Tesla Model Y Complaints
3,785 consumer complaints on file.
- #11452660February 18, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
I was driving on freeway 101 north in LA and was merging into freeway 405 north. My auto pilot was engage and my car suddenly Decided to apply the breaks and reduce the speed from 65 miles per hour to around 45. This was done while there were no visible vehicles in sight and in front of me. The auto pilot is quite unreliable.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452647February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
I’ve been driving my Tesla mostly under autopilot about 90% of the time over the past 4 months. During that time, I’ve experienced about 30 or more phantom braking issues where the automatic braking system will engage when there is no object in front of the car. It’s all happened when autopilot was engaged. It happens during the day, generally on a single lane road, and also at night when on coming traffic lights are blinding. Each time it causes the car to rapidly slow down and causes the car behind me to slam on their brakes, potentially causing an accident. This needs to be fixed since it’s safety risk.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452645February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
Several times over the past 6 months the car suddenly slowed down without any reason while driving on autopilot with nothing ahead of it on highway (there was no change of speed limit so that can’t be an explanation). Also known as “phantom breaking”
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452642February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: WARNINGS, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
We are familiar with managing the controls which, in my experience, operate similarly to other vehicles with similar safety and driver-assist features. Unfortunately, in regards to the effectiveness and ease of operation of the TACC, our Tesla is by far the worst of the 5 vehicles with which I'm familiar. The experience of managing TACC with oncoming traffic is frustrating, distracting and sometimes unsafe. Autosteer, because it builds on TACC's systems, is similarly deficient although the features it provides would be extremely welcome when TACC is improved. Nearly every oncoming large truck (including many pickup trucks) caused TACC to brake the car TACC assisted braking was inconsistent. Sometimes an immediate, slight reduction in speed (5-10mph) and other times it was an immediate major reduction in speed, on the order of half-speed within 3 - 5 seconds. It was common to have the car brake from 65 - 35 for no other reason than a large, oncoming truck. After 3 or 4 occurrences of heavy braking, I would turn off TACC and manually maintain speed with the accelerator. This in itself is fatiguing and I would eventually resort to a system in which I would disengage TACC when approached by a truck, usually 200 - 300 yds away and then reengage when traffic was clear Heavy braking was severe enough that, if a there had been a closely following/unaware car, it would have rear-ended our vehicle TACC (and Autosteer) seem "happiest" when following other vehicles and, even on 2 lane highways, phantom braking was much less frequent A standard cruise control (no Traffic Assist except for Following Distance) is not available but would be welcome Summary: On the Interstate Highway system TAAC works reasonably well but could use improvement. On 2 lane highways TACC is more work and less safe than operating the vehicle manually and, as a system designed to reduce driver workload and improve safety, it fails.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452640February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: WARNINGS
While driving in Autopilot, the car rapidly decelerated from 55mph to 35mph two times about 30 seconds apart, when two separate semi trucks were approaching me in oncoming lane, not crossing the lane or anything on a two way road. Seems to be well known as "phantom braking", but i just got the car yesterday and have put less than 30 miles on the car and already experienced this phantom braking twice. (Car currently has 60 miles on it) To note i did test drive a 2020 Model Y in December 2020 and did not experience this at all when using Autopilot on that car.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452639February 17, 2022SERVICE BRAKES
I’ve had this vehicle since June 2021 and experienced times when it would automatically brake abruptly, as if I were about to hit the vehicle in front of me. The first couple of times, I thought it was something I had to calibrate within the digital dashboard, but realized that it wasn’t something that could be adjusted — it was just the vehicle’s way of using it’s sensors to prevent me from colliding with the vehicle in front of me. The problem is that I wasn’t ever in danger of hitting anything in front of me. There were even times when I was gradually braking, but the vehicle automatically took over and broke for me. The painful part of it is that when this happened, it was so sharp and abruptly braking that I could feel my head jerk forward. It wasn’t until recently that I learned that this is actually a very big problem experienced by many other Tesla Model Y owners — called “Phantom Braking”. I’ve also had many other issues with the vehicle’s operating system, and have had to bring the vehicle in for Tesla service 5-6 times within a period of 7 months of taking lease of the vehicle.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452627February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
Anytime we are using the adaptive cruise in our Model Y, we have experienced "phantom braking" issues where the car suddenly brakes for no apparent reason, decreasing cruising speed from 60-70 mph by as much as 20 mph all at once. This mostly occurs on two lane highways and with oncoming vehicles that are larger (truck, etc.). Also sometimes occurs cresting a hill. It happens so often that we do not use the crusie control feature unless we are on an interstate with dividers between oncoming traffic and ourselves. Any rural two-lane highway causes multiple incidences of "phantom braking" every time we use it. Literally happened dozens of times at this point.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452616February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
While driving in autopilot the car will randomly slam on the breaks multiple times at all speeds from 30-60mph even when the road is empty. This can increase if a large bus/truck is on the other side of the road in the opposite direction.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452605February 17, 2022SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
On almost all my long highway trips (about 4 hours long), if I have traffic aware cruise control (TACC) enabled on my Tesla Model Y, I experience one or more episodes of phantom braking. The first time it occurred I had owned the car for only a few weeks and was not yet accustomed to its fast acceleration. I was driving at about 70mph on a clear day with no one in front of me when the car suddenly braked. My first impulse was to hit the brake to disengage TACC, but I realized that would slow down the car more, increasing the chance I might be rear-ended. So I hit the accelerator and rocketed back up to 80mph before settling back to normal speeds. I was fortunate to be on a straightaway with no one ahead of me. Since then I have experienced phantom braking with TACC enabled under similar circumstances, i.e., with no cars or trucks in front of me and in clear weather in daytime. With more experience, I have noticed that the problem happens more often when I am passing a truck on the highway, especially when doing so around a curve. In past years I have driven numerous rental cars with adaptive cruise control and have never experienced anything like the phantom braking of the Model Y. This is not normal behavior and I hope you can get Tesla to fix it.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452604February 17, 2022SERVICE BRAKES, VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
The vehicle control system intermittently commands hard braking at highway speed when there are no obstacles or vehicles nearby. This sometimes happens repeatedly over a period of several minutes and sometimes doesn't happen for weeks at a time. The braking and deceleration is so rapid as to result in difficulty controlling the car and potential hazard to cars following behind. After repeated "bug reports" to Tesla, nothing has changed. They issue a software update with a new game, but don't fix the hazardous problems.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452602February 17, 2022ELECTRICAL SYSTEM:ADAS:AUTONOMOUS/SELF DRIVING
The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while driving 55 MPH in autopilot mode, a truck in the middle passing lane going in the opposite direction, approached the vehicle, and the vehicle stopped abruptly. There was no warning light illuminated. The contact continued to drive the vehicle. The contact stated that the failure reoccurred while driving. The dealer and the manufacturer were not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 300.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452600February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
While driving on a two lane highway at 70 mph on cruise control oncoming semi’s will cause the automatic braking system to drastically put on the brakes to 20 mph in 1 second, causing everyone in the car to lurch forward and pissing off the cars behind me to the point of almost rear ending me and causing road rage. I don’t want to neither be rear ended or shot at by these drivers behind me so cruise control is worthless and unusable on this dangerous car
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452581February 17, 2022SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL
Phantom breaking while driving with cruise control.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452575February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
As per many similar complaints, my Model Y while on cruise control will suddenly brake for absolutely no reason. I have almost been rear ended on the highway while traveling at 74 miles per hour. The car drops 20-40 MPH seemingly for absolutely no reason. I believe that this has been dubbed "Phantom Braking". Add me to the list!
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452573February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
On 2021 August 18 Wednesday at approximately 2:40 pm (Eastern time USA) and again at 2:59 pm, my Model Y braked severely while driving at high speed. Weather: Moderate to heavy rain due to passage of the remnants of Hurricane Fred. Location - incident 1 (about 2:40 pm): Pennsylvania Turnpike eastbound, just west of the Somerset exit. Location - incident 2 (2:59 pm): PA 219 South (limited-access expressway) near Meyersdale, PA. Situation/speed - incident 1: (2:40 pm): Driving in the passing lane traveling at approximately 70 mph. Cruise control was engaged. Situation/speed - incident 2: (2:59 pm): Driving in the passing lane traveling at approximately 70 mph. Cruise control was engaged. Description of incident (2:40 pm): The incident happened on a downhill curve while passing another vehicle when the Model Y braked suddenly and sharply. The speed dropped from approximately 70 mph to approximately 40 mph. The area was a construction zone but not an active construction zone at the time. There were construction barrels and flags on the shoulder of the left lane. There were concrete Jersey barriers/K-rails in the median strip between the eastbound and westbound lanes. The lane markings were visible but may have become obscured by rain/mist and a vehicle in the right lane. There was no vehicle behind the Model Y. Description of incident 2 (2:59 pm): While passing another vehicle the Model Y braked suddenly and sharply. The speed dropped from approximately 70 mph to approximately 55 mph. The area was a staging area for a construction zone but not an active construction zone at the time. There were construction barrels and flags on the shoulder of the left lane but no other barriers or fences. The lane markings were visible but may have become obscured by rain/mist and a vehicle in the right lane. There was no vehicle behind the Model Y.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452569February 17, 2022VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL, SERVICE BRAKES, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
At highway speeds using adaptive cruise or autopilot, vehicle suddenly brakes and veers towards the shoulder of the road. This occurs when a large vehicle such as a bus or semi is approaching from the opposite direction. Emergency break came close to causing a rear end collision today 2/17/22. Contacted Tesla service for investigation and repair.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452560February 17, 2022LANE DEPARTURE: ASSIST, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
The vehicle sometimes brakes dangerously hard at highway speeds, nearly causing the vehicle behind me to nearly rear-end me.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452559February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
This car is subject to frequent "phantom braking" . Using adaptive cruise control or full self driving, the car will occasionally brake hard for no logical reason. This happens every time I drive the car on two lane roads, i.e., with vehicles approaching from the opposite direction in the opposite lane. It happened from the time I took delivery until the present. It happened today (2-17-22). In 90% of cases, the phantom braking is triggered by a large vehicle - semi truck or bus, approaching from the opposite direction. In 10% of cases, the cause is either not clear, or caused by a smaller vehicle. The phantom braking occurs in all lighting conditions - right sunlight, overcase, night. The vehicle has not yet been inspected by Tesla.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452543February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
While operating the cruise control on two-lane roads, the Tesla Model Y will frequently engage the emergency stop/warning function. NOTE: no autopilot has been used. There is no lane swerving or concern of the car approaching in the opposite lane or is the Model Y in any unsafe operating situation. This occurs in almost every driving situation with the cruise control engaged (two-lane roads) and has been documented with other passengers in the automobile. Obviously, this creates a panic situation for the driver and passengers while also creating a very unsafe operation for following cars. Multiple dates/times and weather conditions were mostly clear, i.e. no rain. As a note, we have owned a 2016 and 2018 Tesla Model S that did not have this problem.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0
- #11452540February 17, 2022FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL, FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY BRAKING
I too have had an issue were without warning or provocation when on cruise control, whenever a semi-truck approached in the oncoming lane, or on four-lane divided highways, my car decelerated from 75 miles per hour to 40 miles per hour in a matter of seconds. I have also had the car phantom break when going under a overpass on a highway and while crossing 2 lane bridges. Luckily no accidents so far but definitely terrifying.
- Crash:
- No
- Fire:
- No
- Injuries:
- 0
- Deaths:
- 0