2021 TESLA MODEL 3 Complaints

We continue to have issues with Tesla's autopilot feature. The Model 3 with autopilot activated or just with the adaptive cruise control activated, will "phantom" brake for zero reason. Today, 12/14/2021, it happened three times within 90 minutes. All three times there was no reason for the car to make emergency actions. Once I had a truck with a trailer behind me, forcing them to brake hard to avoid hitting the rear of the car. I submitted a service request to Tesla and this is what they told me: Incidents like the one you are describing where the vehicle slowdowns for apparently no reason are generally caused by a few reason such as: Map data inaccuracy, Speed limit data inaccuracies, the vehicle reacting to an upcoming event, GPS position inaccuracies, and predicative driving anomalies. In all of these situations the computer is trying to make the safest determination of what to do with the information that it being fed. To us as drivers, it would seem like a bad decision, but the computer uses our input following these events to get better at predicting how it should respond. Anytime you intervene with an autopilot behavior decision you are helping the system as whole get better. There are no faults with any of the hardware in the vehicle and at this time these behaviors are a limitation of software in the system. Our engineering team is working to improve auto pilot with every firmware update and we hope to see improvements in future updates. I'm sorry you feel that was Justin. Future firmware updates will improve functionality. You always have the options of not using your AutoPilot until they do. Thank you

On a daily basis while using the Adaptive Cruise Control or Tesla Autopilot, I will experience multiple erroneous automatic braking events. The car generally slams the brakes on when it is cresting a hill, attempting to pass a semi truck, or when sun angles produce large shadows in the road. The automatic braking events are sometimes very aggressive and can be extremely dangerous, especially if someone is following behind you in high speed traffic. My wife has requested that I don’t use cruise control or autopilot while she’s in the car, as we experienced an unwarranted, aggressive automatic braking episode which caused great pressure against her pregnant belly on a previous road trip. Additionally, the cameras on my vehicle will often produce warning/error messages stating “X camera is blocked or blinded” for absolutely no reason other than headlights from oncoming traffic shining into my lane. I am unsure if this contributes to the automatic braking issue.

Windshield has highly visible internal reflections resulting in vertical ghosting in high contrast situations such as headlights brake lights and even on sunny days service center said it was within acceptable tolerance but it greatly diminishes the clarity of vision through the windshield. Haven't seen anything like it in the four other cars manufactured across two decades that I've driven regularly. Dangerous design or manufacturing defect.

Front right headlight on a brand new car no longer functions, safety was put at risk by the fact that it is illegal to drive on 1 working light in the dark and rain; and this happened thankfully before leaving home on a dark morning so it was detectable and actionable. Problem was confirmed by remote diagnostic from dealer. No warnings or messages before failure which was confirmed by Tesla representative on the phone. They have not inspected the component and will not return calls / have not responded to service scheduling for 3 days. There is no service possible when they have a monopoly on their supply chain and will not schedule service. My car is unsafe to drive and is basically a lemon at this point until they fix it.

My Tesla Model 3 is brand new and delivered in 2021, the vehicle has had no recalls or issues report by the manufacture and is running the latest software updates provided by Tesla, which as of this date is: 2021.36.8 I have driven the car since delivery a total of 5,596 miles, which includes a cross country road trip from CA to FL. During this trip I used "Autopilot" a feature which is touted as safe, however after my experience and reading and hearing other users reports I believe this is not the case. I had numerous cases of "phantom braking" which is where the vehicle believes there is an object that it will collide with and it slams the brakes on, usually dropping around ~20 MPH extremely rapidly. Many of these events occurred in lower light scenarios (night time) and almost all of them occurred when I had no vehicles in any direction for over half a mile, which means that there should have been no indicators flagging an emergency braking event. Here are some other reports, including a well known publisher CNET: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/reviews/2021-tesla-model-y-review/ The Model Y and 3 share a lot of common design and technical elements, including their lack of a forward radar system, which is think is likely why this issue is occurring for these vehicles and not for the Model S and X. Here is a full user report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxvh60zBl70&t=1s I am writing this report in order to add myself to a growing list of Tesla customers that have not been listened to about this issue, it is a massive safety issue and should likely trigger a full investigation, this issue can easily be replicated with and 2020-2021 Model 3 and/or Y. And likely should trigger an immediate call for either a software patch, disabling of the feature, and/or recall of all affected vehicles, either to retrofit a radar system, or to fix the camera system.

Driving normally, with cruise control (not auto steering) engaged vehicle will spontaneously and dangerously apply emergency breaking. This happens regularly to the point I won’t use it. It’s going to cause accidents, especially when slippery conditions exist.

Vehicle will randomly have phantom braking and braking events when using adaptive cruise control. It happens more often when a vehicle has recently passed and it 150+ feet in front of the vehicle. This poses a safety risk for vehicles behind as the car will randomly slow down. The adaptive function becomes unusable.

ADAS systems detect oncoming traffic from the opposing lane on single lane roads and sounds forward collision alarm. If using adaptive cruise control or Autopilot, vehicle will rapidly decelerate. This poses a risk to the occupants and vehicles behind from unexpected changes in speed, which could cause a rear-end accident. The issue can be repeated in the scenario described above. Forward Collision Warning alarm goes off when it sees a oncoming vehicle far off in the distance.

Tesla cars are having an issue with phantom breaking which is causing the car to slow down or even slam on the brakes for zero reason. Since I have zero control of how close someone follows me, this is a huge safety issue and makes me fear for my life every time it happens. I drove 60 miles today on two lane roads and this happened at least 6 times. Seems to happen more on two lane roads that aren't flat, but I've had it happen other times too.

My new Tesla 3 deployed automatic emergency braking seven (7) times in a 5 hour period. The Tesla Autopilot was turned off due to reports of phantom braking like this from many other drivers in a Tesla online forum. Regardless, the car slammed on the brakes when there were no obstructions or cars in front of me. I almost suffered a rear end collision during one of these phantom emergency braking events, where the car suddenly braked from 70MPH to less than 40MPH. The malfunctioning component is likely the Tesla software that works with the forward-facing cameras which are installed as part of the Full Self Driving feature. While I did not pay the $10,000 for FSD, this system still operates for automated braking and lane departure. I have requested Tesla inspect the car, which has 482 miles on it, but am filing with you anyway due to the similarity between this experience today and the dozens of other complaints I have read about on the Tesla Owners forum called TOO.