Complaint volume
741 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
2022 Tesla Model 3 Complaints
741 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2022 Tesla Model 3, grouped by component category.
741 Total complaints
51 Crash reports
3 Fire reports
26 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 51 crash reports, 3 fire reports, 26 injury reports, and 1 fatality report. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 55 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 13,827 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 2022 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.
2022 Tesla Model 3
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2022 Tesla Model 3 complaints?
51 Crash
3 Fire
26 Injury
1 Fatality
32 Towed
21 Medical attention
What are the most common 2022 Tesla Model 3 complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 261
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 75
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 72
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 48
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 34
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 14
UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 14
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 14
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 12
SERVICE BRAKES 11
741 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,LANE DEPARTURE | I am renting this Tesla Model 3 on monthly basis Rental from Hertz. ON SEP 5TH, 2022 I was at a stop sign fully stopped and all of a sudden the car started accelarating by itself. I try to call Tesla about it and their answer was as I am not the owner they won't even talk to me. I tried to call Hertz but their Customer Service no available just in a circle of press this and press that for hours..Today Sep 16, around 10:58 am , I was Stopped at an intersection on a Red light waiting for the signal to turn Green , Then all of a sudden the Car Accelerated and Luckily no Cross Traffic and I proceeded through the Intersection. This is a Serious Issue.This car does not have Self Driving Feature, and twice in 10 Days this speed issue occur. Also on three different occasions while I was driving on a freeway other Cars from left and right swerved into my Lane and extremely close to my Car and the side Sensors didn't Beep. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | STEERING,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | On Wednesday, 8/24/2022 around 1:30pm, when I tried to park my Tesla Model 3 on a residential street, suddenly and without any warning the steering wheel lost control, accelerated, made a right and then a left turn, hit an electric box and landed on the neighbor's driveway. No one else was injured, only myself with severe back pain and I could not move. Several neighbors came out of their house and checked on me and called the Homeowners Association Office and called 911, the homeowners experienced power outage. An ambulance came & took me to the Irvine Hoag Hospital Emergency Center. The medical staff took X-Ray for me and gave me Tylenol pills and ice pack on my back. I was diagnosed with compression fracture of T12 vertebra, per doctor's exam: It will take two-to-six-month to heal my back. A police report #[XXX] was filed on 8/31/2022. CA resident since 1976 very healthy, enjoy working, and helping school and do community services. Do not take drag, no alcohol with over 46+ year's careful driving skill, and a safe driver with good driving record. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed Medical attention | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | During recent drive from the Kansas City area to downtown Denver over the period of September 11-12, I experienced what's known as "phantom braking" no fewer than five times along I-70. At least one of these instances was so aggressive that it slowed the car down from 77mph to 60mph. This is an extremely dangerous situation that must be addressed by Tesla ASAP. Someone is going to die. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While traveling northbound on I-25 between Las Vegas NM and Raton NM, the car auto breaked several times for no reason,Going from 75 MPH to 57 MPH, throwing us forward against the seatbelts in the car. The incident Happens again between Colorado Springs and Cheyenne Wy and outside Cheyenne again on I-25 N. All incidents happened while using the cruise control, which is what Tesla recommends to get the most miles per charge. We are just very lucky there was no traffic behind us to rear end is. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Car will phantom break while using autopilot. I will be driving 80 mph on a main free way (I-80) and all of a sudden it will slam on the breaks and go to 40 mph. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The adaptive cruise control, or traffic-aware cruise control (TACC) as Tesla calls it, phantom brakes with no prior warning a few times per hour. It usually happens on straight stretches of road when there isn't much traffic in front of the vehicle. The event that prompted me to write this complaint was when I was travelling on a highway in Utah. I was driving about 80mph slammed on the brakes and slowed to about 30mph. There were a few vehicles behind me when this happened. Thankfully they were able to brake in time to avoid a rear-end collision. I always drive with my foot on the accelerator with TACC because I experience lots of phantom braking, but this particular event happened too quickly to intervene. I have reported this to Tesla, but they claim it's normal operation of the vehicle. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On Saturday, September 3rd 2022, we were on a highway with Autopilot system engaged at 75mph, and without any reason, the autopilot system reduced the speed to 50mph, even thought the highway speed limit was not reduced/changes, there was no vehicle or event requiring the vehicle to reduce the speed, and the Autopilot settings were to keep the current vehicle speed limit. It was a sudden unintended braking action in Autopilot, which could lead the vehicle behind us to crash and a severe accident on the highway. The sudden unintended braking happened 2x during this road trip, without any warning or symptoms. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | During a road trip of around 600 miles when using the adaptive cruise control feature without autopilot active I experienced no less than 6 phantom braking incidents. Most were when coming over a crest of a hill. There were no warnings or indications on the instrument screen. During each event I had to press off the accelerator to stop the braking. The car resumed the set speed with adaptive cruise control active. During some of these events a car was behind me that could have either hit me or lost control of their vehicle and caused an accident. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving down our rural highway, with little traffic, the cruise control is basically unusable. The cameras see the heat shimmer on the highway (100 degrees plus) as another stationary vehicle and slam on the brakes suddenly and frighteningly. If there is traffic (rarely) in front of this, the sudden deceleration never happens. However, the traffic free environment causes this kind of reaction on a regular basis. On a 60 mile trip that we regularly make it happens enough in the first 10 miles that we don't use the cruise control again on the trip. We try again after each software update but this hasn't improved anything yet. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking aggressively appearing during a family road trip. Violent braking leading to a 20-30 mph drop in speed. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Often when driving on the highway with the cruise control on, the car will activate heavy braking without provocation. Sometimes it happens once on a 2 hour drive other times it happens 3 or 4 times on an hour drive. One time, I was the only car in sight when I was in a double lane 65mph divided highway. I am not using full self driving or auto steer, however it has occurred while using Auto Steer (beta). I'm not sure what causes this braking, but it's dangerous. One time it brake checked a semi truck before I slammed on the accelerator pedal to disable the braking system. Other times I can feel short choppy accels/decels on the highway again without having a car/object in front. Today a driver was following closely and it went into full braking mode. I'm not convinced it's emergency braking, however when you take your foot off the accelerator pedal it does brake heavily with regenerative braking. In our ownership of the car, the collision warning has chimed at us once but not actually activated braking to my knowledge. So far I've seen complaints about Full Self Driving autopilot Phantom Braking, however we don't have that package. However the same systems are physically installed that may feed into the safety systems. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Sep 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving 70 MPH with the self-driving assist feature activated, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The contact stated that the failure occurred approximately 6-10 times within 7 hours. The contact stated that the failure reoccurred 4 times within 4 hours while driving with self-driving assist and auto-steer mode the following day. The contact notified a Tesla Service Center who informed him to submit a service request online. The contact submitted a service request online and later received a remote diagnostic test report stating that no hardware issues were found and the vehicle was operating as designed. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The approximate failure mileage was 5,200. | Crash: No Fire: No | 5,200 |
| Aug 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while driving at 5 MPH to park at her residence, the vehicle experienced unintended acceleration and inadvertently veered to the right. The vehicle then crashed into a transformer box in a residential yard and came to a complete stop. The contact had a broken backbone and received medical attention. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a body shop where it remained unrepaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure and informed the contact that it was a human error, mistaking the accelerator pedal for the brake pedal and that they would review the computer log. The failure mileage was 1,062. The VIN was unavailable. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Injuries: 1 Towed Medical attention | 1,062 |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The adaptive cruise control thinks that those heat shimmers/pavement mirages you get on asphalt are trucks stopped in the middle of the road and slams on the brakes. It happened dozens and dozens of times on my drive on I-80 from Reno to Colorado. It seems like this is a common experience from searching the internet. I will take it in for service but it seems like its happening to everyone so not likely to get fixed. Sometimes it will only slow down a little bit, 5 or 10 mph, but I've also had it hit the brakes hard and slow me down to 25 below the speed limit. Sooner or later this is going to cause accidents, if it hasn't already. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Several incidences of phantom breaking occurred when no other cars were around. This took place during our road trip from Michigan to Montana. One of the days, it occurred over 10 times, with the worst resulting in a hard brake from 75mph to 50mpg before I could intervene. The majority of the time there were no cars within 200 yards ahead or behind me. If there were a car behind me, it could have resulted in a severed accident. The braking was hard enough to throw me and my children hard into seatbelts, even causing the belts to lock. I reported these incidents to Tesla but have heard nothing back. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | My Tesla model 3 has detected imaginary object while using auto pilot feature and applied FULL brake pressure to stop the car, which puts us in danger of being rear ended. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving using the autopilot system on a clear, sunny day with no traffic ahead or behind my vehicle, I had a Phantom braking incident causing my brakes to be applied in an unsafe manner which would have brought me to a complete stop had I not intervened by quickly stepping on the accelerator. I was moving along at freeway speed when this incident occurred. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car will dramatically, without warning, and unexpectantly brake while using the adaptive cruise control. This has occurred with absolutely no issue that should provoke the braking. One instance did occur with traffic behind me, which led to those vehicles having to emergency brake. I do note that this issue has been frequently reported and characterized as "phantom braking". It is real and it is a genuine risk and concern. I will report yesterday's incident, but it has occurred several times previously. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | While I was driving the car Unintended acceleration and jumped . Cause an accident | Crash: Yes Fire: No Injuries: 1 Medical attention | 40 |
| Aug 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES, AIR,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL | The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated that while at a stop light with the brake pedal depressed, the vehicle accelerated and crashed into a Dodge Ram. There were no warning lights illuminated. There was no reported injuries, fire or air bag deployment. A police report was filed. The vehicle was towed to a tow lot and then to a collision center. The local dealer was contacted but the vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was not notified. The approximate failure mileage was 135 | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | 135 |
| Aug 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | I recently got into a car accident with a Tesla. I was injured and my car crashed against a residence’s entrance putting myself and others in danger. The components or systems that failed are the regenerative breaking on the Tesla, the torque or force that is distributed to each wheel, and the rear passenger tire shows more wearing than any of the other tires of the vehicle (not only on my car, but also on one of my friend’s Tesla.) It was raining. I was driving at a normal, slow speed, on a straight line on the road. I stopped pressing the gas pedal, the regenerative breaking activated, and my car glided and crashed. In the past, I have had some experiences where even on a dry road, sunny day and no rain, my car would slide and loose traction when letting go of the gas pedal therefore activating the regenerative breaking and making the car loose traction and slide. I have videos and pictures, filled a police report, and recently filed a claim with my insurance. The vehicles components have been inspected by the police. They have not been inspected by the insurance as of now. The only lights/car signals that turned on automatically after the incident occurred were the emergency lights. I do not recall any lights/signals showing up on the dashboard or screen while the incident was happening. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Injuries: 1 | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Full Self Driving on this car experienced Phantom Breaking meaning it braked by itself when there were no nearby cars ahead of me. This is very dangerous as it can cause cars behind me to crash into me. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I wish to report numerous cases of the phantom braking or spurious deceleration that I have experienced. In driving over 2500 miles on highways I have experienced this issue at least 40 times. It would be more, but I have stopped using it. Almost all cases were on mostly open roads through Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. The odds of it happening appear to be higher when the road is hilly and another vehicle, typically a semi, is far ahead. Timing the distance, it looks like the semi is 12-15 seconds ahead of me in a 70mph zone. This creates a situation where I may be cresting a slight hill upwards while the semi is cresting the next hill ahead of me. That situation (just one example, others are more flat roads with no vehicles ahead) creates a distance challenge where the point between the vehicles is shorter than the actual distance, due to the hills. One instance slowed so quickly the tires squealed briefly. This feature, Traffic Aware Cruise Control TACC or autopilot, should never be used if another vehicle is following closer than 5-8 seconds behind. I have tried things to help the situation, such as making sure the cameras are clean and recalibrating the cameras with clearly defined lines and no changes have resulted. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Vehicle stated it was in turtle mode and completely shut off in the middle of the road and was not able to drive. Park, reverse, neutral, and drive was not available. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Aug 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Experienced multiple episodes of severe phantom breaking when traveling over 60mph with adaptive cruise control on. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |