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 | I was driving on a 2 lane highway using cruise control and the car suddenly aggressively slowed down. I have owned the car since October 2021 and this is probably the 15th phantom breaking event that has occurred. Cruise control on this car is not trustworthy nor safe on a 2 lane non-divided highway. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While traveling at night on a 2-way highway at about 65-70mph my vehicle incorrectly thought every semi-truck I encountered was in my lane and would apply hard braking. This has happened 10+ times. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When using cruise control on two lane secondary roads the brakes are activated when a large truck approaches from the opposite direction causing vehicles behind me to have to brake unnecessarily. The cruise control is virtually unusable when not on a limited access highway. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking hard braking on freeway with no cars or objects around | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On February 1st, 2022 I was driving with my wife from the Naperville, IL area to Holland, MI. We were on I 94 headed east, approximately 20 miles west of Michigan City Indiana headed east. I was driving around 65 miles per hour. We were on a 4 lane highway- all the cars on those 4 lanes were headed in the same direction. There was a truck in front of us ( headed in the same direction ) that was located to the right of us in the lane to our right and it was about 60 or 70 feet in front of us. All of a sudden the car, that had been operating on Autopilot, braked suddenly. We went from 65 to almost 0 in a split second and if my wife and I weren't wearing seat belts we would have been very seriously injured. My neck suffered a whiplash and I'm still in pain several days later. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | FSD, the design of FSD using the safety score is designed to defeat failure reporting to government agencies. If you allow the FSD system to drive on its own, it will crash, run into things, fail to stop, or stop at green lights constantly. What the driver score system does is force human beings to manage and mitigate its failures leaving a on paper result that the system is more safe than drivers driving on their own. This is 100% false, if you allow FSD to drive, it will fail almost 100% of the time in very quick succession. From lane change mistakes, to turning mistakes, not staying within its lane in a consistent manner, not putting the car into left turn lanes or stopping at green lights, which in itself is dangerous. The safety score system MUST be eliminated as it cherry picks those drivers willing to spend the time and energy to ANTICIPATE the failure/weakness of the software and mitigate its failure before it fails, thus providing the government with false "safety" numbers... Grab a car and drive it, it will not be long before it fails left and right! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving in my car on a highway in cruise control, my car will break very hard for no reason. It’s as if it is detecting a car in front of us and it disengages cruise control very abruptly. It can be very scary especially if there are cars behind us. I no longer dare to use cruise control because it has happened multiple times. I have not discussed this issue with the dealer and there were no warnings in the car at the time. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I commonly will experience phantom breaking driving on two-lane roads, particlualy when meeting oncoming traffic. This occurs most commonly at the crest of a hill or when meeting trucks. It occurs nearly 100% of the time when meeting trucks at the crest of a hill. There are also random occurrences on flat roads with no other vehicles and no shadows or bridges. It also occurs on bridges and occasionally with shadows. Performance has been better on four lane roads with more traffic. It's as if the system needs to have other traffic to gauge itself. With no traffic on four lane roads, phantom braking will rarely occur. There is no single date of this occurrence. It happens ALL THE TIME. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I am driving down the highway and the car brake checks hard 3 separate times one one occasions for no reason while using Auto Pilot. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When driving with Adaptive Cruist Control on, the car will randomly slam on the brakes (phantom braking) for no reason. It can be with a shadow on the road or, VERY commonly, when any car or large truck passes on a 2-lane highway or road. It's extremely dangerous to any cars behind and to myself. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The vehicle brakes out of no where when on autopilot. Phantom braking | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car experiences phantom braking when adaptive cruise control is engaged. Happens most often when going under an overpass but has happened on clear open roadway as well (no cars around). | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When cruise control is active, the car slams on the brakes for no apparent reason. This happens basically every time I drive the car. I’m always concerned it will cause me to be rear-ended. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle abruptly applied automatic braking as I was cruising at 40 mph. Went to an almost complete stop in a short distance. No one was behind me but if there were it would have been dangerous. Also, there were patches of ice in the road which made it even more dangerous. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Tesla slams on brakes for no reason. Causes a safety hazard with cars behind me. Was almost hit when my model y applied the breaks for no reason. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When cruise control (TACC) enabled the car will brake on 2 lane undivided roads when oncoming vehicle is a semi or other large vehicle. Vehicle may suddenly slow 5-15mph causing unsafe condition if being followed closely. Problem is easily reproducible on any 2 lane road. Will also occur when autopilot engaged as autopilot is simply TACC with lane keeping. The features otherwise seem safe on interstates and divided highways. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Since the v11 upgrade, my backup camera has dropped frames and lags while backing up to the point that I have almost hit bollards while backing up. If a child walked behind the car, I would not know it. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This car is exhibiting random “phantom braking” incidents when cruise control or auto pilot is engaged. In EVERY incident the road is clear ahead and in the adjacent lanes, with no other vehicle traffic. The car will appl full emergency braking for no reason, and with no warning | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Frequent phantom braking when in cruise control. The vehicle unexpectedly brakes often while in cruise control when there is an oncoming vehicle in the oncoming traffic lane, despite the fact that both my vehicle and the oncoming vehicle are in their respective lanes (in other words there is no apparent danger of collision). The phantom braking also sometimes happens apparently at random, in other words when I can't see anything in the vehicle pathway that could be interpreted as dangerous. I am entering a date under "Additional Details" below, but this has happened repeatedly on many different dates. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking. I can’t use the cruise control at all because it constantly brakes and swerves when nothing is in front of the car. I took the car to the device center and was told they can’t do anything. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | From June, 2019 to June, 2021 we owned a Tesla Model 3. We have had the Model Y since June, 2021. The current Model Y has a significant phantom braking problem. Worse than the Model 3 that we owned. Our Model Y relies on "Tesla Vision" without radar. Last week we drove 1,400 miles from Montana to Southern California. On more than a fifteen occasions phantom braking occurred, to the point that we were reluctant to use it. Driving on an Interstate at 80 mph, the car would suddenly brake. The 1st reaction is to overcome the braking with acceleration. On one occasion when there was no traffic behind, I didn't accelerate until 45 mph. From 80 mph to 45 mph suddenly. Dangerous. On city streets we also experienced phantom braking, yet not so dramatic. Some thoughts on what causes this issue: pavement glare, a change in pavement color, concrete barriers on an overpass, reflection from on coming traffic. Traffic Assisted Cruise Control is an important feature for me and now I'm reluctant to use it. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When using AutoPilot, the car will without any basis or immediate need brake most abruptly without any due cause, as there is no traffic or cars around it. It’s usually when passing over overpasses but not always. This sudden deceleration has almost caused accidents. Only me being wary and cognizant has saved the car from being rear ended. Sometimes there’s no cars around but it still can be very dangerous. This has been happening over almost a year and Tesla has not done anything to address this widespread issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The Tesla has been doing phanton breaking. For example on the highway using dynamic cruise control or autopilot. When a truck is merging to the right lane it will apply quite the break force. Almost got rear ended cause of this on the highway. Observed this a few times on drive from Ga to NJ. I also noticed going up and down hills with dynamic cruise control it will sometimes trigger the front collision warning or phanton break. This seems to be sporadic and doesn’t like one lane back roads. Last and it least I also noticed that using auto pilot the car forces you to use auto high beans. On the highway at night it will go off and on a lot to the point drivers on opposite side of the road would flash their lights to let me know about the high beans. The model teslas doesn’t use radar or laser sensors like previous year. It does seem to have a lot of impact cause I did not see these issues with my Lexus RX350 With dynamic cruise control, lane keep assist, auto high beans, and front collision warning. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | The defroster system is not able to keep the windshield clear of ice buildup when driving even in light snow. This is because this is an electric vehicle, so there is no engine heat from underneath the hood to radiate towards the wipers. Between wiper cycles, the wipers rest below the area of the windshield that is heated by the defroster. During snowfall ice builds up on the wipers from their resting position between cycles and that ice then propagates to the rest of the windshield as the wipers move. This is an extremely dangerous situation. I heard Tesla is installing a heater beneath the resting area of the wipers on the 2022 model year of this vehicle. However, NHTSA should issue a recall and require this heating plate be retrofit onto earlier model years. The country of Canada is aware of this issue as well and currently investigating it. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |