Complaint volume
1068 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
2023 Tesla Model Y Complaints
1068 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2023 Tesla Model Y, grouped by component category.
1068 Total complaints
137 Crash reports
3 Fire reports
45 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, steering, vehicle speed control,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 137 crash reports, 3 fire reports, 45 injury reports, and 1 fatality report. These fields come from complaint records and should be read in context.
Mileage clue
Mileage is available on 74 complaints, with an average reported failure mileage of 13,628 miles. Compare that with the mileage on the listing.
Questions to ask the seller
- Have you had any problems related to forward collision avoidance, steering, vehicle speed control,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 2023 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.
2023 Tesla Model Y
Build buyer checklist Compare with other years Sends year, make, and model to pre-fill your checklist.
How severe are the 2023 Tesla Model Y complaints?
137 Crash
3 Fire
45 Injury
1 Fatality
92 Towed
34 Medical attention
What are the most common 2023 Tesla Model Y complaint categories?
FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 184
STEERING 97
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 65
UNKNOWN OR OTHER 60
SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 54
SUSPENSION 53
VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE 36
ELECTRICAL SYSTEM 34
VISIBILITY/WIPER 32
SEAT BELTS 26
1,068 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | When wipers are in auto mode they do not start until well after visibility is at a dangerous level. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | LANE DEPARTURE,BACK OVER PREVENTION | I purchased my Tesla Model Y in January of this year. Tesla removed all ultrasonic sensors from the car, and is instead relying only on "Tesla Vision". However, 9 months later and I still don't have several safety features Tesla promises. Rear Cross Traffic Warning and Blind Spot warning don't work at all. The Lane Departure warning only works over the solid outside line, and doesn't warn at all when crossing between lanes (ie a dotted line). In addition, the Adaptive cruise control randomly brakes dramatically for no apparent reason. This is extremely dangerous, as drivers behind don't expect you to quickly decelerate in the middle of the highway for no reason. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Tesla forward collision system activated inaccurately twice consecutively at very low speed: on October 28, 2023 at 1:09PM ET on US-50 E. 1. Traveling on the left lane US-50 E at 1:09pm, for a slowed done traffic, around 10mph Tesla issued a false forward collision for the car traveling ahead of me with plenty of space between cars. 2. Right after this incident, Tesla falsely had another false forward collision warning issued on US-50 E at 1:09 pm for the same conditions that I described above (very slow traffic 10mph, left lane, for the same car, plenty of space between cars) In both of these incidents due to Tesla's false forward collision warning a great deal of confusion, and distraction is created by the very same system which is supposed to protect drivers and its passengers. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | The NHTSA mandate to force Teslas full self driving software to perform full stops is dangerous. You guys made the software less safe with your authoritative mandates. The full stops cause road rage in surrounding drivers and cause them to nearly rear end my car. I hold NHTSA responsible for this degradation in features of my vehicle. You are failing in every aspect of your mission to keep the roads safe. Why are US agencies so left wing biased with hatred for Tesla and Elon Musk? You corrupt people also need to stop issuing fake safety recalls every time Tesla has a software update. You people are truly useless. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Unintended Acceleration in a Tesla | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | On October 25, 2023, between 10:40 pm and 10:50 pm, while driving the car on the 105 (Century Freeway), the computer system suddenly went completely black. The car did continue to travel and never did stop. I did not make any lane changes. I am unable to say if the the head lights continued to function. The computer did reboot after about a minute or so. The car is brand new. I've only had it since September 16, 2023. I am reporting it here in case it is a concern. I've read that the computer could only have been rebooting from an update that I had installed earlier. Don't know for sure, but it was quite a hair raising one and a half minute. Additionally, there are times when the car's adaptive cruise control does not recognize red light intersections. It would accelerate instead of slowing down to stop. During those times, I would need to slam on the brake to make it stop. I have not relayed any of this information to Tesla but I intend to very shortly. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | POWER TRAIN,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,SERVICE BRAKES | On August 28, 2023, driving back from golf at Tijeras Creek, the vehicle noted several faults: cruise control disabled, autopilot disabled, parking brake disabled, and others. We parked in Newport Beach and the vehicle failed to move—appears the parking brake locked up. The vehicle was taken to Tesla for repair; the vehicle had 4,423 miles on the odometer when it was taken to Tesla for repair. The technician states that they identified the brake fault, removed and replaced the right brake caliper.its disabled the vehicle from safe operation. September 21, 2023, the vehicle was driven locally 23 miles and the condition returned. This time the vehicle was in a shopping mall and the parking brake would not release, disabling the vehicle. Screen shots of the fault codes were taken to preserve the evidence. Eventually, the operator was able to shimmy the vehicle forward and return to the house. On October 4, 2023, only 90 miles after repair by Tesla, the exact same condition—parking brake function degraded. The vehicle, again, refused to disengage the parking brake. The vehicle suffered again the problem that rendered the vehicle inoperable. The vehicle was again towed. On October 13, 2023, the vehicle was picked up from Tesla service for repair of the THIRD DEFECTIVE AND DANGEROUS CONDITION; the vehicle was driven locally and, on the freeway, to determine if Tesla had actually corrected the dangerous and defective condition. After about two hours in varying conditions and 90 miles, the vehicle was parked in the garage overnight. In the morning, the vehicle was loaded for an outing, and again the DANGEROUS AND DEFECTIVE CONDITION occurred. This time, the vehicle could not be backed out of the garage; The tow truck was called | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | One month latest Tesla Model-Y owner. Tried all means in last 3 days to submit several concerns, but tesla had made it impossible to file written complains. 1. Automatic Emergency braking was applied with kids in back eat to school on an internal 35mph road in broad day light with a solid cement divider in left and no vehicle around anywhere. Everyone was hurt someway or other due to this phantom braking and would have been much worse on highway as there are many trucks on this side. Seems accelerator was also not working for few seconds. A software fliker is seen, seconds before this, in video. Not sure a hack, bug or intentional. Major safety issue, have video from dashcam. 2. The FSD is not ready, whatever Tesla says, it doesn’t care about road condition, speed or other surroundings. Drives like aggressive kid who just learned driving & doesn’t care about anyone or anything. Thats the reason have stopped using it. 3.The automatic lane departure assistance is very dangerous at the as it takes control of vehicle and tries to move away from lane as soon as you are around the border, without considering speed, other vehicles in side lanes, road condition or road hazards and due to this, several time it happened like tug of war, where other vehicles were too close like a truck in there lane left & right, hence was trying to be on edge of lane and this system was yanking to go away from line, causing shaking & was about to hit other vehicles. This may have caused accidents, had to turn this off as well. 4. The estimated range is so wrong and off my 70-100 miles and this could cause safety issues for family in night or cold getting stuck or anxiety that can cause emotional trauma and safety issues. 5. Other small stuff- Wiper turn on without rain or water, sentry mode don't work if charge is below 65 miles, which could be a security risk, fandom door open notification, bluetooth issue, car don't unlock, costly super charger etc. Sorry but had no other way. | Crash: No Fire: No Injuries: 3 | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | TIRES | While driving in second lane from Left on I-90 at approximately 60 MPH an indication of 'tire pressure low - Pull the car over' was observed on the screen. Car was pulled over and it was noticed that driver side rear tire was blown. It was separated at the wall. Tire pressure was per the recommendation from manufacturer as there was no deviation indication prior to the incident. After driving on same section of the road for at least two times no potholes were observed as the section of the I-90 around that area appears to be relatively recently laid. The tire was inspected at home after the incident and there was no FOD found in tire. As a first impression it appears to have failed at the tire wall. Expectation is that after failure the tire wall should be able to sustain the vehicle weight and operation of vehicle at least for a very short distance to pull over the car from the traffic on a highway for safety of driver/passengers and other vehicles on highway. In this case the consequence of incident could have been a very serious life threatening event. A detailed analysis of design specification and manufacturing process of tire including quality program and sustainability would make sense to verify if this is a design and/or manufacturing failure, to validate and re-evaluate the certification and prevent this type of issue. Also it is quite surprising that tires for this make of vehicle are not covered under warranty. It would also be important to find out idf similar incidents have happened but not reported. For the owner of this vehicle there was no satisfactory and technically convincing response to questions about probable cause and concerns about safety at the authorised service center except the replacement of tire by same make and model of tire with cost of replacement paid by owner/customer. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | STEERING | Steering Assist is reduced shows up in the screen. The steering then becomes hard to manouver and you lose parts of the control of the car. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | UNKNOWN OR OTHER | Driving at highway speed, the screen went black on my Tesla Model Y. The car did not completely shut down and eventually rebooted itself. After numerous calls with customer service I was told that this is not common, but not unheard of. The car has no physical owners manual; it relies on its screen. I now know how to reboot if screen goes black again, but there would have been no way for me to diagnose the problem or solution while screen is black. Initially I was told that the car is not drivable without a service call. Then I was told that it should be ok and just go ahead and use it when they realized that they can not provide mobile service to my location. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was driving from Austin to Houston on 5-Sep-2023 when the car stop from 70MPH to zero w/no reason and nothing in front of us; this phantom stop event is real - my daughter and wife were very scared and made me not use the adaptative cruise control for the rest of the trip. I don't have paid for FSD, I was very upset because was the start of the trip and I did not use the car for 2+ hours trip since | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2023 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while his wife was driving 70 MPH with the Forward Collision Avoidance Adaptive Cruise Control engaged, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The contact stated that there was no vehicle or objects in front of the vehicle at the time of the failure. Additionally, the Self-Driving mode was not engaged during the failure. The contact stated that the failure had been recurring while driving. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 3,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 3,000 |
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On multiple occasions while utilizing the Autopilot system it will suddenly break with no objects in front of the car. On each occasion it was on the highway with no cars in front of the vehicle. The car would suddenly decelerate at full regenerative force with no cause and with many cars behind me, potentially leading to a crash or causing the vehicle to lose control. No messages or alerts appeared on the driver display. No automatic emergency break warning was actuated. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2023 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while dropping her son off at work, she placed the vehicle in drive(D) and the “Car Unable to Charge” message was displayed. The contact stated that the driver’s side of the vehicle had no electric power. The contact stated that the passenger’s side of the vehicle still had power. The contact stated that she could not open the driver's side door and used an emergency override switch to exit the vehicle. The contact stated that she was unable to close and secure the door afterwards. The contact had the vehicle towed to a dealer. The contact stated that the tow truck driver had to use a bungee cord to keep the driver's side door closed. However, during transporting the vehicle to the dealer, the driver's side window cracked and fell inside the door frame. The contact had taken the vehicle to a local dealer, where it was diagnosed and determined that the driver’s side body control module needed to be replaced. The vehicle was repaired. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was 6,564. | Crash: No Fire: No Towed | 6,564 |
| Oct 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FUEL/PROPULSION SYSTEM,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | My husband and I were driving from Cincinnati Ohio to Harrisburg, PA on Monday, Oct 16, 2023 on the highway (turnpike). At least four times the car tried to kill us by starting to slam to a stop ON THE HIGHWAY when using cruise control. Fortunately each time there were no cars immediately behind us or we would have had a major accident. We stopped and called Tesla in Mechanicsburg who consulted with someone on another line. We had both hands on the steering wheel and were doing everything correctly. They concluded that it was either the car sensing we were driving near mountains, or around curves. it happened once with a mild curve but the other times the road was straight. There was a small drizzle of rain (they said it could be rain) or they also said it could be sun. At this point I said "this is ridiculous as how can we drive this car to Florida (in the sun) if this might happen. Their conclusion: Take it off cruise control. We did and continued home but it is ridiculous that we cannot use the cruise control for fear of it happening again! And they said risks include mountains, rain, sun and curves in road. These conditions are the conditions almost everyday for most people in Pennsylvania! If there had been a truck behind us or a car, we would be dead. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Phantom braking happening regularly when auto driving cruise enabled on highways w no oncoming traffic. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | We enabled Tesla Auto-pilot on the highway. We were driving in the middle lane and there was a truck on the left of us and another vehicle on the right. The truck on the left moved a little towards us but stayed in its lane. The autopilot suddenly turned sharply left. But since there was a car there, it suddenly turned right towards the truck. At this point, I hit the brakes and disabled the auto-pilot. We have not used it since then. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | STEERING | We were turning onto a crowded street, and halfway through turning the power steering suddenly failed. We couldn't get the steering wheel to move. We were facing perpendicular to the street and several cars were within inches of hitting us. We got out of the car (in the middle of the crowded street) and back in, at which point the steering worked again. We thought this was a one-time issue, but as we got to the parking lot at our apartment complex, we experienced the same power steering failure. We can't drive this car under the assumption that we'll be safe. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | STEERING,LANE DEPARTURE | During the week of October 09 2023, I started receiving two failure alerts on my 2023 Model Y. The first is that lane keeping assist was unavailable. In spite of this alert, the system continued to function properly. The second warning was a Steering Assist Reduced warning. At first, this also seemed to not corollate to a noticeable issue with the vehicle. On the evening October 15, when leaving a supercharger station, I noticed a momentary stutter in the steering wheel that accompanied the above mentioned alert. No other issue was observed. On the afternoon of October 16, when leaving from work, after putting the vehicle in gear, I had no steering ability at all, it was a similar feeling to the steering wheel lock on older vehicles. The wheel would move approximately 1" in either direction. I immediately shut the vehicle down and performed a reset by holding in both scroll wheels on the steering wheel. This did not clear the code, but did return steering ability. Since I could not predict when the steering might go out again, I contacted Tesla and had the vehicle towed to the nearest service center. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Car was on TACC. It was early evening so the sun was making a lot of shadows on the road from trees. Car kept repeatedly slamming on the brakes approaching each tree shadow. The road was absolutely clear of any real hazard. Almost caused car behind me to collide into the back of me, and then they passed me while honking and very angry. I can't blame them. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | When on autopilot mode with traffic aware cruise control (TACC), the Tesla model Y car gets unexpected unpredictable random sudden slowing down with braking causing panic, inability to react, unsafe for the following car the rear. Appears to have unexpected unnecessary phantom braking unsafe for driver, passengers and the rear following car. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I had 3 incidences where my Tesla braked hard while using basic cruise control. There was no car in front of me in all cases. One time there was a car to the side of ne. The incidences happened on October 15, 2023 while driving on I-15 and I-70 through Utah. It happened around 1 pm, in sunny weather. The car braked hard for now apparent reason, and this is very dangerous if a car was behind me. The passengers in the car became scared. I looked for settings to disable the automatic braking when using cruise control, but changing the various settings gs did not help. The random braking did not happen if cruise control was off. I had to stop using cruise control for fear of my safety. There should be a way to turn off auto-braking when using cruise control. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | STEERING | Steering wheel locks frequently, especially when driving on busy road. Very dangerous. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Oct 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES | Component/System Failure: Brakes spuriously slam on when traveling at freeway speeds. Safety concerns: People behind me possibly slamming into me, in addition, my terrified reactions to an unexpected/unseen concern. Vehicle has not been confirmed by dealer or independent service Vehicle has not been inspected my manufacture, police, or insurance representative there is no warning as to when they may happen. first appeared in March 2023 and has happened about five times throughout the various months since then, | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |