2021 TESLA MODEL 3 Complaints

Sudden unexpected deceleration. There was no car or obstacle in my lane and my car hit the brakes. It seems to have gotten worse with the latest firmware update. It seems like when a shiny object is on a mailbox near the side of the road the car hits the brakes. The truck behind me could have hit me and got very angry and sped around me. This is going to cause an accident if not fixed. It's happened multiple times now.

The car, when using its "traffic aware cruise control" exhibits extreme sudden breaking for no reason (phantom braking). On Thursday, I was on a major interstate in the middle of the day, perfectly marked lanes, no gradient changes, no weather or visibility issues, with absolutely nothing in front of me. The car would suddenly brake aggressively for no reason, sometimes hard enough to hurt my neck. If another car had been following me, I would have been immediately rear ended. Too add insult to injury, Tesla charges for the full self driving function which fully navigates the car on highways, and even though it is so dysfunctional that it is dangerous, they will not refund it after I reported this behavior. Tesla FSD and traffic aware cruise control, in it's current state, is a danger to the public.

The Tesla Autopilot system in my Model 3 repeatedly malfunctions by way of "phantom braking".The latest incident I was luckily able to capture on camera. In this incident, my vehicle is driving down a Nevada highway in the heat, with no oncoming vehicles and a vehicle in my lane well over a mile away and increasing (they had just passed me a few minutes prior). With the speed set to 74mph (driving 73 at the time) the vehicle proceeds to apply heavy brakes, and slows to 56mph for no reason (no vehicles behind, thankfully). My safety and the safety of other motorists is put at risk with these events as the unexpected braking not only whips around the passengers of MY vehicle, but also puts at risk any vehicles that may be behind me, expecting me to maintain my current velocity. The problem has not been reproduced by a dealer as far as I am aware, but the service department of my local Tesla dealer has confirmed the issue is caused by the "Tesla Vision" camera-only system. They (service team) claim that there is no issue with the system, and that it is behaving as expected. They do not view this as a malfunction, and merely view it as the system being extra cautious, which is simply lazy. This component has not yet been inspected by any entity mentioned above. There were no symptoms of this issue prior to it occurring, however this did occur repeatedly over the course of my trip to/from Las Vegas.

The contact's son owned a 2021 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that his son was involved in a fatal collision while driving at an undisclosed speed with the autopilot activated. The contact was informed by his son's friend, who was a passenger in the vehicle, that the autopilot malfunctioned, causing the vehicle to inadvertently drive off the road, hit a tree, and then catch fire. An unknown bright orange light was seen on the windshield right before the failure occurred. The contact's son's friend was able to exit the vehicle, but the contact's son was unconscious and was not able to exit the vehicle. The fire department was able to extinguish the fire. A fire department report was filed. The contact's son's friend received medical attention for burns and bruises on his legs. The contact's son's autopsy report stated that his son died as a result of intense thermal heat and smoke inhalation. The vehicle was towed and remained with the Highway Patrol. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was unknown.

Referred to as "Phantom Braking," the vehicle decelerates dramatically when in "Autopilot" mode. This happens at seemingly random times and locations. It happens in the day or night, open or populated roads, multi-lane highways or single lane. The deceleration is so sudden that passengers in the car are thrown forward. One instance the car decelerated from about 75 MPH to 45 MPH in a matter of about 2 seconds. Thankfully no one was behind me. Others worry that if someone is following too closely, they could rear-end the Tesla... I don't think a vehicle would have to follow all that closely for this to cause an accident.

https://youtube.com/channel/UCNkrwnR_lAKd4neLwYAbugA My YouTube channel has 13 videos about Tesla safety concerns. They are the only videos on my channel. The minutes long clips show what happens when the mainframe screen goes black, dies out or powers down while driving. Listed from memory are the following concerns associated with the Tesla ‘Black Screen of Death’: 1. No energy/distance shown 2. Glove box is inaccessible 3. Front trunk ‘Frunk’ cannot be opened 4. Proof of signalling is gone 5. Proof of low vs high beam is gone 6. Changing of wiper speed is gone 7. Access to heating/Air-Con is gone 8. Back up camera is obsolete 9. Cameras used when signalling are missing 10. Speedometer is not visible 11. Odometer is missing (have never found it on screen when running anyways!) 12 Air pressure indication is gone 13 GPS is obsolete From memory that is all I have to add. Imagine everything that was/is available to the driver in every other cars dashboard and then take those parts away sporadically for minutes at a time and you’ll have an understanding of how precarious driving my Tesla can be. As an Uber driver I had the opportunity to speak with a corporate agent who was my passenger. She said Tesla is aware of this issue. Having spoken with a Tesla rep at a Tesla garage I was given the same advice found on Internet forums: “Find a place to park, park, press the steering volume & station finder buttons for 10 seconds until display starts up” This very rarely works, and is impossible, even dangerous in many situations. I’ve learned to drive with this continually faltering equipment, and I know every Tesla driver I’ve spoken with must do the same to varying degrees. While all Tesla drivers experience this, none are as repetitive as mine and none seem as proactive to inform government agency of this. Next week, May 26, I have an appt with a Tesla garage that will look into this when I bring my car in. Please view my videos.

Tesla Autopilot will disengage and brake when driving under a bridge or a freeway sign. Tesla detects the overhead object as an object on the road and logs a forward collision warning. This issue has been reported to Tesla and after multiple service appointments, tesla has failed to fix the issue. Tesla logs forward collision warnings and determines safety score for insurance price, having multiple false forward collision warning reduced the score and increases the premium which in return benefits tesla financially. I have video evidence for an instance that I have provided to tesla to look into and the issue is still not fixed.

The contact owns a Tesla Unavailable. The contact stated while driving 10 MPH in the parking lot he notice an unexpected increase in the amount of acceleration. The contact pulled over in the parking lot and turned the vehicle off then restarted and safely drove off. There was no warning light. The contact did not take the vehicle to a dealer or an independent mechanic. the vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The mileage was 36,000

It has happened before, but on a 4 hour highway trip yesterday, the vehicle engaged in 3 incidents of sudden phantom braking. Twice the road was completely empty with no other vehicles around me. The third time the shadow of a truck in another lane may have triggered the event. Each time we were traveling over 65 miles per hour. For the last hour+ of the trip, I disengaged the autopilot (adaptive cruise control) feature and drove completely manually.

We were driving on the freeway at 69 mph and suddenly with no warning the center console main screen froze. All electronic functions of the car stopped and the car was stuck at 69 mph. Speedometer And turn signals did not work. We managed to get to the side of the road (mechanical brakes and steering were unaffected). The car could not be put in Park so a manual reboot was not possible. The car rebooted itself (screen went black and then came back online) after about 10 minutes or so and then the car functioned normally.