this issue and they say everything is fine and they would rather have a lot of false positives than to miss a actual event. I feel like it is a very unsafe feature and needs to be addressed because other manufacturers have this down with hardly any issues. This has been happening on the car since it was new and has not improved the car has 7500 miles on it.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452998February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
When in Autopilot mode, the car will sporadically brake without any obstacles in front of it. This has occurred to me about half a dozen times. Always on the highway. Initially it would happen in the daytime near overpasses or when entering shade from a sunny area. Twice it occurred to me at night, on a well lit interstate in an urban area. This is often referred to as Phantom Breaking.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452987February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
I was driving my car and had it on autopilot. The road was empty and all of a sudden the car decided to apply brakes when nothing was infront of it. I was able to take control instantly to prevent a sudden stop however I was lucky there were no cars behind me
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452986February 19, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
With the Autopilot engaged on the freeway I have had several of these phantom braking experiences but last night I was lucky to avoid a accident with the car following me.. This happened at 74 miles per hour with the autopilot engaged the brakes slow me down to 60 miles per hour before I could disengage the autopilot.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452977February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
When the vehicle is in autopilot at high speed, it breaks suddenly without any visible obstacles. This happens at Kraft once every 200 miles of highway driving with autopilot on. The speed drops suddenly from 75 mph to 40 mph.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452975February 19, 2022
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
The car has twice gone into emergency braking mode on the interstate for no good reason. One incident was as the car was approaching a dark shadow area under an overpass, and the other was in a construction zone and I have no idea what triggered it. In both cases if someone had been following closely I may have been in trouble.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452966February 19, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES
Several times per week, my vehicle brakes automatically for no apparent reason.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452960February 19, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
Car suddenly brakes, also known as Phantom Braking, when in Cruise Control. It does it mostly on 2 lane roads, but it has done it driving on wide open freeways too. It's bad. Makes me feel very unsafe.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0
#11452947February 19, 2022
SERVICE BRAKES, VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
On several occasions while driving in the highway with AutoPilot engaged for adaptive cruise control, the car has suddenly applied the brakes very hard when there were no hazards in my lane. This has occurred on curves in the road when oncoming traffic was detected in the other lane and also when there has been a vehicle stopped on the shoulder.
Crash:
No
Fire:
No
Injuries:
0
Deaths:
0

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