Complaint volume
650 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
2021 Tesla Model 3 Complaints
650 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2021 Tesla Model 3, grouped by component category.
650 Total complaints
45 Crash reports
5 Fire reports
16 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, service brakes,forward collision avoidance, vehicle speed control,forward collision avoidance. Use those categories as a test-drive checklist instead of judging the vehicle from the total count alone.
Severity flags
Enriched records include 45 crash reports, 5 fire reports, 16 injury reports, and 5 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 42 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 18,076 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to forward collision avoidance, service brakes,forward collision avoidance, vehicle speed control,forward collision avoidance?
- 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 2021 Tesla Model 3?
Used-car checklist
Use these complaints before the test drive.
Build a buyer checklist to turn these issues into questions and inspection points.
2021 Tesla Model 3
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2021 Tesla Model 3 complaints?
45 Crash
5 Fire
16 Injury
5 Fatality
38 Towed
18 Medical attention
What are the most common 2021 Tesla Model 3 complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 199
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 57
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 53
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 41
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 33
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 21
VISIBILITY/WIPER 12
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 11
SERVICE BRAKES 10
UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 10
650 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was driving my car and had it on autopilot. The road was empty and all of a sudden the car decided to apply brakes when nothing was infront of it. I was able to take control instantly to prevent a sudden stop however I was lucky there were no cars behind me | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On several occasions while driving in the highway with AutoPilot engaged for adaptive cruise control, the car has suddenly applied the brakes very hard when there were no hazards in my lane. This has occurred on curves in the road when oncoming traffic was detected in the other lane and also when there has been a vehicle stopped on the shoulder. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The Tesla model 3 has unexpectedly braked very hard with no traffic ahead of my vehicle. So fast and hard that seat belts had to restrain passengers. This has happened several times while the Autopilot is engaged. This usually is on a 2 lane road and there is traffic on the opposite side of the road. I have noticed if a semi-tractor trailer is approaching on the opposite side it happens 100 % of the time. The auto also steers hard to the right. This is very scary and a vehicles behind the Tesla have no warning either. I have almost been hit twice from behind. Makes a lot of angry drivers behind me. I have not used the feature in a month. I called Tesla and they said this was NORMAL. It never happened until a recent software update and then it started doing this all the time. Please help | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When the vehicle is in autopilot at high speed, it breaks suddenly without any visible obstacles. This happens at Kraft once every 200 miles of highway driving with autopilot on. The speed drops suddenly from 75 mph to 40 mph. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES | Several times per week, my vehicle brakes automatically for no apparent reason. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When in Autopilot mode, the car will sporadically brake without any obstacles in front of it. This has occurred to me about half a dozen times. Always on the highway. Initially it would happen in the daytime near overpasses or when entering shade from a sunny area. Twice it occurred to me at night, on a well lit interstate in an urban area. This is often referred to as Phantom Breaking. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | My 2021 Tesla model 3 has a issue of what is called Phantom Braking. On 2 lane undivided highways and on all types of roads the car will randomly slam on the brakes to what I assume is to prevent hitting a obstacle that doesn’t exist. The car will apply the brakes extremely fast and drop roughly 20 MPH or more in just a few seconds. I am unable to use cruise control on 2 lane highways because it slams on the brakes it seems like anytime it sees a dip in the road or a mailbox on the side of the road it triggers the emergency braking system. I feel lucky that no one has been behind me while these events have happened. It happens almost every time I drive the car. I have contacted Tesla about this issue and they say everything is fine and they would rather have a lot of false positives than to miss a actual event. I feel like it is a very unsafe feature and needs to be addressed because other manufacturers have this down with hardly any issues. This has been happening on the car since it was new and has not improved the car has 7500 miles on it. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Car suddenly brakes, also known as Phantom Braking, when in Cruise Control. It does it mostly on 2 lane roads, but it has done it driving on wide open freeways too. It's bad. Makes me feel very unsafe. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car has twice gone into emergency braking mode on the interstate for no good reason. One incident was as the car was approaching a dark shadow area under an overpass, and the other was in a construction zone and I have no idea what triggered it. In both cases if someone had been following closely I may have been in trouble. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Similar to the reporting of others, I wanted to confirm that we had a problem with our Tesla 3 auto-pilot feature erroneously triggering emergency braking by misinterpreting oncoming traffic. This happened twice in a similar situation. While driving on a single-lane highway in auto-pilot, the car abruptly braked when a semi-truck passed in the opposite lane. This sudden deceleration could have lead to a rear-end collision but fortunately the driver behind had left enough breaking space. The same thing occurred again on the same road - also with a semi-truck in the opposing lane. This time, vigilant that the auto-pilot might be malfunctioning, the sudden breaking was quickly overcome by pressing the accelerator. There is no doubt on our end that the current version of the auto-pilot will trigger emergency braking mistakenly based on misinterpreting opposing traffic. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car was on FSD jerked right toward a semi truck then jerked left toward the posts in the median as it was accelerating and FSD would not turn off. Was trying to control the car but it kept pushing and accelerating causing us to crash in to the median posts. Normally FSD would turn off if it was unsure but this day it would not. Plus other times it would phantom brake if we were on 2 lane road and met on oncoming large truck. We also had other times of phantom braking going over a hill. We have reported this to Tesla but no response yet. We owned this car 11 days when our wreck happened. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | With the Autopilot engaged on the freeway I have had several of these phantom braking experiences but last night I was lucky to avoid a accident with the car following me.. This happened at 74 miles per hour with the autopilot engaged the brakes slow me down to 60 miles per hour before I could disengage the autopilot. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This car has "Phantom braking" issue. As the autopilot was on, on the freeway, the speed was around 70 mph, it brakes without any obstacles or car in the front, just a not very even road. Speed dropped suddenly, felt like an emergency. This scared me to use autopilot. And phantom braking happened several times. When I raised this issue to Tesla dealership for repair, the answer is - "software updates constantly make autopilot better, and it is in beta and driver agree to it every time driver engage autopilot. Tesla will never force you to use autopilot and can drive normal like any other car." | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When the vehicle is in cruise control mode, the brakes will engage for no apparent reason. It has happened three times. The brakes will engage then release causing the car to quickly decelerate and disengage the cruise control. It has only happened on the freeway when driving, no other cars are in front or braking in front of the car. There is no apparent reason for the braking other then cruise control mistake. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | While driving from Austin to Nashville, during the last, dark part of our drive, we hit rain. The Auto windshield wiper setting did not work, so I had my passenger help with selecting wiper speeds as the wiper speed control is difficult and distracting to use while driving. We tried the Auto setting a couple more times to see if there was any change, and noticed that the wipers would turn on when we drove under a light, then off again when the there was no light. We tested this a few more times and it appears that the Auto wiper setting only works in well-lit settings (i.e. when it's not raining), and does not work in the dark. It is possible to click a button on the left stalk to trigger a single wipe, but this is ineffective in anything beyond light rain. Due to the inaccessibility of the wiper controls and insufficiency of the single-wipe button, this presents a safety risk while driving the car in the rain. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I owned this 2021 Tesla Model 3 for six months. On many occasions, while using the adaptive cruise control mainly on two-lane roads at various speeds between 35-55 MPH, the car would unexpectedly rapidly apply the brakes when there was no hazard present. This almost got me in a road rage situation, as the following vehicle thought that I intentionally brake-checked them. I discontinued using the system. I no longer on this vehicle, but can provide new owner’s information if needed. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 1) When using autosteer and/or adaptive cruise control the vehicle randomly brakes and very rapidly decelerates. This has occurred on at least a dozen drives, beginning on my first long road trip after owning the car for 2 months. 2) If another vehicle is following my car, we could very easily get into a rear-end accident. This happens at high speeds going from 75mph to 55mph in seconds, so the chance of a collision is high. I also become very scared when this happens which temporarily takes my attention away from driving. 3) No the problem has not been reproduced by a dealer. I live 150 miles from the nearest Tesla dealership. 4) No the vehicle has not been inspected. 5) No warning signs which is why this "phantom braking" is SO TERRIFYING. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while driving at an undisclosed speed with the cruise control engaged, the vehicle would independently brake without warning. The contact stated that he saw an article that referred to the failure as “Phantom Braking”. Neither the dealer nor the manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle had yet to be diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 2,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 2,000 |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | During the use of the Autopilot feature in Tesla, the car suddenly starts braking with no obstacles. This can cause a safety incident on the road when there are vehicles behind and the Tesla suddenly stops for no apparent reason. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | During use of the autopilot system on my trip from wilmington DE to GA and vice versa, at nurmeous times the car would automatic hard break dropping the speed by 20mph+ stating there are emergency vehicles while there wasn't any or any vehicle in front on the highway, and at various other time during the drive it would auto slow down 1-2 mph for no reason both causing unsafe driving conditions. Each day this happened over 10+ times | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When car is driving on autopilot on highway, it slams on the brakes on its own. This has happened 2-3 times. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking while using cruise control and/or auto pilot. This is most disconcerting at highway speeds especially when it sounds safety alarms most times while doing it | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving on autopilot on the highway at about 65MPH the car applied the brakes for no reason. The car descends in speed aggressively and can easily cause a rear end collision. This has happened randomly before as well. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom breaking. Severe application of brakes resulting in up to but not limited to 25 mph decrease of speed when semis are oncoming in other lane. Other times without any vehicles around. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I have owned my Tesla Model 3 with FSD for 9 months and have over 10000 miles of driving in the city and highway. Ghost braking has occurred on many occasions and is worse on two lane highways with commercial trucks approaching in the opposite oncoming lane. The vehicle inappropriately and suddenly decelerates from 65 mph to 40 mph. I have had to stop using FSD and adaptive cruise control because of this erratic issue. Recent trip using cruise control (not FSD) on a 4 lane divided highway (I-70 eastbound) there was no surrounding vehicles, no blind hills, obstacles or inclement weather and the vehicle went from 80 mph to 56 mph within a few seconds, requiring me to disengage the cruise control and accelerate to avoid being rear ended. The cruise control and FSD are dangerous and life threatening due to this erratic problem, please start an investigation and recall to remedy these issues before drivers and passengers are injured or killed. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |