2022 Tesla Model 3 complaints

While driving using the autopilot system on a clear, sunny day with no traffic ahead or behind my vehicle, I had a Phantom braking incident causing my brakes to be applied in an unsafe manner which would have brought me to a complete stop had I not intervened by quickly stepping on the accelerator. I was moving along at freeway speed when this incident occurred.

I recently got into a car accident with a Tesla. I was injured and my car crashed against a residence’s entrance putting myself and others in danger. The components or systems that failed are the regenerative breaking on the Tesla, the torque or force that is distributed to each wheel, and the rear passenger tire shows more wearing than any of the other tires of the vehicle (not only on my car, but also on one of my friend’s Tesla.) It was raining. I was driving at a normal, slow speed, on a straight line on the road. I stopped pressing the gas pedal, the regenerative breaking activated, and my car glided and crashed. In the past, I have had some experiences where even on a dry road, sunny day and no rain, my car would slide and loose traction when letting go of the gas pedal therefore activating the regenerative breaking and making the car loose traction and slide. I have videos and pictures, filled a police report, and recently filed a claim with my insurance. The vehicles components have been inspected by the police. They have not been inspected by the insurance as of now. The only lights/car signals that turned on automatically after the incident occurred were the emergency lights. I do not recall any lights/signals showing up on the dashboard or screen while the incident was happening.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while at a stop light with the brake pedal depressed, the vehicle accelerated and crashed into a Dodge Ram. There were no warning lights illuminated. There was no reported injuries, fire or air bag deployment. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a tow lot and then to a collision center. The local dealer was contacted but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The approximate failure mileage was 135

I wish to report numerous cases of the phantom braking or spurious deceleration that I have experienced. In driving over 2500 miles on highways I have experienced this issue at least 40 times. It would be more, but I have stopped using it. Almost all cases were on mostly open roads through Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. The odds of it happening appear to be higher when the road is hilly and another vehicle, typically a semi, is far ahead. Timing the distance, it looks like the semi is 12-15 seconds ahead of me in a 70mph zone. This creates a situation where I may be cresting a slight hill upwards while the semi is cresting the next hill ahead of me. That situation (just one example, others are more flat roads with no vehicles ahead) creates a distance challenge where the point between the vehicles is shorter than the actual distance, due to the hills. One instance slowed so quickly the tires squealed briefly. This feature, Traffic Aware Cruise Control TACC or autopilot, should never be used if another vehicle is following closer than 5-8 seconds behind. I have tried things to help the situation, such as making sure the cameras are clean and recalibrating the cameras with clearly defined lines and no changes have resulted.

Full Self Driving on this car experienced Phantom Breaking meaning it braked by itself when there were no nearby cars ahead of me. This is very dangerous as it can cause cars behind me to crash into me.

Vehicle stated it was in turtle mode and completely shut off in the middle of the road and was not able to drive. Park, reverse, neutral, and drive was not available.

Experienced multiple episodes of severe phantom breaking when traveling over 60mph with adaptive cruise control on.

Driving with cruise control on two lane or interstate car will automatically just slam on breaks. Dropping cars speed 10+ mph. There is no warning it breaks hard enough to skid tires and lock seatbelt. I have several times it has break checked car that are behind me cause them to switch lanes abruptly. It will do it some times after you merge back into a lane after you pass some one. There is no warning at anytime it will do this. I reported this to them the day I purchased this car new. They canceled the service appointment and said car will update it self and there is a software issue they are working on. Car is getting worse as time goes on. It does it every time you drive it. I understand if it slowed down 1 to 3 mph but it will drop 20 mph in seconds. It violently brakes. You can hit accelerator pedal fast enough before it drops 10 mph.

While making a u-turn on a quiet culdesac at approximately 5 mph, the 1 week old brand new Tesla, suddenly speeded up at the end of completing the u-turn (in last 5% of u-turn). It jumped the curb and hit a tree. All these happened in a fraction of a second and driver had no control when this happened. No automatic emergency breaks got activated. Autopilot or Cruise control features were not activated when this incidence happened. Driver and passenger incurred minor injuries, but their safety was put at risk. If this had happened on a busy area, the outcome would have been lot worse. This is a brand new car (1 week), and something is definitely wrong to have this happened. Police report (2022-56272) has been filed with Fayetteville Arkansas police dept. The report will be available in few days. We are trying to get in touch with Tesla to report this, but are not able to reach them yet. The car is currently at a towing company and my insurance company (State Farm) is going to move it to their storage facility to assess damage and determine if it is repairable. I am not aware how long will it stay there for someone (Tesla) to inspect the on-board computer which supposedly stores the records prior to the accident. If the insurance company determines this as a total loss, we are concerned that this investigation may not happen, especially since Tesla is not even reachable on the phone. We are concerned that if not properly investigated, it will be incorrectly considered as driver

Multiple instances of hard phantom highway braking on clear sunny days with no other vehicles close while using adaptive cruise control. If another vehicle had been following closely it could have caused a rear end collision as there was no cause to slow down. This problem is recurring. Tesla says to just report the incident on their automated system but there has been no response from them.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while driving approximately 75 MPH with the cruise control activated, the vehicle abruptly reduced speed to approximately 35 MPH without warning. The contact indicated that no other vehicles or objects were nearby to cause the Forward Collision Avoidance system to be activated. The cause of the failure was not determined. The local dealer and manufacturer were not notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 7,000.

While using the Autosteer/ Adaptive cruise feature on a recent long trip multiple times while at speeds of 55 - 75 MPH the car aggressively applied the brakes almost causing an accident where an 18 wheeler was following closely passing another truck. The other times it occurred were on flat roads with no vehicle in front or on either side.

While traveling on a highway (~ 50 mph) I engaged the cruise cruise control. After about 5 minutes -- while no traffic or obstacle anywhere near me -- the car suddenly applied emergency braking bringing the car near full-stop in the middle of the highway. I am fortunate there was no one behind me or it would have resulted in a collision. Obviously it was a terrifying event and I have instructed my family never to use that feature.

We were using traffic aware cruise control on autopilot in Florida on our way back home from vacation, when st approximately 7:45am our model 3 suddenly slammed on the brakes on a very busy highway. We were almost rear ended, thankfully our quick response to take over and the driver behind us paying attention let us avoid a crash. Over the next 15 minutes the Tesla had one more phantom braking incident, thankfully we were ready as we no longer trusted it, then it began to reduce speeds to 30- 45mph saying that was the speed limit. The speed limit was 55 and 60mph. We have not experienced this problem until now but are very concerned about the safety of using autopilot or cruise control.

Over a 4500 mile road trip, I experienced about 75 emergency braking incidents that were not caused by anything visible in the road or due to conditions. In nearly all cases there were warning chimes, but not always. Most were at highway speeds and were a sudden attempt to brake which required me to immediately react by stepping on accelerator to maintain distance in front of cars or large trucks behind me. It seemed more likely to happen at higher speeds (70-85 mph) and often times in more hilly areas of highways and often times as well coming just over the crests of hills. Tesla reviewed logs and said they didn't see anything and have been unhelpful. This is a high risk issue if cars stop on highways and people are not able to react quickly enough. So

Cruise control engaged at highway speeed of 70 mph. Car applied emergency braking hard and slowed to 52 MPH. Road is 4 lane divided highway. There were no vehicles within a mile in front of car. There were no other obstacles on the road. Car did the same thing 4 other times under similar conditions. The way the car brakes on an unobstructed road can easily cause me to be rear ended. Speed control is not useable in this condition if any other vehicle is traveling behind. This is not an isolated Incident in my Tesla. It has happened multiple times on different roads in all environmental conditions. Todays event happened around 1500, bright sunshine, straight and flat road.

Multiple times, during a bright sunny day, I've been traveling on the highway, with no traffic around for a mile ahead, with cruise control on. There were times with no autopilot on, and times when it was on. The car slammed on the brakes, going from 80mph to 30 mph, and once the car realized there was no object on the road, it returned back to 80 mph, and kept going. This would be very dangerous if there was a car following behind me. This is "phantom braking". It has happened 10-12 times during a 200 mile trip, on divided, as well as undivided highways, with no traffic, and with oncoming vehicles in the opposite lane.

During a recent trip from San Diego to Tucson and back, I had several incidents, in each direction, of sudden deceleration/phantom braking when the Autopilot feature was engaged, while driving on the I-8 and I-10 highways. The first time it happened, the collision avoidance alert also went off with very abrupt braking. Each time, the car did not brake to a stop, bud did suddenly and quickly decelerate several mph. After a couple of incidents, I prepared to intervene by pressing the accelerator to counter the slowdown. I thought it might be the autopilot causing the issue, so I started using the adaptive cruise control only without the steering feature, but it happened once with only adaptive cruise control too. Altogether, there were about 4 incidents per direction of travel.

Phantom braking. The car had autopilot enabled and applied brakes to slow down even though there was nothing in front that would have caused a collision. Fortunately there was no vehicle behind otherwise it may have caused a collision.

Phantom braking!! This car is almost undriveable due to it “hitting the brakes so hard” so often… TESLA PLEASE!! Fix this!! I want “dumb” cruise so it doesn’t ever hit the brakes… I am going to get rear ended someday!! The car hits the brakes so hard that it actually leaves black marks on pavement sometimes when there is literally NOTHING on the road and it’s completely clear!!

I was hit by a woman driving a Tesla with autopilot turned on. The system did not detect the red light, and she hit the right front quarter panel of my vehicle, totally my vehicle. The autopilot system malfunctioned and should have detected both the red light and the collision which was likely to occur. To my knowledge, the vehicle is in the control of either the driver's insurance company or the Police.

When driving on a 4 lane divided highway using adaptive cruise control at 70mph+, the emergency braking will suddenly activate, even when the road ahead is completely clear with no surrounding traffic. The car will suddenly brake, sometimes dropping 30mph or more off of speed, from 75 close to 40. Stepping on the gas pedal will abort this braking. If left alone, the car will stop braking and accelerate back to the original speed with no driver input. This will happen multiple times over 40 miles of highway driving. If it happened when being closely followed, the chance of being rear ended by the trailing car is high, though thankfully this has not occurred yet. The problem happens daily on commuting and has happened since taking ownership of the car on Jun 29, 2022 through today.

Numerous times while on cruise control “autopilot” the car suddenly and rapidly decelerates for no apparent reason. Most often when no other cars or obstacles are seen and during full daylight (no rain or other complicating weather) but has also occurred at night. Typically while driving at highway speeds 65-80mph and the deceleration is rapid and significant (decreases by estimated 20 mph within 1 sec).

The contact owned a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while her husband was driving 35 mph on traffic aware/cruise control, he attempted to depress the brake pedal but it failed to stop the vehicle. The contact stated the brake warning light was illuminated. The driver purposely steered the vehicle into a tree to not hit a house. The air bags did deploy. The driver had bruising on both legs, lower abdomen, and pelvic areas. The driver sought medical attention with his primary care, four days later of the accident. The police report was filed. The vehicle was not drivable. The insurance company deemed the vehicle a total loss. The vehicle was towed to towing lot. The vehicle was not diagnosed. A dealer was not contacted. The manufacturer had been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was 5,224.

First time interstate with new vehicle. Within first 100 miles of using cruise control at 80 MPH vehicle would suddenly phantom brake. Occurred twice within 50 mile span. Stopped using cruise, as we were almost rear ended. Attempted later in trip with no trailing vehicles; phantom braking occurred within 50 miles of using. Stopped using due to major safety concerns.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving 60 MPH, an object struck the windshield. The contact became aware of little holes on the front windshield. The vehicle was taken to the dealer and the contact was informed that the failure was impact related and she had to pay out-of-pocket for the repair. The manufacturer was not contacted. The approximate failure mileage was 200.

We experienced the following phantom braking (vehicle braked without warning with no obstacles present) incidents while using cruise control: July 1 2:14 & 2:15 pm: from 74 to 55 mph 2:21 pm: 74 mph to 69 mph 2:34 pm: 74 mph to 60 mph 2:40pm: 74 mph to 60 mph July 2 11:08 am: 74mph to 63mph. A car had pulled up close behind us to prepare to pass on a heavily trafficked, two lane interstate highway . Our vehicle braked. The car behind almost rear-ended us. If I had not moved to the right onto the shoulder and the trailing vehicle had not swerved into the left lane (which was fortunately empty), it would have hit us. We reported these incidents to the Tesla service center on July 8 when we dropped off the car for another service issue. When we picked the car up they told us that they had adjusted the car's cameras. We have not tried using cruise control since then.

While driving, car just cut down in speed and prevented being driven faster than 50 mph. A yellow turtle appeared. Went to charge the vehicle. Vehicle wouldn't accept charging anymore. Manufacturer confirmed vehicle at fault and repaired under warranty.

While using cruise control, for no apparent reason, the car rapidly slowed as if the brakes had been applied. This occurred multiple times before I stopped trying to use cruise control.

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving 75 MPH with cruise control activated, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The contact also stated there were no vehicles nearby. There were no warning lights illuminated. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 3,000.

Multiple Phantom braking events with hard deceleration which nearly caused the car behind me to rear end my vehicle. Car suddenly braked and speed Was reduced from 72 mph to 55 mph before I could disengage the autopilot. At the time nearest vehicle In front of me was a over 1/2 mile away. Was traveling West bound around 0800 issue was severe enough that I did not trust reactivating the system until I reached my destination and could put the car in park. This was the second such episode in phantom braking in less than a week. The episode last week occurred as I was approaching a bridge and I am guessing the car mistook the shadow across the road as a vehicle

Driving on a 2 lane highway on July 15, 2022, using Cruise Control. A tractor trailer was approaching me. The truck did not cross the center line. There was no concern of a potential problem. With no warning, The Tesla applied extremely hard braking. I had no idea for the reason, afterwards I thought that the motors failed & ceased. If the right brake did not grip as much as the left, the car would have been steered into the other lane into the path of the truck, death would most likely have resulted. The car also braked for side roads, not as intensely as when the truck was approaching. A Tesla rep was notified with a request for immediate repair. The Tesla Rep downplayed / minimized the issue and stated that the issue could be resolved in an update (with no time frame). I am in fear of using Cruise Control on 2 Lane roads.

In autopilot the car would brake hard for no reason and road clear in front of vehicle

Yesterday on a road trip my car repeatedly slammed on the brakes while in cruise control despite no vehicles or objects in the road in front of me.

The Auto-Pilot system, Tesla's version of adaptive cruise control, 'phantom' brakes with no obstruction in the road. It has happened to me many times on a recent long trip. perhaps a dozen times over 1300 miles. It has occurred when I am on the only car on a quiet country road and on busy highways. There appear to be 2 types of braking; one in which the brakes are actually engaged and the other in which is appears that Auto-Pilot just turns off and the system allows the regenerative braking to slow the car. At times it happens over slight dips or undulations in the road. On another occasion it happened when the car 'sees' a sharp shadow under an upcoming bridge in bright sunlight. Most of the time when approaching a bridge It does not phantom brake. However it did do this when approaching two consecutive bridges under identical lighting conditions. This all may be a function of using a camera based system for cruise control. I am making this report because I was to go on record in pointing out it is a very very big problem. I wish I had more real data to share with you. Tesla needs to cooperate with you to fix this immediately. It is a serious safety issue. Thank you.

A day of Phantom Braking today while the car was on adaptive cruise: -Going on the interstate up a hill, and on the crest it freaks out and slams on the brake -Going on MN Hwy 18 at 6:30 pm north, and dozens of phantom braking incidents in shadows, dark colored patches of road, and for random reasons. Got so bad I stopped using the feature

Car is phantom breaking with cruise control set on the freeway.

The Autopilot feature regularly doing hard brake without good reason, and often happens without any warning. This is dangerous for everyone on the road and major liability hazard for the car owner.

I bought my car new from Tesla in March of 2022. I drove it off their lot in Minneapolis and was my way home back to Bismarck, ND. Within 10 miles of being on I-94 with basic cruise control on, the car suddenly and unexpectedly slammed on the brakes. I had the cruise set at 80 mph and the stop was so sudden that I went down to around 45 mph within a second or so. It happened a few more times within the next 20 miles or so, so I called the service number. The lady on the service team told me that I just needed to "recalibrate my cameras". So I pulled over and did what she said all to no avail. It continued so I just did not use cruise control. Over the next few months, every single time I would go on a highway and use basic cruise control - I would get the same thing and experience extremely dangerous "phantom braking". And each time I would call Tesla service and they would remote dial into my car and tell me the same thing: there is nothing we can see and nothing appears to be wrong. Essentially saying I'm imaging this all happening. At the end of June or beginning of July, I spoke with a Tier 2 tech and he asked me to be very specific if I could and next time it happens to log exactly when, where I was, etc. this happens next. On my way back from Denver it happened so frequently that I again turned off the cruise - but I did what he mentioned and I documented the exact times and whereabouts as requested. I submitted that info a few days ago - they just responded last evenin

I have experienced multiple instances of what I see others seem to be referring to as Phantom Braking. The car will decelerate from 70 mph to 40 mph in seconds with absolutely no other vehicles, obstacles, etc. in sight. Typically the issue happens on 2 lane divided highways )2 lanes in each direction separated by a natural median) during the day time. Without any warning the car will rapidly decelerate using the brakes so aggressively the anti-lock brakes are being engaged as you can hear the tires skidding/squealing. The braking is so aggressive everything loose in the car flies forward including occupants. My typical reaction is to press down on the accelerator immediately to get back up to speed in case there is someone behind me. I picked up the car in March 2022 and experienced the issue in the first couple days. While a Tesla tech was at my house installing the Home Link system I inquired about the issue to which he responded its a known issue with no known resolution. I have continued to drive the car and at times need to turn off any speed control as I have dealt with multiple incidents in just a couple miles. The common item I have seen is when there is a glare/glimmer/mirage on the payment ahead. I took it in for service yesterday and they stated unless they can reproduce it, nothing can be done. I gave them the time and date of an event, they said they would pull the logs, yet nothing was done. They put a comment in the paperwork the system is only a BETA (see att

We have not yet had an accident but have come close due to phantom breaking when using the cruise control with our Tesla. We have reported the concern to Tesla as of 7/21/22 and were told to reset the computer but they have not been able to offer any other solutions. We are very concerned for our safety as we cannot reliability use our cruise control.

When driving at highway speeds on open roads with light traffic with the adaptive cruise control ON the car would severely brake at random. I have seen this referred to a "Phantom Braking" in other reports. This happens several times an hour and the brakes are severely applied automatically, reducing the speed from 70-80mph to 40-50mph before I can intervene by stepping on the accelerator pedal. It is a frightening experience and can throw the driver and passengers up against the seat belts. This is a critical safety issue because it can result in a rear end accident if a car is following too closely. I have not taken the vehicle for inspection yet but I see there are many reports of this same problem on social media and the NTSB has already opened an investigation on this problem. The vehicle is only a few weeks old and it became noticeable during a long distance open road trip through the open highways in Utah, Idaho and Nevada.

Adaptive cruise control kept abruptly decelerating and/or braking whenever a car passed in the opposite direction on a two lane highway. It also sometimes did the same thing when going over a rolling hill. As the feature exists now, it is completely unusable on certain roads. There is a risk of a rear end collision if the car brakes for no reason when using adaptive cruise control. At the very least, there should be an option to disable the adaptive feature of cruise control when the system is unable to work properly.

Phantom braking at highway speed nearly caused an accident. Happened several times over a 400 mile trip. Tesla's "Navigate on Autopilot" feature apparently confused other vehicles on the highway for hazards, and slammed on brakes, creating a collision risk for cars behind me. It also happened when the painted line on a highway ended and the road split. The car may have confused this for the road ending altogether, and it slammed on brakes while I was going at 65 mph. This is a new car (3 weeks old).

Ever since I have had this car.....Dec 2021; phantom breaking is a real problem. I am just driving along with out autopilot on, it will slam on the brakes and I nearly got rear-ended numerous times. This has happen so many times that it is very frustrating. I reported this to you back months ago and nothing has been done. THIS IS VERY DANGEROUS! WILL THIS EVER GET RESOLVED? [XXX] INFORMATION Redacted PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6).

While driving on the highway with the "cruise control' on, the car automatically braked two times during my travels. No other cars were around me.

While using Tesla adaptive cruise control on the Ohio Turnpike on a sunny day, the brakes engaged , causing the vehicle to slow quickly. There were no obvious obstructions, other vehicles, road conditions, or formations that should have caused the system to brake. There was a large green and white reflective road sign along the right side of the road. I was able to press the accelerator and return to speed. If I hadn't been able to return the car to speed quickly, a large truck behind me would have had to brake hard to avoid a collision.

When seat is wet or damp (from a wet water bottle or sweat), passenger restraint light comes on and system is confirmed to not work properly when that happens.

May 29,2022, while I was parking in front of La Fittness in Escondido, Ca, I was in zero speed, adjusting my parking to make sure I was in right spot, suddenly car accelerated with unbelievable speed and struck the car located in the parking lane on the other side of my car which in turn struck another car and that car struck another car in front. I suspect the sudden unintended acceleration was due to a defect in the electronic system, thankfully no body got injured and the other cars involved in the accident were parked and unoccupied. I reported this problem on May 31, was promised Tesla will investigate the problems and report back to my within 3 to 4 weeks, after many follow up emails and phone calls, I have not received any response from Tesla, two cars was totaled and I am having nightmares since accident with no car, since we got solar to buy electric cars, nothing is available to buy right now.

I'm looking for an update to the reported Tesla "phantom braking" issue when on Autopilot. We experienced this at least 5 times during an April 2022 road trip from SLC to Vegas, so bad we didn't feel comfortable enabling Autopilot (cruise control) on the drive home to SLC. This made for a very difficult 6 hour drive as Tesla's are very hard to keep a consistent speeding since they are so quiet/powerful...w/out some sort of auto speed regulation. I didn't know where to report this and was simply waiting for an over-the-air update for this to be addressed by Tesla and have seen none and no follow up news reports. I'm assuming this must be affecting 100's of thousands of Tesla owners.