Complaint volume
270 consumer-submitted complaints are matched to this model year. Treat the count as a research signal, then read the actual summaries for repeated symptoms.
Complaint records
2020 Tesla Model Y Complaints
270 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2020 Tesla Model Y, grouped by component category.
270 Total complaints
47 Crash reports
0 Fire reports
17 Injury reports
Complaint data reflects consumer-submitted reports. A complaint is not proof
of a defect, recall, or manufacturer fault. Enriched severity fields come
from official bulk records when the complaint can be matched by ODI number.
Buyer interpretation
How to use these complaints before buying
Complaint records are most useful when they turn into inspection points, seller questions, and comparison checks against nearby model years.
Pattern to inspect
The most common categories are forward collision avoidance, unknown or other, suspension. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Severity flags
Enriched records include 47 crash reports, 0 fire reports, 17 injury reports, and 0 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 50 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 16,193 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to forward collision avoidance, unknown or other, suspension?
- Can I see recent maintenance and repair records?
- Has the vehicle ever been towed, involved in a crash, or repaired for the same issue twice?
- Can we also check the recall record for this 2020 Tesla Model Y?
Used-car checklist
Use these complaints before the test drive.
Build a buyer checklist to turn these issues into questions and inspection points.
2020 Tesla Model Y
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2020 Tesla Model Y complaints?
47 Crash
0 Fire
17 Injury
0 Fatality
25 Towed
13 Medical attention
What are the most common 2020 Tesla Model Y complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 44
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 17
SUSPENSION 15
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 11
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 11
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 9
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 9
SERVICE BRAKES 7
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 7
STEERING 6
270 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 2022 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| May 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | SUSPENSION | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,LANE DEPARTURE | 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 | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | When activating the turn signal at night, the blind spot warning image will display a glare that obfuscates the view of approaching vehicles. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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?????? | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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!!! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Mar 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VISIBILITY/WIPER,LANE DEPARTURE | Blind spot camera is unusable at night due to bleed through of light from turn signal. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | WHEELS,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Injuries: 1 Towed Medical attention | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When using the autonomous driving mode, the car unexpectedly decelerates with no warning and with no obvious traffic or other issue triggering the behavior. This has happened several times in dry, light conditions with no surrounding traffic. After experiencing this I have not used the autonomous mode again as it's completely unsafe. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2020 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while driving at various speeds with the adaptive cruise control activated the vehicle would erroneously reduce speed. The failure occurred on multiple occasions. On another occasion, while driving 70 MPH, the vehicle abruptly decelerated to 50 MPH. The cause of the failure was not determined. The manufacturer and local dealer were not notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 3,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 3,000 |
| Feb 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I saw the article today that other Tesla Model 3 and Model Y drivers were reporting phantom braking. My model Y has been doing this at a specific spot on the 5 Fwy south in the carpool lane in Santa Ana, CA. I now avoid that spot. I thought if it helps to be able to repeat this problem for investigative purposes I can duplicate it at this location. [XXX] INFORMATION Redacted PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6). | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | We experienced multiple (4-5) "phantom" braking events while driving cross-country using Adaptive Cruise Control & Lane Keeping Assistance on open Interstate highways during the summer of 2021. There were no vehicles or other obstacles in our driving lane ahead. Sometimes it seemed like it happened when we approached a shady underpass. Other times we couldn't see anything that might have confused the Adaptive Cruise Control. We did not have full Autopilot engaged during any of these times, only Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Keeping Assistance. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 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. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | STRUCTURE,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | 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. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |