2021 TESLA MODEL 3 Complaints

Phantom braking occurs intermittently since vehicle purchase while operating autopilot cruise control. My Tesla suddenly brakes without any vehicle ahead to warrant this action. Cars following me could easily slam into the rear of my car. Luckily that has not yet occurred. I have not noted any associated warning lights or alarms. I am awaiting replacement of the car computer (prompted by needing to reboot computer repeatedly), but this has been delayed several months due to parts unavailable. Consumer was unable to use cruise control because of the numerous times car brake mysteriously while driving on a freeway. Consumer reported the issue to Tesla and Tesla stated it was a bug immediately when it occurs.

Sudden/phantom braking of Tesla Model 3 with no apparent obstacles in sight while on adaptive cruise control both with and without auto steering. First noticed on a trip from SF Bay Area to San Diego in August 2021 at mileage about 2,000 miles. On a longer trip from the Bay Area to Colorado in October 2021 with mileage about 5000 miles, we further tested it on desolate stretches of highways with speed limits from 65 to 85 MPH. Over the course of the trip, the problem occurred over 20 times. We turned off all the automatic driving functions and have not used them since October. We prepared a detailed spreadsheet of all the incidents. See attached. In November, we reported the sudden braking problem to Tesla, along with the spreadsheet. They could not use the data I provided and asked me for more recent timestamp of the braking problem. I refused to test the car on busy Bay Area freeways because it was simply too dangerous. After much back and forth, they decided to test drive for themselves. I informed them that the problem was sporadic and would need to test drive for at least 2 to3 hours. On the first service appointment, they drove for about 15 miles and determined that they could not replicate the problem but would recalibrate the cameras. On the second appointment, instead of recalibrating the cameras as promised, they did another test drive. Again, they only drove for 15 miles and determined that they could not replicate the problem and asked that I contact them if the problem occurred again. I believe this problem is extremely dangerous and have not turned on the autopilot features since October. During my interactions with Tesla service employees, they seem to act as though this is the first time they heard of the problem. I don’t believe Tesla is treating this problem seriously enough to take immediate action and needs the attention of NHTSA.

Since the V11 user interface update, when you put the car into reverse, the rear camera sometimes does not show up, or often shows up only after a delay. Sometimes the delay is just a second or two, other times it is a minute or seems to hang forever. Today I was parked in front of my kid's school dropoff zone, and needed to back up after they got out to leave. When I went into reverse the cameras were just black and stayed that way. This was especially worrying in this scenario since small children could be walking behind me that I wouldn't be able to see without the camera. This was never a problem until the V11 user interface update, which also causes other safety problems, by burying important functions behind menus. For instance you now have to dig into a menu and reach all the way to the right side of the screen to operate the wipers, you have to dig into menus to operate basic climate control functions that used to be immediately available, etc.

With Autopilot/adaptive cruise control engaged, the vehicle slows precipitously on the freeways before large overhead signs across the freeway. There is no need for this reduction in speed due to safety. The system phantom brakes.

- Yes - The cruise control portion of autopilot has some dangerous bugs in it ('21 Model 3 Long Range). At freeway speeds, the phantom braking is scary ASF!!! Potentially, getting someone killed. While on my road trip between Los Angeles and Denver then back. I experience at least 20 to 30 phantom braking events from mild to dam near scaring the f$$k out of me. Most of these events were during the day at speeds that would have caused a serious accident if someone was following me too close!! During the night time the events were all mild in comparison to the day time events. -Yes -No -No

While driving up SR95 in AZ at 65mph, the car suddenly provided an audio alert and then slammed on the brakes. It felt as the anti-lock may have engaged. When control was regained, I glanced at the screen and it appeared that it believed a person was in front of the car. There was nothing in front of the car at the time except the road and its common tar-snakes. All safety features were manually turned off to resume the drive. Though within seconds of turning on cruise control, it would start braking and being erratic forcing me to not use the basic cruise control. This was NOT while Autopilot was engaged. At the time of the main incident, cruise control wasn't even engaged. I was in full control of the vehicle and the throttle. But I could not override the braking. Thankfully the person behind was far enough not to be a major risk, but that was luck. Had anyone been following at your average distance, it would have been a rear end collision. This system is NOT safe and I will be looking at replacing the vehicle on this incident alone. I had experienced phantom braking often in the past, but never like this one where it panicked and slammed on the brakes so hard as to cause pain in my wife's shoulder due to the belt.

The new Tesla touch screen UI is a major safe risk. Tesla has decided to hide the controls for the defrosters and wipers to such a degree that we are required to trust the automatic solutions for both and they both are abject failures. The manual controls worked fine, but the new UI is such a disaster, that we can no longer safely use the controls without taking our eyes off the road and touch the screen multiple times. I have contacted Tesla multiple times about this and will continue to do so requesting a way to roll back the software update. They refuse to do anything about this, so I have no recourse except to file safety complains to the NHTSA.

When traveling on a two-lane highway, oncoming traffic - especially larger vehicles such as semi trucks - cause the car to think it is going to hit the oncoming traffic and engages the brakes and sounds the forward collision warning. If the driver is not quick, there is danger of being rear-ended due to the sudden and unexpected braking.

The car makes sudden braking when cruise control and/or autopilot is engaged. It’s very frustrating as the car thinks it’s emergency braking because of something in front of the vehicle but the sensors are misreading the stopping. It’s very scary.

Phantom breaking. The basic autopilot cruise control frequently + aggressively brake as it detects phantom threats due to obscured sensors. Car can brake from 65 to e.g. 40mph rapidly, causing more risk, due to the rapid deceleration. Car needs a basic cruise control feature