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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On 2021 August 18 Wednesday at approximately 2:40 pm (Eastern time USA) and again at 2:59 pm, my Model Y braked severely while driving at high speed. Weather: Moderate to heavy rain due to passage of the remnants of Hurricane Fred. Location - incident 1 (about 2:40 pm): Pennsylvania Turnpike eastbound, just west of the Somerset exit. Location - incident 2 (2:59 pm): PA 219 South (limited-access expressway) near Meyersdale, PA. Situation/speed - incident 1: (2:40 pm): Driving in the passing lane traveling at approximately 70 mph. Cruise control was engaged. Situation/speed - incident 2: (2:59 pm): Driving in the passing lane traveling at approximately 70 mph. Cruise control was engaged. Description of incident (2:40 pm): The incident happened on a downhill curve while passing another vehicle when the Model Y braked suddenly and sharply. The speed dropped from approximately 70 mph to approximately 40 mph. The area was a construction zone but not an active construction zone at the time. There were construction barrels and flags on the shoulder of the left lane. There were concrete Jersey barriers/K-rails in the median strip between the eastbound and westbound lanes. The lane markings were visible but may have become obscured by rain/mist and a vehicle in the right lane. There was no vehicle behind the Model Y. Description of incident 2 (2:59 pm): While passing another vehicle the Model Y braked suddenly and sharply. The speed dropped from approximately 70 mph to approximately 55 mph. The area was a staging area for a construction zone but not an active construction zone at the time. There were construction barrels and flags on the shoulder of the left lane but no other barriers or fences. The lane markings were visible but may have become obscured by rain/mist and a vehicle in the right lane. There was no vehicle behind the Model Y. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | North bound on interstate highway, my vehicle rapidly deaccelerated and then accelerated without warning | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When driving with cruise control on I experience issues with sudden braking. Sometimes it seems like it may be an error due to on coming traffic (particularly trucks), but sometimes it’s due to blind curves or small humps (such as an interstate bridge/overpass) where the pavement is a different shade. Typically I’ll be at cruising speed 60-75mph and braking will be sudden and aggressive, to about 45mph. This has happened numerous times since purchase in June 2021. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I’ve been driving my Tesla mostly under autopilot about 90% of the time over the past 4 months. During that time, I’ve experienced about 30 or more phantom braking issues where the automatic braking system will engage when there is no object in front of the car. It’s all happened when autopilot was engaged. It happens during the day, generally on a single lane road, and also at night when on coming traffic lights are blinding. Each time it causes the car to rapidly slow down and causes the car behind me to slam on their brakes, potentially causing an accident. This needs to be fixed since it’s safety risk. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving in autopilot the car will randomly slam on the breaks multiple times at all speeds from 30-60mph even when the road is empty. This can increase if a large bus/truck is on the other side of the road in the opposite direction. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Traffic aware cruise control frequently hard brakes / emergency brakes on 2 lane roads when large vehicles such as semis and dump trucks approach in the opposite direction even though all vehicles are properly in their respective lanes. This presents a serious risk of being rear ended as well as heart attack for startled passengers. TACC is so bad it's not just unusable it is unsafe. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using TACC ( traffic aware cruise control) the car would suddenly break and beep warning sounds. Happened randomly and at various speeds but seemed to correlate most with trucks in the left lane. Some colors seemed to be picked up more than others. Bridges and shadows also triggered it. It was my first long trip in the Tesla Y and so experienced these horrible, unpredictable episodes around 40 - 60 times during an 8 hour drive mostly on highways - many of them two way | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Please see attached pdf complaint letter regarding relentless phantom braking in my 2021 Tesla Model Y. Let me know if there is a problem reading this letter. Thanks | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When using the cruise control (and, by extension, Autopilot) feature, the car often brakes unexpectedly and in some cases dramatically for no obvious reason. I often use cruise control on single lane undivided roads that have speed limits between 35-50mph. When using cruise control in this scenarios the car will often automatically apply the brakes for no obvious reason, often applying the brakes hard enough that the car slows down quickly. Many times the forward collision warning sound is played but there is nothing in front of me in my lane or in the opposite lane. Other times this happens when a car is approaching me in the opposite lane. There have been several cases where the car applied the brakes for no obvious reason so hard that had I not intervened (by pressing the accelerator) the car behind me would have been at risk of hitting me. It has gotten to the point where I am becoming somewhat conditioned to override the automatic braking anytime it happens. That is dangerous and can lead to an issue where the car legitimately has a reason to decelerate but I override it thinking it is braking for no reason. I see this behavior in both cruise control (which Tesla calls Traffic Aware Cruise Control) or in Autopilot. I don't currently have the Full Self Driving feature of the car. It occurs most often when I'm on a single lane undivided road using either cruise control or Autopilot. When I'm using cruise control or Autopilot on a traditional divided highway the unexpected braking happens much less frequently. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,BACK OVER PREVENTION,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | First, the car was not in auto pilot mode or cruise control. The car was driven into the garage, 22 inches from the landing and put in park. The “P” was lit so it was in park when it suddenly lurched forward and hit the landing and the four way flasher came on. Damage has been repaired but was $2500. Per Tesla, the car was not at fault and the car functioned as intended but it was driver error. With all the safety features that this car has, why did it not sound a warning or apply brakes to prevent this from happening. I have read about hundreds of thousand’s of incidents of sudden unintentional acceleration but yet nothing has been done about it. There is another problem with phantom braking when the car suddenly stops if you use the cruise control. I do not use cruise control because of this problem. Tesla continues to add games and other nonsense but have done nothing to fix these problems. I reported this to the Minnesota Attorney Generals office and they suggested that I contact the nhtsa. Their response from Tesla was also that it was driver error and it was not, the car was in park. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using adaptive cruise control driving at the I-25 speed limit in northern New Mexico on Feb. 5, 2022, when I went to pass a tractor-trailer rig on a left-turn stretch of freeway, the brakes suddenly slammed on hard (phantom braking), though there was no endangerment in the driving situation. This happened twice on this trip. In both instances, it was while legally passing a big rig on the interstate at the speed limit, with our car in the left lane and the truck in the right. We've taken this vehicle on long interstate road trips through the Mountain West before, and never encountered this problem before in similar circumstances. There must have been some software upgrade that made the car more dangerous and unreliable to drive while using cruise control on freeways with tight bends. Now I don't trust the vehicle and won't be using cruise control until this problem is remedied. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Slams on the brakes without warning. Almost caused semi to hit me from behind. This is very dangerous and must be fixed. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Car on cruise control slammed on brakes and did so every time I lifted got off accelerater until I disengaged and reengaged cruise control | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | PHANTOM BRAKING When cruise control is engaged (not auto steer or full self driving) the vehicle will intermittently slow down or apply corrective braking when no hazard exists. This happens more frequently on 2 lane roads but also happens occasionally on multi-lane freeways. On a 2 lane road, my vehicle will either slow down, brake or break HARD when anything larger than a SUV is coming from the other direction at normal speeds and in his lane. I have also experienced this when there is nobody for 1+ mile in front of behind me. If there are cars behind me, I find myself covering the accelerator and ready to floor it in case my car suddenly slams on the breaks. This make cruise control very unsafe and stressful. I have another Tesla vehicle doing the same thing and will post separately on that one. Thank you. [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 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | In September 2021 I was driving my Tesla Model Y on I-84 in Connecticut at around 8:30PM, when all of a sudden I felt like I was about to faint, started experiencing dizziness and felt like everything was spinning around me. Luckily I was able to pull over safely. I called for an ambulance, everything checked out fine. After that I went to an ER, everything checked out fine again. I thought I was having a heart attack or a stroke, but all the tests came back negative. Initially I thought maybe it's because the Tesla drives, that it accelerates so fast that I wasn't used to the speed. Weeks later I started to see various specialists, ENT, allergist, ophthalmologist, optometrist, neurologist, they all checked me out and said nothing was wrong with me. I had two MRIs and and MRA done on my brain and neck, nothing wrong with me. After that I started thinking if there might be something wrong with the Model Y, so I Googled to see if other Tesla owners experienced the same thing. Then I found that some Teslas (Model X and Y) are known to have distortions and in some cases can cause headache or even vertigo for people. I then looked through my Model Y's windshield, then I noticed several areas of distortion. This led me to believe that my near-fainting was caused by the distortions in the windshield. I have other cars and I have driven highways at high speeds and I have never experienced any kind of dizziness or fainting. I took my Model to Tesla service center, they agreed and admit they do see the same distortions I saw, but they claim the distortions are within manufacturing specifications. I requested for the windshield to be replaced, ended up paying over $1k myself. My situation has improved slightly, but I still notice distortions in the new windshield. My belief is Tesla windshields have defects, they can cause people to have headaches and therefore could be a safety concern for everyone on the road. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Issue #1 When on autopilot, vehicle can suddenly brake on its own (phantom braking) without warning. This happens frequently on major highways and in some instances I have to respond quickly to prevent rear end accidents. Issue #2: Vehicle only alerts when another vehicle is suddenly stopping in front and does not automatically brake as required. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | on the 2022 Model Y, they have an Emergency Braking issue when the cruise control is set and you meet an oncoming car the Model Y will slam on its brakes. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This is another incident of "phantom braking" that affected my wife and I- which occurred on Feb. 7th, 2022. We were returning from a trip to Michigan and headed back to Chicago-area at about 2 PM ET. The same exact scenario unfolded as the incident on Feb. 1st ( when we were driving TO Michigan. ) This time we were on I 94 headed WEST toward Chicago. There was a truck approx. 150-200 ahead of us and in the lane to our right. I was driving in Autopilot. All the cars on my highway were headed in the same direction all headed west to Chicago. So the phantom braking was not triggered by a truck in an opposite-headed lane. It was triggered by a truck headed in the same direction and to the lane to my right- the same exact scenario as what happened on Feb. 1st. Almost identical configuration. I was doing about 60- frankly paranoid that the car could stop throughout our whole trip home. Sure enough, when we approached the arrangement where a truck was ahead and to the right of our lane, the car suddenly braked. Luckily there was no vehicle tailgating us. So that's it. It happened again. All told, this is about 8th incident of phantom braking on the expressway. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE | car brakes while on autopilot whenever a truck comes in opposite lane, especially in single lane roads, more prominent on cloudy days. near collision by following cars due to unanticipated brakes. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Numerous phantom breaking incidents. Dangerous | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The vehicle will randomly brake with no traffic in broad daylight (shadows cast by trees?), or always at the same area (e.g. when entering or exiting Sumterville, FL from the south), or when a large vehicle is approaching from the opposite direction (such as a semi rig), often producing an audible alert but at times without any warning. My previous vehicle, a Model 3 equipped with radar and the old software still relying on it for input, would also produce phantom braking events, but only in small numbers. The new Model Y with vision only is unreliable and dangerous, and practically useless when adaptive cruise control is engaged. This has been occurring since day one. Never before have I experienced such dangerous behavior in any prior vehicle, let alone one as modern and expensive as a Tesla. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | LANE DEPARTURE,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | blind spot warning on the lower left corner of the screen, which is covered by the right hand when driving. With the turn signal, it is impossible to the blind spot warning video without taking the right hand off from the steering wheel. A dangerous situation trying to turn the vehicle with one hand! Also Tesla model Y phantom breaks every time I used autopilot on interstate. Fortunately, no vehicles were behind me. An accident waiting to happen. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Like many other Tesla owners, I’m having daily problems with phantom braking when using my adaptive cruise control. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When we were driving in cruise control and auto pilot on two different trips, the car would brake for no reason We experienced dramatic breaking -Frequently up to 20 mph. These incidents would occur when a car was approaching us on a 2 Lane Highway but often for no apparent reason. We feel this poses a high risk of rear end collision if a car is behind us when it breaks | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This is an ongoing issue. When using autopilot, I experience phantom braking, usually with large oncoming trucks on 2 lane highways. The problem is worse with logging trucks, but I've had it happen with vehicles as small as school buses. In the worst cases, the collision alarm sounds and the car slows up to 30mph immediately. I have this happen at least twice every morning on my 7 mile drive to town. I have videos that capture this event. Photos don't work | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |