NHTSA Owner Complaint Log
This page lists owner-reported complaints filed with NHTSA for the 2020 Tesla Model Y. Complaints are unverified consumer reports submitted to NHTSA and do not by themselves prove a defect or defect rate.
With car in cruise control on freeway, sudden and hard application of brakes by vehicle, no human input.
Vehicle routinely forcefully applies the brakes for no apparent or warranted reason causing vehicles behind to take evasive maneuvers to avoid striking our vehicle. The vehicle on several occasions has also unexpectedly veered out of our lane into another lane, into oncoming traffic or off the road.
My Tesla Y lost one of the rear tires pressure suddenly, without any warning. Tire was totally flat. There is no spare tire and I had to get it towed to workshop around 100 miles away Tesla Road side assistance did not help at all.
The welding link on the frunk is broken and while driving the frunk is pressing down while driving the car.
Phantom Breaking - While utilizing cruise control (not even autonomous driving function) the car will randomly slow down/ apply breaks and decrease speed without warning. This has happened multiple times and there is no warning before hand 1) Looks to be the cruise/ automatic emergency breaking malfunctioning. Yes available 2) Dramatic slow down/ breaking on highways going ~70 MPH with cars behind threatens to lead to an accident 3) I have seen numerous corroborating reports but have not taken my car in yet as it does not seem like a solution has been found 4) No 5) No
The automatic braking came one while I was driving 70 mph on Hwy 86 through New York State as we approached 3 of the 5 or 6 overpass bridges. My speed dropped quickly to 50 mph, at which point I hit the accelerator to get back up to highway speed. A similar behavior happened several times on this trip when going though an S-shaped curve. Similar behavior also occurred at slower speed ( 30-40 mph) when a car turn in front of me when the car was about 1 block in front of me and turned safely and cleared my path easily. I would have not braked in this situation.
Touchscreen repeatedly freezes. Won’t show gear selection, speed, or any other items. The touchscreen freezes then takes some time to crash to black screen before reboot. Has happened daily since Tesla update. Tesla refuses to provide a fix and continues to tell us to wait for an update. This is unsafe.
Touch screen in the car does not work. Completely unresponsive. This have I cannot have anything in the car - a/c, use safety features like update auto pilot speed, etc. Issues persists even after vehicle was left idle.
When cruise control is on, the vehicle suddenly brakes. I only put cruise control on the freeway and it has happened 4-5 times over the course of last year, as recently as 2 weeks ago. I had to take over operation of the throttle and removed cruise control to make sure it wasn't going to cause any issue in traffic.
I have noticed when using Adaptive Cruise Control on my Tesla Model Y that it did phantom braking on me. It has only happened to me about 5 to 6 times and it scared the heck out of me.. Don’t know if I was getting close to a Semi truck and it pulled that phantom braking, but there was a time it just did it on its own when there were no cars around. AutoPilot I have no issue. Hope Tesla comes up with a software fix soon to resolve this issue as I love my Tesla and its a great car to drive..
Upon driving the vehicle, there is a wavy distortion when viewing out of the windshield from the drivers side that can cause dizziness (amongst other symptoms) to a motion sensitive driver. The distortion itself is at eye level when the seat is adjusted to our drivers, 5'3" and 5'5". In order to reduce (not eliminate) the amount of impairment, the seats need to be adjusted lower or higher than recommended and could cause a different safety issue with the vehicle. This can also be a risk to any riders in the car if the driver of the vehicle suffers any negative effects of motion sickness. Cold sweats, dizziness, light headed-ness, and vomiting are symptoms that I personally experience if this visual experience happens for a duration of time (30-60mins). An appointment with Tesla has been scheduled to troubleshoot at this time, but there is no public statement from Tesla about the infraction. There are, however, a number of drivers of the same vehicle, complain about the same issue on public Tesla forums. Because this is a glass/windshield issue, there are no associated warnings or messages when it occurred.
Driving in auto pilot mode in the three lane highway between Whitestown lebanon . I was going in the middle lane on autopilot .In the far right lane one Truck is merging into the right most lane.so truck is in the right lane and we are in the middle lane , but auto pilot assumed that we are going to crash and it tried to jump to the left lane and the vehicle automatically wobbled for few seconds and then it became stable in the middle lane. Had there Been a car in the left lane it would have been a fatal accident. If they said that it’s an assisted driving rather than auto pilot I would be more cautious. I bought this car due to the promise of autopilot thinking it’s safer it has put my life in risk which could have lead fatal accidents today. Please refrain Tesla from using the it asthe autopilot and putting peoples life’s at risk.please do take necessary actions to prevent this for any fellow drivers.
My Tesla was in auto pilot, not full self drive. I was merging into traffic on an interstate, in the acceleration lane. Even though the car was in auto Drive, I stepped on the accelerator to merge a little faster. The car stopped dead. It coasted to a complete stop responded to no controls. It had to come to a complete stop in traffic traveling at 65 miles an hour before I could get it to start again. Luckily, I was being followed by my husband because I was taking the car to the auto repair for bodywork. He was able to stop behind me and luckily, neither of us were hit.
unexpected activate brakes while in autopilot. rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle .
Four times in the last six weeks (three while driving) the car has lost all power. My screen either freezes or goes completely black so I have no speedometer, the blinkers do not work, I cannot control the windows or open the doors without the manual override. This usually lasts for 3-5 minutes, sometimes longer - and then the computer resets and everything reloads. Tesla is telling me it is a known issue and I have to wait until they figure out the firmware issue and get the next update. They were not at all concerned about the safety of the car and gave me no suggestions on how to continue to drive safely. The date entered below is the most recent occurrence
We had a crack on the windshield that Safelight tried to fix, but the crack expanded and needed to get a new windshield replaced. It has been 2 months now that we have been waiting on Tesla to get the new part in. In the. meantime, the crack has expanded to over 16 inches and keeps growing. Tesla keeps pushing back the service date claiming that they did not get the windshield in yet. If they do not have windshields, then how are they building new vehicles daily if they have a windshield shortage? The crack in the meantime keeps growing and it is a safety hazard.
The model Y will randomly brake while at freeway speeds. I've seen it go from 80 mph down to 60 mph before I could react. In one instance a semi-truck had to swerve into the left lane to avoid hitting us. The problem has persisted for months and, when reported to Tesla, they denied that it had happened. Consumer received the report from Tesla stating no malfunctions or alerts present. Autopilot and cruise control will adjust vehicle speed for different reasons. Consumer could be override it with the accelerator pedal without canceling driver assistance features.
I had taken my 2020 Tesla Model Y to have the rear tires replaced. The mechanic at the tire shop noticed a nut missing and a bolt about ready to fall out of one of the suspension rods on the driver side rear of the vehicle. The mechanic took a picture before fixing and then checked the rest of the nuts and bolts on the rear suspionsion on both sides of the vehicle. I had begun to notice a considerably shimmy with the rear of the car when going over railroad tracks, dips, and bumps in the road. I also thought it was odd that the rear tires were wearing faster and maybe this had something to do with that if the alignment was out of wack.
The car keeps phantom braking at highway speeds when there are changes in the color of the road surface or sometimes when overtaking a slower car or truck in the right lane.
While sitting behind a car at a red light, the car suddenly went into autopilot and spontaneously accelerated forward at a high speed, causing a rear end collision and over $7000 damages to my car. The sedan that was rear ended by me incurred damages but I have no idea how much. . This is the second time this car has suddenly unintentionally accelerated forward while at a full stop since 1/22 ( I've owned the car since 7/2020). The first time while sitting at a drive through pharmacy window- thank goodness there wasn't a person in front of me! The second time, as stated above, at a red light at a busy intersection. Once again, thank goodness there was a car in front of me to stop the car, otherwise I might have ended up in cross traffic with potentially fatal results. UN-nerving. In light of the Washing Post article, I believe this safety hazard issue needs to be thoroughly investigated before someone gets killed. I've asked for the car data and am still awaiting a manager from Tesla to contact me to discuss what happened and if there was anything on my end that could have caused these incidents to occur. I rarely used by autopilot but since have completely disabled it.
When activating the turn signal at night, the blind spot warning image will display a glare that obfuscates the view of approaching vehicles.
Phantom braking happens frequently. On March 24, 2022, the phantom braking was out of control. It was very difficult to continue safe driving. I have a video of the screen that shows a person in front of my car. The video is a minute long and shows at least 5 such occurrences. Each time the person occurred on the screen the phantom braking happened when the FSD or cruise control was on. I received contradictory information from Tesla when I requested the service. Finally they said that the issue would be corrected in the future probably via several software updates. How can I drive safely until then??????
At multiple occasions, there has been Phantom Braking occurring when on the freeway even when there is no-one ahead of me. Usually does occur when there is a truck next to me.
Operating the vehicle at highway speed of 70 miles per hour on interstate 80 in Illinois. No visible traffic going in either direction for approximately 1/2 mile in all directions when the automatic braking happened for no apparent reason. Scared my wife and myself (both 74 years old) to death. Threw us both forward. My wife now refuses to drive in this Tesla and wants me to sell it. "Phantom Braking" is not an acceptable phenomenon. If there was a tailgating semi behind us we would both be dead today before people die. This must be fixed!!!
While using adaptive cruise control, the car decelerates for no apparent reason. The rapid deceleration of the vehicle could cause the following car to rear end my car. There is no warning when this occurs. I have not reported it to the manufacturer because forums and news show that all owners are impacted. This has happened many times.
I was driving east on I 90 not long after the Bonner exit east of Missoula, Montana. Due to various issues with road conditions I had been using Tesla's Autopilot rather sparingly. After Missoula the roads were clear, bright sunny day around 1 PM, there was no traffic close by. I had AP engaged at this point. For no obvious reason I got the BRIGHT RED STEERING WHEEL TAKE CONTROL IMMEDIATELY warning and chime...at which point, rather startled, I took control and after a minute or two re-engaged AP. Not long after that road conditions deteriorated and I drove most of the way back to Butte.
While traveling on RT 27 South in Florida on a bright sunny day with no traffic around the car and on adaptive cruise control my Tesla Model Y "phantom" braked twice within a mile or two of these incidents. This has happened several times before while on Full Self Driving mode but the first while on cruise control.
This has happened multiple times over the 1.5 years that I have owned the vehicle, but it happened twice again today. The issue I am having with the vehicle is with Phantom breaking. When "Autopilot" is engaged, and the vehicle is travelling along a fairly straight path, occasionally it with brake suddenly for no apparent reason. This can have no real affect, or like today, when driving in heavy traffic this can be the catalyst for an accident or at the very least road rage (as the person behind thinks you are brake checking them). As stated, I've had the car for 1.5 years and this has happened more than 15 times, and I drive the vehicle very little and use Autopilot even less. In my opinion this feature is not quite ready for daily use and should either be corrected or removed.
Without any warning, the display on my car froze up when my car came to a stop, and I could not accelerate. It seemed to say I was going 15 mph, when in fact I was stopped, and the display was completely unresponsive. Stepping on the accelerator did nothing. I could not use my turn signals, activate my 4-way flashers. No one was injured, since this happened on a quiet residential street, and I was able to wave to other motorists to go around me. After about 3 minutes, my car seemed to have reset, and I was able to drive it normally. I would gladly make my vehicle available for inspection upon request.
Whenever I have my car on cruise control on the highway it will randomly brake hard almost causing an accident behind me. I’ve noticed it does it more in express lanes with thin cone dividers / traffic on the other side. I worry it’ll cause someone to slam into me one day.
When you turn on the either signal at night you can not see a clear picture on the blind spot camera's, they have a red haze on the display. It get so bad sometimes you can see anything. It looks like it's caused from the camera and turn signal being in the same housing. I have video I can send you.
Blind spot camera is unusable at night due to bleed through of light from turn signal.
While using the Tesla auto pilot in highway conditions the car would suddenly break or slow down as if the car was trying to avoid another car. There were no other cars in the area. This has happened several times but only in auto pilot.
The car was almost parked and the parking button was about to pressed when the car suddenly accelerated hitting a light pole in front on the passenger side and the car ended up on a lane in a four lane local road perpendicular to traffic flow. The accelerator was definitely not pressed. I have been driving the car for last year and three months and have 26000 miles on it. There was no warning of nearby obstacles or any beeps.
While using the autopilot the car will suddenly slow itself even though there is nothing in front of the car. It happens most often when approaching a large vehicle or truck that is in the lane next to the car. It seems as though the autopilot system is spooked by the truck even though it is staying in its lane. Similarly, there are 2 spots on I-25 in Colorado where the sudden braking happens regardless of what is around the car. It may to do with recent construction because in both places the car slows suddenly at the same point nearly every time I pass through. It was happening at one of these spots after the construction had moved the lanes. The lanes were marked very well and the car had no problem before or after this point. But when passing through the car suddenly slows. The danger is that a car driving behind me would not expect the car to slow down for no reason. A potential rear-end collision danger. Happy to give more detail to add context.
The contact owns a 2020 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving at 40 MPH in the right-hand lane, another vehicle was swerving towards her vehicle, and she instinctively veered to the side of the road. The contact hit a fire hydrant, drove on a sidewalk, and crashed into a building. The air bags failed to deploy. There were no warning lights illuminated. The contact sustained severe whiplash injuries that included torn ligaments in the neck, a large abrasion and bruises on the shoulder, bruised abdomen from the seatbelt. The contact was transported to the hospital by emergency services. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a tow lot. The dealer and the manufacturer were not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 14,608.
i WAS DRIVING SOUTH ON i-75 ABOUT 10AM on January 16, 2022. Traffics was moderated as I was driving in the left lane about 60 mph following another car. It had suddenly started snowing rather hard and the road was wet as it had been for the previous 50 miles. I felt no change in the road or car handling. Another dark SUV started passing me on the left. That seemed normal until the dark car was about 3/4 of the way passed me. Suddenly my Tesla swung to the left and came in contact with the right rear panel of the SUV. I tried to correct my car but it suddenly went out of control to the left. My car suddenly was out of my control and skidded side ways with the right side of the car coming in contract with the guard rail in the center. It happened so fast I could not react as the car took out about 20-30 feet of metal guard rail. It spun around and ended in the center ditch facing the opposite direction. Air bag on the right side deployed and I was in contact with the center front seat. Car was badly damaged with the damage protion mostly the right side of the car. Police came about 30 minutes later. At first I told him I was uninjured but after about 10 minutes my right leg started hurning and I requested an ambulance with took me to the hospital in Corwin Ky. That leg swelled up and x-rays and MRI were taken. Please talk a look at the vided on youtube under TESLACAM... there is a video of the same thing happening to a Tesla driver on a highway in Southern California. I do not know if this is related to the sudden breaking problem with Teslas. I have been driving for over 50 years and this is my first serious accient.
Tesla recently release their version 11 user interface. This update took a lot of safety features and put them behind menus. Windshield wipers, defrosters, seat warmers were all easily accessible in the previous version. Now they are wall hidden behind menus. If you need one of these features while driving, you get distracted while trying to find it which is dangerous. But these features are necessary to use while driving.
We were trying to park the car at Costco Parking lot on Jan 14th, 2022 in the early afternoon. A car had pulled out of a parking spot and indicated us to move forward in that spot. When we tried to move forward,the vehicle suddenly accelerated and hit three other cars. The airbags did not come on. We have asked Tesla to look into this and are awaiting a response. There was damage to front end, both bumpers, hoods, front grill etc. The accident was reported to the Police, Insurance Company and Tesla. The vehicle was towed to Tesla dealership and then was sent to another repair facility, Gerber Collision in Beria, Ohio.
Dear NHTSA, Starting with version 2021.44.25 (also known as the "V11 Holiday Update" colloquially), Tesla removed all windshield and rear window defrost controls from the user interface of the Tesla Models Y and 3. While driving during any precipitation or storm conditions, including in the presence of snow and ice, drivers cannot quickly or easily activate any window de-ice or defrost functions without taking their eyes off the road navigating multiple levels deep into the menus on the in-car tablet. Similarly, Tesla removed the seat heater controls, placing them behind menus on the in-car tablet interface. Neither the windshield/rear window de-ice/defrost controls nor the seat heater functions are available to be placed in the limited number of driver-customizable "slots" now available in the bottom center of the display. Therefore, drivers cannot restore these critical controls to the driver-facing controls and are forced to navigate into menus to select them. Please investigate soonest.
I think regenerative braking makes the Tesla Y fishtail and swerve when driving in snow, ice or slippery surfaces when you decelerate or go downhill. The regenerative brakes cause the car to suddenly brake in snow or ice. If you brake suddenly in snow in a normal car, you may swerve, and this swerving is worse if the car is turned slightly. A friend swerved suddenly going downhill in WA in a snow storm. He recovered by lightly touching the accelerator. My Tesla Y spun 90 degrees when I took foot off accelerator in snowstorm in RI and I was able to recover. Minutes later on expressway at 25 mph, I took foot off accelerator and the car spun 180 degrees and hit a guard rail. In the Chevy Bolt owners manual, under winter driving, the first bullet point they make is to put the car in D--which turns off regenerative braking. You can reduce the amount of regenerative braking on a Tesla, but you can not turn it off. Under driving in winter on the Tesla on the website, there is no mention of reducing the regenerative braking in snow or ice. I think any EV with regenerative braking is at risk of spinning out in snow, ice or on slick surfaces.
Cabin climate control and preconditioning for the battery have failed. Message: "cabin climate control needs service". First noticed around 1/5/22 and report to Tesla Service. Car interior will not heat up at all, causing the car to be unusable due to: no heat, unable to defrost windows. This is a definite safety issue that Tesla has yet to address. We live in upstate NY, and outdoor temps have been very cold. But we did not have any issue in the winter of 2020-2021. We first complained to Tesla on 1/5/22. Tesla scheduled an app't to fix it on 1/18/22 (about 2 weeks later). They then cancelled it, saying "parts are unavailable." We have not been able to use the Tesla since 1/5/22. We have not been able to get any answers from Tesla Service about what parts need to be replaced, or how this can be fixed if it's a software issue. We are leaving for FL tomorrow, and even asked Tesla if they can find a service center between upstate NY and FL that will have the part (or whatever is needed) to fix this. They have been unable or unwilling to give us an answer. In fact, they have not been responding to text messages with the service. They are unwilling to give me a date when this might be fixed. It would be extremely dangerous for us to start the trip in the Tesla Y without any cabin heat/defrosting ability. And normal day-to-day use of the Tesla Y is impossible unless you dress for extreme cold temps -- even that doesn't solve the safety issue of keeping the windows defrosted. Very unhappy with Tesla Service and their lack of ability to help with this SAFETY ISSUE.
It's called phantom braking and it's absolutely dangerous. It happens when on auto pilot.
Phantom Braking constantly. Forward collision whole on Autopilot. Tried recalibrating the camera and the problems persist.
Periodically my car slams on the brakes for no apparent reason. This typically occurs on Interstate highways at normal highway speeds. Sometimes there are bridges or other objects observable but sometimes it's on the open road with no cars or visible reason to rapidly slow down. This is very scary especially for my wife that has back pain all the time. We have chosen to not use the automated driving feature FSD because this seems to be where it occurs most frequently. Although we don't drive that much it has happened enough times that we are very concerned that it could cause a rear end collision if we are in heavy traffic.
In a recent software update, my Model Y’s backup camera has essentially become inoperable. Sometimes the backup camera does not display, or if it does the video feed lags significantly from real time making it unreliable and dangerous.
Heating / defrosting unit failed. While driving to work in 1 degree freezing weather my heating / defrosting unit would not provide a clear fog free windshield so i could safely see outside. Dealer has me scheduled for a date for repair but this is the second time this has happened. First time 9/2021 and now 1/2022. No inspection has happened yet. Warning message displayed saying that the climate control has failed.
my wife who is 130 lbs while driving the passenger airbag turns off, I have told tesla service and they keep saying she needs to sit all the way back in the seat which we have tried and this does not work either, I took it into service to have this fixed and they did not fix it. I continue to send the bug report when it happens, it is oblivious that the sensor is not reading the correct weight. I have been dealing with this for over 5 months
Turn signal causes excessive glare effect on the side repeater cameras during nighttime use. Driver is unable to view blind spot camera feed properly when engaging in a lane change.
Backup camera intermittently fails to activate/engage when the vehicle is in reverse.
Data synced from NHTSA on May 4, 2026