2021 TESLA MODEL Y Complaints

Second report on same issue with DIFFERENT car. This report is not about a single incident, but rather a REPEATED problem over several years with the adaptive cruise control on 3 different Tesla cars I have owned. These cars are a 2017 Tesla S, and 2 different 2021 Tesla Y models. in each case, whenever these cars are driven on a highway with the adaptive cruise control engaged, several times during each hour of driving, the cars will rapidly brake/decelerate with no action taken to cause the situation by the driver, nor any external situations with the traffic that would justify them. With the Tesla regenerative braking, these deceleration events are so extreme that it would be easy to imagine an accident with a car following closely behind. Indeed, with these situations occurring with no warning and extreme braking they are quite frightening to the passengers traveling in the car. During the most recent occurrence, I noted the exact day and minute of it's occurrence, and filed a service request with the local Tesla office. Even with the exact time of this event, the service center was unable to find anything wrong with the car. The Tesla service center attributed this issue to problems with the Autopilot and Full Self Driving software, but none of my cars have had this optional software-only the software which came standard on each of these cars. While otherwise appreciating the good characteristics of these cars, this unexplainable deceleration problem is what caused me to sell the prior 2 models before purchasing this latest model Y, hoping that this problem would not recur. It is worth noting that I have owned several other make and model cars with comparable adaptive cruise control, yet this situation never occurred even once on any of these other makes of cars.

This report is not about a single incident, but rather a REPEATED problem over several years with the adaptive cruise control on 3 different Tesla cars I have owned. These cars are a 2017 Tesla S, and 2 different 2021 Tesla Y models. in each case, whenever these cars are driven on a highway with the adaptive cruise control engaged, several times during each hour of driving, the cars will rapidly brake/decelerate with no action taken to cause the situation by the driver, nor any external situations with the traffic that would justify them. With the Tesla regenerative braking, these deceleration events are so extreme that it would be easy to imagine an accident with a car following closely behind. Indeed, with these situations occurring with no warning and extreme braking they are quite frightening to the passengers traveling in the car. During the most recent occurrence, I noted the exact day and minute of it's occurrence, and filed a service request with the local Tesla office. Even with the exact time of this event, the service center was unable to find anything wrong with the car. The Tesla service center attributed this issue to problems with the Autopilot and Full Self Driving software, but none of my cars have had this optional software-only the software which came standard on each of these cars. While otherwise appreciating the good characteristics of these cars, this unexplainable deceleration problem is what caused me to sell the prior 2 models before purchasing this latest model Y, hoping that this problem would not recur. It is worth noting that I have owned several other make and model cars with comparable adaptive cruise control, yet this situation never occurred even once on any of these other makes of car.

While using Autopilot, the vehicle brakes when coming over the crest of any hill on the highway. It's not even occasionally, it's every single time I have Autopilot/CruiseControl enabled, it phantom brakes. To be clear, this is with just Autopilot, not FSD. My guess is the car can not see the road on the other side of the hill, so it freaks out. Also, this is a case of the car braking, it does not disengage Autopilot. After this happened about 20 times on a road trip I have just stopped using it. It's terrible. Also, another detail is this happens whether it's just on cruise control or autopilot. Even if I am in full control of the steering of the vehicle it still happens. Tesla doesn't have an option to just maintain speed with the cruise control where I control braking, it's the adaptive cruise control or Autopilot. Very frustrating to not be able to use something as basic as cruise control when driving across the vast expanse of West Texas without having my kids jostled awake at the crest of every hill (big or small).

The incident occurred after a rainstorm and there was some debris laid out across the road. We were travelling in the morning before sunrise at 20 mph and we felt a small branch or object hit the underside of our car. We took it out to drive again at noon time and it warned us that the coolant was low and that car may not start up once shut down. We towed it to tesla service center in Paramus NJ and they informed us of the condition. They informed us that the coolant pipe was punctured and the coolant spread onto the battery. They explained to us that the branch hit an area and caused the coolant to leak inside the battery and there is no plate to protect it at the underside of the car. They also informed us that there could have been a fire accident if we put it on charge after the underside collision. They also informed us that the coolant pipe was plastic. Despite this flaw in their design, they insist that they will not cover it since it was an external issue and have asked us to pay close to $16,000. Please help

The blind spot warning creates a visual indication on the media control unit display in the center of the dashboard, but no aural warning or indication when looking at the side mirror. In effect, this requires the driver to look forward and towards the center of the vehicle to gain any value of warning, directly opposite the threat of a vehicle in the left side blind spot. This issue manifested itself while I was driving my vehicle on a 6-lane divided arterial road and was attempting to change lanes towards a left turn lane. I observed a vehicle approaching on my left while I had my turn signal activated (and saw the vehicle indicated on the MCU), and once the vehicle had passed I began to move towards the left lane to find a second vehicle rapidly approaching and pass that I had not previously seen. An aural indication that the vehicle detected another passing vehicle would have alerted me before I began changing lanes and had to perform an abrupt evasive maneuver to avoid a collision. This issue has been raised with Tesla numerous times based on comments in various online forums but has not yet been addressed by the company.

When driving cross country from Illinois to Texas, the adaptive cruise control did the phantom braking 3 separate times. The first time scared me and I was not prepared for the car to act that way. Well, wasn’t prepared for the others either. I was going 75 and to have the phantom braking kick in is a safety hazard. The car behind hit the horn.

On Friday February 25, 2021, while driving on Florida’s Tamiami Trail (41), my Tesla repeatedly experienced extreme phantom braking, even though there were no vehicles in front of us or behind us either in our lane or the oncoming lane. It was a sunny bright morning between 9:30 and 10:00 AM.

Multiple hard phantom braking events using adaptive cruise control on interstate with no obstacles.

Phantom breaking occurring. Started Immediately after taking delivery of the Tesla. Usually occurs with auto steer activated. Has become progressively worse and now occurs while only using cruise control. I have had close calls on dozens of occasions, mainly with people almost rear ending me due to the sudden severe breaking. Occurs with no other vehicles on the road. Is worse when on 2 lane roads with or without approaching vehicles, on shaded roads and occasionally when raining. Has been occurring Since delivery on 5/28/21.

Car will suddenly brake hard when a pickup truck or semi truck is in the oncoming lane at highway speeds when adaptive cruise is engaged. This happens nearly every time a larger vehicle is in the oncoming lane, mostly only on two lane highways. Will also [XXX] occasionally brake for apparently no reason with adaptive cruise on. Tesla service knows of this problem and claims there is no fix. The hard braking happens every drive multiple times and nearly causes us to get rear ended by following cars. INFORMATION Redacted PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6).