Complaint volume
749 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
749 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2022 Tesla Model 3, grouped by component category.
749 Total complaints
52 Crash reports
3 Fire reports
27 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 52 crash reports, 3 fire reports, 27 injury reports, and 1 fatality report. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 56 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 14,263 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?
52 Crash
3 Fire
27 Injury
1 Fatality
34 Towed
22 Medical attention
What are the most common 2022 Tesla Model 3 complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 262
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 76
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 72
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 48
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 35
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 16
UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 14
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL 14
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE 12
SERVICE BRAKES 11
749 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 2022 | STEERING,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,LANE DEPARTURE | Power steering and full power to the vehicle failed - these failures can be seen upon requested inspection. Power steering failed during operation - meaning that while i was driving the vehicle i was not able to change the direction of travel at a high rate of speed. Then the vehicle came to a sudden stop, stranding the driver/passengers in the middle of the road which has a high speed limit. Since full power failed quickly afterward, hazard lights or other warning lights (brake lights) could not be activated. Emergency manual exits had to be used to exit the vehicle This problem has been reproduced in both Model 3 and Model Y and has been confirmed by a dealer service repair center. The vehicle has been inspected by the manufacturer and the problem has been confirmed - a full steering console replacement is required due to electrical and hydraulic issues in the steering system and battery system. There was no message prior to the vehicle failure, the error is sudden and unexpected which makes it even more dangerous | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While driving on the interstate with the adaptive cruise control engaged I’ve now had four incidents where I’ve had to over-ride the system because the car mysteriously slammed on the brakes attempting to stop the car when no threats were apparent. These were frightening and dangerous events. I’ve had several cars with adaptive cruise and never experienced this type of un-provoked emergency braking. The for situations were as follows: 1) The road gently curving to the right while I was in the second to far left lane and there was a concrete barrier left of the far left lane divining the opposing lanes. The car apparently mistook the barrier as a threat because it slammed on the brakes without warning. I override the system to avoid a collision from behind. 2) Driving down a three lane road in the center lane when a car entered the road into the right lane and was still going much slower than the center lane. My car slammed on the brakes despite the other car never coming close to entering my path or lane. 3) two instances of the car emergency braking on a two lane road because it apparently mistook oncoming traffic in the opposing lane as a threat. Again had to override to avoid being rear ended. This adaptive cruise system is too dangerous to use as I cannot trust it to not brake hard and unexpectedly. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Car randomly auto braked at night while on cruise control (45 mph). Car turning across traffic was roughly 200 feet away and well out of potential collision range. Also, car won't auto break when there is an actual obstacle in front. Could drive the car into a wall (believe me, I've verified this). | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This is my third report for the same phantom braking issue I drove approximately 250 miles today and had three episodes one while passing a 18 wheeler he was on the right and fully in his own lane it braked forcefully. And two episodes with no objects or any explanations why it applied the brakes hard while traveling at 78 mph once with a car following witch caused me great concern. Side note I gave up using it on two lane undivided roads any oncoming large truck or RV triggers braking. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | On trip from Grand Island NE to Pueblo CO on Colorado state Hwy 76 when driving at highway speeds the auto steer function repeatedly (at least 8 occurrences) invoked emergency braking for no apparent reason. This occurred during daylight hours, in brilliant sunshine, on clear and dry road conditions with no other vehicles in the vicinity, in both the right and left lane. In some cases the car would brake upon cresting a slight rise where the horizon is not visible until the vehicle is at the top of the rise. In another case there was highly reflective silver steel guard rails on both sides of the road. Also experienced phantom braking when there was identical signage on both sides of the road at about head height of a person. We also experienced occurrences on flat sections of road with no signage. The braking is unpredictable and severe enough to cause a rear end collision If a vehicle had been behind us during any of the events we experienced. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | My mother was driving my brand new 2022 M3P from Garfield, AR, to S. Coffeyville, KS, on a two lane highway when we experienced a major AEB event while in cruise control (if not w/ autosteer engaged). On the way there and back to Garfield, we must have experienced 5-10 AEB events where the traffic aware cruise control thought that the hard shadows from trucks were actually objects in our lane. This is a horrible and dangerous design flaw. Why are we not allowed to go back to dumb cruise control like we used to have where it doesn't cause an accident risk due to the possibility of a rear impact from another vehicle? In one of these events there was a truck behind us, and my 70-year-old mother had no clue how to protect us from being rear ended. We desperately need an option to disable TACC at the very least. I don't care about what laws may be in place for these systems, until it is perfect, we should be allowed to have full control over our vehicle without unpredictable events occurring. Trying to teach a 70-year-old how to drive differently isn't a proper solution when they've driven vehicles their entire lives that let them do what they want. Demand that Tesla allow permanent disablement of these systems, not just turning off AEB every time you get in the car! And I'm not convinced that AEB is even related to TACC braking. Regardless, fix it! | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I have experienced multiple situations where my 2022 Tesla Model 3 has issues with the automatic emergency braking feature, which causes the car to slam on the brakes unnecessarily while operating in the autopilot mode. Generally, I've seen this the most on 2 lane roads, especially when large vehicles (semi trucks, etc) are in the opposing lane. In some cases, the car will brake when there are no cars in the opposing lane. My concern is that the cars traveling behind me may not have the reaction time to brake, due to not expecting my car to brake in front of them. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On my daily commute to work on the interstate while in cruise control the car will slam on the brakes fro no apparent reason. This abruptly takes my car from 70 mph to 40. Happens multiple times in cruise control every day. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | A warning displayed on the screen of the car alerted me to the vehicle having low coolant, recommending that I drive the car to a service center despite being unsafe to do so as the container that recycled the closed loop coolant system was completely empty. The warning caused me to check underneath the vehicle housed in my garage, which displayed a puddle of bluish liquid with a foul smell. There was a leak that was caused by an impact unknown to me to the aero shield protecting the high voltage battery pack. The impact ruptured the coolant line and fitting that connected the battery with the line. The manufacturer's service center recommended replacing the entire battery as they do not repair this part on the car. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This has happened on a couple of different occasions but the one thing that has been the same is it has happened while utilizing the adaptive cruise control system. These incidents come out of nowhere and can be dangerous and cause an accident luckily we have not had that misfortune. While driving on the highway with adaptive cruise control enabled, the vehicle has suddenly and without warning activated the emergency braking. The first time this occurred the assumption was that it must have picked up something on the road because it only lasted for a brief moment, it slowed down the vehicle by 10-15 mph. Throughout this trip, adaptive cruise control was used and it didn't occur in that manner again. What is more alarming are the next couple of incidents which abruptly slowed the vehicle down by 30-35 mph this was very unsettling, luckily no one was behind the vehicle at the time of these incidents. The adaptive cruise control has not been utilized since the last incident which occurred the third weekend of January 2022. The severity and abruptness that the vehicle slowed and I must mention without warning can potentially cause a fatal car accident, especially while driving on the highway. The vehicle has not been inspected or serviced since the incidents and as long as adaptive cruise control is not used there have been no further incidents of this nature. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Multiple times while driving using adaptive cruise control while approaching a semi(both oncoming and overtaking) the car will slam on the brakes(phantom braking). | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On a four-lane divided highway and again on a two-lane road my Tesla 3 long range AWD phantom braked for no apparent reason several times over a 145 mile trip while on cruise control and/or on auto pilot . On the two-lane portion of the trip I assumed the braking occurred because of shadows on the road. On the four-lane highway it braked for no reason. If someone had been closely following me, I am sure a serious collision would have occurred. I will not use either cruise control or autopilot until a fix is made. This Tesla on cruise control makes for a dangerous driving situation. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Freeway driving on a clear day in low traffic on a straight road using Tesla’s TACC adaptive cruise control the car abruptly slowed from 73 mph to @ 50 mph with no vehicle in front of my car. This was a very brief deceleration. The braking released after @ two seconds and the car returned to the set max speed (73 mph). | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using “Traffic-Aware Cruise Control” the car regularly sounds an alert and breaks rapidly in preparation for a forward collision despite no such danger existing. Most often this occurs on a two-lane highway when a large van or semi-truck is traveling in the opposite direction; in its own lane, nonetheless. This feature is marked as “beta” but there is no standard cruise control option. This issue can be easily reproduced and happens multiple times on any given day when said circumstances exist. Tesla service advisors have told me the only fix is to not use the feature. I am scared the sudden breaking may cause whiplash, a rear end collision, or other danger presented by sudden unnecessary breaking. When using the additional Autopilot feature, “Autosteer,” the incidents seem to happen even more frequently and invoke a slight swerve right - away from the vehicle in question. This could make it even harder to recover from the phantom breaking event. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When driving on two lane highways and using the "autopilot" cruise control, the car will occasionally panic brake for no valid reason. This occurs almost every time an oncoming semi passes in the oncoming lane as well as going over bridges with raised sides or when there is crack seal on the road that is slightly more reflective. This has happened several times when crossing a bridge with cars following closely, almost causing several accidents. Tesla service was contacted immediately and I was told that it was a "software issue" and that there was nothing I could do. I tried disabling emergency braking in the car interface however it had no effect on the issue. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using adaptive cruise control or the autopilot systems, the car will unexpectedly brake very hard (dropping speed anywhere from 5-20 mph). This can cause a safety issue due to other cars behind that aren’t prepared for a car to randomly hit the brakes and drop up to 20mph quickly. The problem is easily reproducible by using the systems while driving anywhere. Complaints and requests to the manufacturer have gone unfixed and brushed off as not a concern. This happens every single time I use cruise control, not just the date I had to select for the incident. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I would like to add my voice to those complaining about the phantom braking problem in recentlly built Teslas. On more than one occasion, the car has slammed on the brakes, in broad daylight with good visibility, FOR NO GOOD REASON. At the very least, Tesla should be compelled to add plain-vanilla cruise control that permits the driver to switch off any traffic-aware assistance features. This problem is ongoing and occurs nearly every time I attempt to use the traffic-aware cruise control. The problem makes this feature too dangerous to use. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Twice now the car abruptly slowed down from about 75 to 50 in the left lane of the highway with nothing in front or next to my car. Falsely thought there was something in front of the vehicle and it quickly decelerated. Oddly happened both times in the same spot on the highway. Seems to be an issue with that area on how it looks in the "Tesla Vision" software. Both times almost caused an accident with the car behind me. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking issue. Usually occurs on two lane roads, sometimes there is a vehicle in the opposite lane, other times there is nothing in front of the vehicle in either lane. I have reported to Tesla, they say they’re aware but have no solution. I have kept a log of when it happens since the first time I reported it to Tesla and was told there is no solution. I commute 128 miles a day and the below log shows it happens on daily basis multiple times a day. 1/5/2022 5:32pm 1/5/2022 5:35pm (multiple times) cruise set at 65, speed got down to 45 1/5/2022 6:30pm 1/6/2023 5:59pm 1/6/2023 6:01 1/6/2022 6:33pm 1/6/2022 6:34pm 1/6/2022 6:37pm 1/10/2022 6:37am 1/10/2022 5:11pm 1/12/2021 7am 1/12/2022 5:49pm 1/12/2022 5:50pm 1/12/2022 5:53pm 1/12/2022 5:55pm 1/13/2022 6:13am 1/13/2022 6:15am 1/13/2022 6:16am 1/13/2022 6:18am 1/13/2022 6:21am 1/13/2022 6:09pm 55 to 38 1/13/2022 6:11 pm 55 to 44 1/13/2022 6:13 pm 55 to 46 1/13/2022 6:14 pm 55 to 42 1/18/2022 6:09 am 55 to 41 1/18/2022 5:39 pm 1/18/2022 5:43 pm 1/18/2022 5:44 would not resume speed on cruise control 1/18/2022 6:17 55 to 42 mph 1/18/2022 6:18 55 to 44 1/19/2022 6:14 55 to 37 1/19/2022 6:47am 70 to 32 1/20/2022 6:10am 55 to 47 x2 1/24/2022 7:32pm 70 to 53 1/26/2022 6:33am 1/26/2022 6:07pm 55 to 45 1/26/2022 6:06 55 to 48 1/26/2022 6:15 55 to 49 1/27/2022 6:48 55 to 47 1/27/2022 6:50 60 to 43 | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Driving on a two lane rural road with a 55mph speed limit, I had traffic aware cruise control engaged with the speed set to 55 mph. A truck crested a hill coming the opposite direction, fully within their lane, and the car engaged the emergency breaking system. Fortunately, no one was behind me at the time as this could have resulted in me being rear-ended. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | This vehicle has frequent issues with phantom braking whenever cruise control is engaged. The brakes are suddenly applied automatically and sometimes severely. This occurs dozens of times on long drives and I purchased the car new 6 weeks ago. I have reported it to Tesla and was told this is a “known software characteristic”. I brought it in for service and provided date and time stamps for dozens of occurrences. The service manager confirmed with me that this is a known issue that Tesla is looking into and that even her own Tesla has this problem regularly. This is clearly a safety issue and makes me feel unsafe to drive this car, which is especially concerning since one of the biggest selling points for me was its rating as the safest car on the road. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | on 2-3-2022 on a 200-mile day trip I had two false braking events one while passing a large truck on a divided AZ Hwy 260 and one for no notable reason what's so ever on the same Hwy. I do not have FSD just autopilot this is my second compliant to NHTSA thank you. Mike | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Random "phantom braking" while on cruise control. Unexpected and significant braking. On icy or wet roads, this could cause a departure from the vehicle path and road. It happens often enough that I'm rarely using it anymore. And fora feature that is supposed to be a safety feature (reducing driver fatigue, backup to emergency braking, safe following etc.) this is very bad. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On February 2, 2022 at approximately 8:00 a.m., MST, I was driving north at 50 mph on a stretch of two-lane highway with moderate traffic. Adaptive cruise control was engaged. A large truck was approaching, traveling in the opposite direction. Suddenly, and without warning, my vehicle’s brakes were applied, without my involvement, slowing my vehicle to approximately 20 mph and causing the driver of a vehicle traveling behind me to slam on its brakes to avoid a rear-end collision. No collision occurred and no one was injured. It could have been a lot worse, but this problem needs to be identified and fixed. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Feb 2022 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Vehicle frequently brakes hard to prevent a collision with an object that does not exist. Also known as phantom breaking that is a commonly known issues with Teslas autopilot. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |