Complaint volume
1019 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 Y Complaints
1019 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2021 Tesla Model Y, grouped by component category.
1019 Total complaints
85 Crash reports
6 Fire reports
22 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, vehicle speed control,forward collision avoidance, service brakes,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 85 crash reports, 6 fire reports, 22 injury reports, and 4 fatality reports. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 98 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 16,683 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to forward collision avoidance, vehicle speed control,forward collision avoidance, service brakes,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 Y?
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 Y
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2021 Tesla Model Y complaints?
85 Crash
6 Fire
22 Injury
4 Fatality
63 Towed
14 Medical attention
What are the most common 2021 Tesla Model Y complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 280
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 72
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 70
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 64
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 44
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 34
SUSPENSION 30
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 29
STEERING 26
VISIBILITY/WIPER 19
1,019 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Unexpected and rapid slowing/braking of vehicle since new in November of 2021. Occurs when on cruise control usually at highway speed, more often on open highways and have possibly (though not always) related it to cresting a hill, distant reflective “water mirage” on our western roads, passing large trucks, two lane highway having large oncoming trucks +/- on curves. On one occasion while passing a semi truck with car on my tail came within a foot or so of being rear ended. Many other occasions where got to point I do not feel safe using the cruise control. We have driven it from Denver to Tucson in November and back in May, both times was worse on wide open western roads, sometimes tho not always with bright sun, pretty unpredictable and random but often to point of not using any of our autopilot or cruise control functions with confidence of safety. No warnings, lights or prehappening signs. Reported and examined in Tucson on arrival there in Nov/21. Told would “get better with time” and further hardware updates. Hasn’t happened with city driving (tho rarely use cruise control. Happened a couple times on highway drives in Arizona while on cruise and thought maybe better until recent trip to Denver when it was as severe as November. Again contacted Tesla and told would lengineers are aware of problem and would be fixed with hardware app fix at end of June. Recontact them in July if still an issue. When serviced in November for this issue tech said he could see in computer log what was happening. When I set up appointment this time basically said live (or die) with it until June and nothing they could do til “hardware fix”. In blanks below I entered last episodes date. It has been ongoing from 11/2021 to present at speeds from 50 to 80 mph. Started with first trip when less than 300 miles til present 5436 miles on it. Could almost guarantee it would happen on highway trip with cruise control if you would like to risk your life on a test drive. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES | During our trip from San Jose, CA to Park City, Utah, we experienced number time phantom break while the car was in autopilote mode. All of the incidences were on the highway and there were no traffic. The car came to a sudden slow down. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The vehicle braked and slowed down on the highway for no reason when on autopilot. The speed of the vehicle was around 55 mph when suddenly it stated to decelerate for no reason. Ot resume speed after 100 ft or so | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When autopilot, it’s sudden breaks with no reason. My wife got neck injury. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The vehicle phantom breaks spontaneously upon an interstate drive for 1.5 hours on cruise control it will slam on the breaks between 3-5 times when there is no car or object near the vehicle. This has been reported to Tesla and they do nothing and pose no solution to the problem. It is dangerous and going to cause accidents. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This is a supplement to NHSTA Safety Issue ID 11467902. I requested service from Tesla. Attached is the service center's response writing that it is software subject to updates. This is unacceptable to me as the car is not driveable with this safety issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM | Car consistently slows down to 25 MPH in 60MPH zone on i4 with Auto-Pilot enabled. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | During 350 miles of driving, I experienced over 35 phantom braking events. Most were while driving at 75 mph. Some were while driving 45 mph. It did not matter whether I was in Autosteer with cruise, cruise alone or driving manually. I turned off Emergency Braking on the screen. I still had incidents. Some incidents were severe to the point that I could feel the ABS. There were no other cars, structures, signs etc. in the vicinity. Had there been a semi following me, there would have been an accident. If another car, I could only hope that they had traffic aware cruise and emergency braking. This is unacceptable as it is so dangerous. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I have been experiencing that my Tesla suddenly automatically slammed on the brakes while it’s on self driving mode on highway specifically I-66 and while returning from my work from Nebraska Avenue complex to Ashburn VA. This automatically phantom braking is very dangerous. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | Recently, I had a long distance trip and and Tesla Model Y braked the vehicle at highway speed when it was on Advanced cruise control 3 or 4 times with obvious reasons. I had to push the acceralator pedal to speed up in order to avoid rear ended collision in a bumper to bumper traffic. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car had a phantom braking incident where I was on the freeway with the autopilot set and the car slammed the brakes on because it thought it saw a person in the freeway. This is what it showed on the screen. The car decreased the speed from 70 mph to 40mph. There was no notification of this decrease. This has happened before in the car, but not as drastically and it doesn’t happen very often. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking. Had car on cruise control and FSD and car would brake excessively for no reason. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | For the last several software versions, the car experienced “phantom breaking” when on a high speed roadway with no apparent obstacles in the road. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The Back windows go up and down when trying to roll them up. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE | On June 2 around 3:40pm CDT while driving in cruise control on I-43 in Wisconsin around 70mph my car suddenly went into corrective lane assist with warning alerts and steering wheel action. There was no reason this should have happened. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Driving on I-43 in Wisconsin on June 2 around 2pm CDT while in cruise control the car suddenly went into emergency braking and slowed down dramatically requiring me to override the system. There was very little traffic and a semi-truck about 200-300 yards ahead of me. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was driving on Auto pilot and with no obstacle in sight or the need to do so, the car AEB system get activated ( PHANTOM BRAKING) another complaint that I got is went the traffic lights changes to green and I'm on Auto Pilot and the car slower down on the middle of crossing that intersection that can create an accident because the car from behind do not expect you slower down, the AEB system get activated went it's nothing in front of you. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,BACK OVER PREVENTION | 2021 Tesla's rear-view camera and collision warning systems did not activate when backing out of a parking spot. Tesla screen showed the navigation map instead of the rear-view camera while I was backing out at low speed ~2 mph. A 2003 Honda Pilot directly behind me was also backing up at the same time resulting in a collision. After the crash, I confirmed that all safety features were enabled and I have always installed all regularly scheduled updates. After searching online forums, I found many customers reporting problems with their on-screen camera not activating. I have noticed that the camera did not consistently activate in the past. Sometimes it would, other times I would have to manually press the Camera button on-screen in order to view behind me. There were no on-screen notifications of problems before the event. However, there was one notable change I made to re-enable Sentry Mode (security) after being disabled for some time. Prior to the event, I was notified that two Sentry Camera events were available to watch but they would not load when I touched on screen. After the crash, I discovered after the crash that both Sentry and Dash Cam were not working so there was no footage at all of the crash! Nor were these Sentry events visible. This leads me to believe there is a bug with the camera system. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | The brakes engage during lane assist mode as if to avoid something in the road although there is nothing there. This happens many times on a road trip from Phoenix to Los Angeles on I 10. It also happened multiple times on the freeway in town in Phoenix. It is very jarring | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using the autopilot (not full self driving feature) on the highway, I have experienced multiple inatances sudden braking for no reason. No vehicle has been in front of me in these instances and it has occurred most often on undivided highways and highways where there is a hill. This has made engaging the autopilot dangerous as there are cars behind me and I could have been rear-ended on multiple occasions. Additionally, while driving manually on city streets where there are stop signs, there have been multiple instances where the vehicle has given me a forward collision warning because I am slowing down to a vehicle that is ahead of me at the stop sign. This has most often happened on uphill and downhill instances where there are stop signs. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While the car is in “autopilot” (we did not pay for full self driving package), the car will apply braking often while at posted speeds on interstates and highways in Montana, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. Our observations notice it happens when the road color transitions between older and newer road surfaces and in curved sections of roadway (especially curves to the left). We are looking for a replacement electric vehicle now due to this problem. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | My Model Y Tesla, while driving on the freeway using full self driving, would abruptly slow down from 70mph to 40 mph in matter of seconds without warning and luckily there was nobody around me. I did a bug report on it many times but Tesla discounted that. Also my front windshield wipers would come on for no reason even on a sunny day. Sometime on a raining day when going into a tunnel the windshield wipers would stop and would not come back on when I get out of the tunnel and that is really scarily as I was unable to see during heavy rain. I had to manually turn it on and that took a few seconds and in the meantime I could not see anything due to heavy rain. I brought this to Tesla and they told me that the windshield wiper control and the headlight use the same sensor and there is nothing I can do except to place the windshield wiper on manual mode. The rain detection wipers are on many different model cars without issues. I am not sure why Tesla could not add an additional sensor just for the windshield wipers. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car suddenly stops as if the traffic ahead is stopped. I noticed it happens when the auto pilot is on. I gave up using the autopilot because I have experienced the sudden break and I have missed having an accident. It kind of feel like the sensors from the sides get the idea that if the side lane is going slow the car has to break suddenly. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Driving on highway at 65 mph suddenly drive speed to 30 miles as if emergency brakes were applied. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Jun 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Tesla Phantom breaking issues on my Model Y. Clear roads and then sudden deceleration in perfect weather conditions with no nearby cars | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |