There are 50 owner-reported speed control & cruise complaints for the 2019 Tesla Model 3in NHTSA's database. These are unverified consumer reports and may not reflect confirmed defects.
The contact owns a 2019 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while the vehicle was stopped at a residential gate, the vehicle unexpectedly accelerated. There was no warning light illuminated. The vehicle was towed to a private residence. No warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 80,000.
Phantom braking (as it's referred to by experts) happened to me twice on the highway using Traffic-Aware-Cruise-Control. Very scary. I was on cruise control going 60 mph when suddenly my car braked suddenly and inappropriately, losing at least 20 mph in a split second before I was able to slam on the accelerator and prevent an accident (rear-end collision). This happened TWICE in the course of 5 minutes on the same highway! There was no obstruction in the road, no cars moving into my lane, nothing but normal road conditions, when it occurred. From my research, this is a huge problem with Tesla vehicles that thousands of individuals are loudly complaining about online and now in court cases in the country. I see there are thousands of reports to your organization about this, but it says you have only complaints from 2021 and later years. However, I have a 2019 and it's happening to me. And it's happening to every single model year out there, just from researching and talking to Tesla owners. This is a major safety hazard, plain and simple. I was inches of being in a rear-end collision, and drivers behind me are extremely upset and vengeful on the road after an incident like this (understandably!). Because of this I fear for my safety and well-being on the road using Tesla's cruise control features. Very disappointing. Above for the ADAS option, I wasn't able to select 2 options, but "automatic emergency braking" is also applicable here as that is what happened. Somehow Teslas are falsely activating emergency braking during cruise control!
When cruise control or self-driving systems are engaged, there have been numerous times when the automatic emergency braking system mistakenly slowed the car suddenly. At 70+ mph, this is incredibly dangerous. The AEBS apparently sees shadows as dangers. Fortunately, there has never been an instance when another vehicle has been close behind.
Tesla has combined cruise control with their Auto Pilot feature. Now there is no human override to what speed limit to use, Tesla determines the speed to used based on certain criteria. This puts the driver at risk who may want to lower or increase the speed limit based on certain conditions Tesla may not be able to detect. For me it was a 9 PM run to the store thru an area that had temporary road construction and known to be a speed trap zone.
I was at a toll booth paying for tow. All of a sudden the car accelerated forward by itself, ramming into the toll bar. At that time, my arm was still sticking out the window while interacting with the toll terminal. This incident is something that needs to be looked at. It certainly looks like this is a result of the accident avoidance feature. Not sure why it activated either. But I am 99.9% sure that I did not accidentally press the gas pedal because I had to slam on the brakes to stop. Currently contacting Tesla to see if they can get the log to prove whether I accidentally press the pedal or not. In addition to this, there were reports of inverter spikes causing acceleration issues. Please look into the linkage of these incidents. As an electrical engineer myself, this is very alarming.
I have a 2019 Model 3 and yesterday, while making a left turn and applying pressure to the brake, receiving feedback from the brake, my car lurched forward for about half a second. I thought I may have been rear ended, but no one was behind me. This has happened on the freeway before as well. I'll be accelerating at a totally even place and BAM, I'll jolt forward out of nowhere. On the rare occasions that I use the car's "autopilot" feature, I will also encounter phantom braking, but that's easily avoided by not using the feature, which I haven't since first encountering the problem. I haven't suffered any damages from this, but if my car is able to do this, that's extremely alarming. What if this tripped while I was parking?
Multiple extreme braking so much where today actually hurt my neck it stopped so abruptly up a hill miscalculating that a walker was about to be hit by my car, the man was nowhere near being hit and the auto braking skid to a halt whipping my head forward and my sweatshirt choked my Adams Apple area. It was extremely abrupt, scared me, the walker and nearly caused a rear end collision with the car behind me. This has happened a lot in the past 3 months yet I’ve had the car for over 4 years so I am assuming something is wrong with the software updates - it’s super scary not to have control of your own car. Also, I can opt out of auto braking on my car yet that’s not what I’m reporting, I’m reporting the fact that it’s phantom braking miscalculating street situations and causing dangers to me, my passengers and others like I’ve described above. Also noticed recently, when I hit the gas, it’s often the car doesn’t “go” it pauses and then may go with similar miscalculation of street situations like pedestrians on a adjacent sidewalk or motorcycles in between cars yet literally the Tesla won’t let me move…this isn’t safe.
I live in a very rural area with very little traffic on two-lane country roads. When my cruise control is active, my Tesla sometimes brakes for no reason. A couple of days ago it violently braked from 70 mph to 50 mph for absolutely no reason. On that particular trip of 30 miles or so it "phantom braked" four times. I have had this car for almost 4 years and this problem appears to be getting worse.
The car will not allow me to use the cruise control, or put the car into auto-steer. Tesla says it do to a coax cable that is damaged or gone bad. Additionally the day a camera repeater also needs to be replace. The car has only 62,000 miles and is 4 year old. Which is out of Warranty.
The right camera and coax cable have gone bad. The coax cable is corroded and have water inside the camera. This is affect the car to use cruise control and the auto steer function.
On long, straight interstate highway roads where speed limit is 80mph in GOOD to EXCELLENT weather and visibility conditions the vehicle on average would apply emergency braking at least 10x per 1,000 miles when no hazard or obstruction was present. This was often caused by asphalt color changes, slight hills, or shimmer in the distance…all of which are normal conditions for average driving. If vehicle was being followed closely by another car it had potential to cause high speed collision and injury or death.
The car on multiple occasions while driving on the highway with either the cruise control or autopilot engaged, drastically brakes and slows down for no reason. These slowdowns are drastic and have occurred when there are no other cars or conditions to cause the response. The braking is so dramatic that it is unlikely that I could have intervened in time to prevent a trailing vehicle from potentially rear ending my car. The speed change was so drastic that a trailing driver also may not have been able to react in time. This is a serious issue that must be corrected without delay. This typically issue occurs within 15 minutes of engaging the cruise control or autopilot and has happened multiple times. The date below is the most recent occurrence.
On Feb. 18, 2023 when the Tesla model 3 was being driven on I-66E in a regular lane (55mph speed limit) parallel to an I-66 express lane (posted limit of 70 mph) going in the same direction, the car display showed the higher posted speed limit of the express lane. As a result, in assisted cruise control mode, the car would speed up more than 15 mph faster than the permitted speed for the non-express lane. Using assisted cruise control in such a circumstance is a serious hazard, but it has been observed many times on different highways since the vehicle was purchased in 2019. The problem puts the occupants of the car and other vehicles on the road at risk. The problem was initially experienced on I-395 and reported to Tesla in 2019 soon after purchase, but no action or follow-up was made. Recently, the problem has been consistently detected multiple times in similar circumstances.
The contact owns a 2019 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving at 3 MPH and slowing the vehicle into his residence driveway, as he took his foot off the accelerator the vehicle accelerated at a high rate of speed forward. The vehicle crashed into the residence and entered the house. The contact stated he did not notice any warning lights. The contact was rendered unconscious and was transported by ambulance to an ER. The contact stated that the air bags did not deploy. The contact had sustained a broken back and had fractured his sternum. The vehicle was towed to an impound lot and had not been repaired. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 35,000.
This morning, I was driving using FSD beta and the car swerved and veered almost directly into the curb, head-on. I was able to capture the data using the car's built-in dashcam and saved it, though I can't upload it to this site. I was able to slam on the brakes at the last minute and luckily no one else was around as it could have easily injured someone else and/or damaged my vehicle.
While freeway driving with autopilot (adaptive cruise control) engaged the car will suddenly break VERY hard when there is no reason to. This is SUPER dangerous when traveling at 70 mph and someone is behind me. This is a known issue (phantom breaking) that has been a problem for years and not resolved.
While the vehicle has adaptive cruise control engaged, there are times it applies braking (sometimes aggressive braking) for no reason (commonly referred to as phantom braking). It’s almost as if the vehicle thinks there is an object in front of it and is applying emergency braking, however there is nothing on the road. In my experiences, it happens mostly on the Highway at speeds 60-80mph. This happens on clear days, with no weather concerns. This is a severe issue that will cause accidents (if people are following closely behind me, there is a concern of them hitting me). It is scary and concerning ; this needs to be immediately addressed and corrected.
I was traveling approximately 70 mph in passing lane when I engaged (standard) autopilot, as I approached to pass a vehicle with another vehicle following me in the same lane as I was traveling. My vehicle (phantom) braked hard to which the wheels began to squeal slightly and the vehicle behind me had to brake hard to avoid hitting my vehicle. I almost immediately applied pressure to the accelerator pedal to avoid a complete stopping of the vehicle and to which the vehicle responded to accelerate. And I disengaged the autopilot immediately by applying an upward motion on the gear stock.
Car is on cruise control on a two lane highway, posted speed 55 mph. It has ghost emergency stops on cruise control not auto pilot . My car doesn’t have it. It renders a simple feature unusable.
My friend was driving the vehicle (a 2019 Tesla Model 3) while it was engaged in Full Self-Driving Beta 10.12.2 mode. The vehicle failed to recognise a speed limit change approaching a sharp left turn. The vehicle took the turn too fast at 29mph veered into the oncoming lane. The quick reactions of the driver, who took control averted a collision. There is Go_Pro video of the incident here https://vimeo.com/736115753/289c3413e9
Showing 1–20 of 50 complaints
Complaints are unverified consumer reports submitted to NHTSA. A high complaint count may reflect vehicle popularity, not defect severity. Data sourced from NHTSA public records.
Data synced from NHTSA on May 4, 2026