Complaint volume
1069 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
1069 consumer-submitted complaints on record for the 2023 Tesla Model Y, grouped by component category.
1069 Total complaints
138 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 138 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?
138 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
1,069 total complaints on record
Latest complaints
| Date | Component | Summary | Severity | Mileage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 2023 | VISIBILITY/WIPER | This vehicle forces the “Automatic Wiper” setting to be on whenever cruise control is engaged. Wipers will come on randomly when there is no rain or when wipers are not necessary. Yesterday it happened over 30 times on a dry day distracting the driver and finally we just had to drive without any cruise control or driver assist functions on, which increases the changes of not maintaining a safe and constant speed along with lane keeping in some circumstances. I live in a rural area with lots of bugs and dust. When wipers actuate unnecessarily it smears bugs all over the window decreasing visibility and eventually scratching the glass from the wipers grinding dust into the windshield. We clean the windshield often but can’t stop during the middle of a trip to clean the windshield whenever a bug hits the sensor. I’ve placed a service ticket in to Tesla and they state the system is functioning as designed and refuse to address this safety issue. Please help. I’m happy to help NHTSA in any way possible. This is an easy software fix for Tesla to simply allow cruise control without automatic wipers, but they refuse. Auto wipers in many cases can be less safe than manual as as soon as they come on the driver is scrambling to fumble with the touchscreen to get them off before they decrease visibility. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | STEERING,VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Automatic emergency braking occurs without cause at high speeds on flat divided Hwy. Happened on multiple trips 5 or more times in a 3 hour drive on 3 different highways in NM. Tesla service has addressed the issue twice. said everything is working properly. Happens when Cruse control + auto steering are active. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | 1: While using cruise control, the car will apply emergency braking without cause or warning. I have learned that this is known as phantom braking. 2: Occupants in my car as we'll as anyone driving behind me are at risk of injury or death due to this issue. 3: The Tesla dealer determined there is no hardware issue. Stated further that a future software update may correct the problem and referred me to the users manual for limitations of the system. 4: The car has been serviced by the dealer without resolution. 5: No warnings or messages are executed by the car prior to the phantom breaking. *** Note *** At minimum there needs to be a warning that must be acknowledged by the driver whenever cruise control is activated like the warning messages post by some cars when activating a GPS system. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | STEERING,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,LANE DEPARTURE | Tesla autopilot made a turn into oncoming traffic without warning and caused a collision. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Injuries: 4 Towed Medical attention | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | BACK OVER PREVENTION | Tesla removed the parking sensors and replaced them with a "Vision" system. My last Tesla has the parking sensors and the parking distance and chimes worked great. The new Vision system works rarely. I've run into stuff in the garage while parking, it doesn't sense walls, doesn't work in the rain, you have to wait for an extended period of time for it to "load" and it randomly doesn't work. You'll get a message saying something to the effect of Park Assist Unavailable. I've asked Tesla to address the issue but it's a problem I don't think they can solve as they are trying to get cameras to see where they don't have a field of view. In the image below I am about 18 inches from my garage door and it's not even being registered. The curb to the side is registering but not the giant wall behind me. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | STEERING | Vehicle steering lost power steering and the steering is stuck in straight position only while driving. Vehicle can travel only straight line forward or backward and cannot turn. Powering off and on did not help resolve the issue. Had to get the car towed to Tesla service. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | every time while driving at highway speed with cruise control enabled the car will decelerate or brake hard without anything in our path of travel for as far as the eye can see. this is a safety issue as the cars behind us may not be able to react fast enough to avoid hitting as our car brakes without cause. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | It is known as phantom braking that many other people have reported. I bought this car for about two months and has drived for about 2000 miles. It has happend 3 threes to me. In all three cases, the car was on adaptive cruise control at about 70 miles per hour. There was no car within 200 yards. The car suddenly braked and the speed went down to 30 miles per hour in a couple of seconds. I had to intervene and cancel the adaptive cruise control. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE,ELECTRICAL SYSTEM | The contact owns a 2023 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while driving 75 MPH with Self Driving feature activated, the vehicle experienced phantom braking and abruptly decelerated to 35 MPH. The contact stated that there was no vehicle or object in front of the vehicle. The contact stated that the failure reoccurred several times. The contact stated that the initial failure occurred after a software update was remotely completed the day before. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed nor repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 4,500. The consumer stated the manufacture was notified on 04/17/23. | Crash: No Fire: No | 4,500 |
| Apr 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES | New Tesla Model Y brake failed and accelerated resulted in a serious crash within 2 hrs of taking delivery. I believe it is acceleration functioning and brake due to auto pilot feature. Vehicle will be available for inspection after 4 weeks. After taking delivery of new Tesla Y, we drove to temple. While parking car accelerated and lost control of the vehicle as brakes were not working. It hit the temple wall and when we tried to backup to get the car out of the crashed wall, it got even worse. It reversed in lightning speed and hit another car, run over the bushes and huge palm tree across the street and finally stopped. This terrifying experience caused huge mental trauma, multiple property damage, and financial hardship that we are dealing with right now. Fortunately, there were no injuries. We lost all the trust and confidence in Tesla. We are NOT confident of driving due to huge safety concern. It is a very important safety issue considering the customers at large. Tesla service has not worked on the diagnosis. We tried reaching out Tesla service to investigate the failure. There is no response from them and they keep cancelling the service appointment. On top of it, there is no appointment available in body shop for a month. This incident was reported to police. One observation was made during the incident where Auto pilot beta was displaying on the dash board monitor without invoking any self driving options. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,BACK OVER PREVENTION | The screen multiple times has glitches and froze. We weren’t able to use backup camera, turning lanes cameras or clearly see our screen. We couldn’t access any of the icons that allowed us to control any features of the car. It was like driving blind. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | We were driving at highway speeds in I-5 and had incidents of phantom braking on the car when it automatically slammed the brakes almost causing us to be rear ended. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I recently took a multi-day cross country trip to the southwest mostly along the interstate 40 but also along US and state highways and multiple times each day I experienced what is often called “phantom braking” while at posted highway speeds (typically 65 to 75 mph). These occurrences happened 3 to 5 times each day while I was either using adaptive cruise control or autopilot features on my vehicle. At times this occurred soon after passing another vehicle or semi truck, but sometimes it happened without any other vehicles in sight of my vehicle. The phantom braking occurred without warning and caused a rapid deceleration of my vehicle, at times risking an accident due to the vehicle behind me having to abruptly brake even though there was no indication of any sort of road hazard to alert them of a need to brake. Due to this random, unwarranted braking risk I was forced to keep my foot hovering over the accelerator so that when it occurred I could quickly press the accelerator to override the phantom braking. I tried to monitor the road conditions when the phantom braking would occur and the only seeming commonality may have been when it was a bright and sunny day with slight natural undulations in the roadway, but I cannot be absolute sure of those observed conditions being causal or just coincidental to the events. What does seem to be consistent was I did not seem to experience phantom braking during overcast conditions. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The incident happened on 4/9/2023 at 2:30 pm. I drove in I-10 from Phoenix to California with Cruise Control and Autosteer ON. The speed was set to the highway speed limit. There were three other passengers with me. This seems to be related to the known issue of "Phantom Breaking" in Teslas. I was driving on a 4-lane road with no traffic, then the car suddenly reduced its speed from 65 mph to almost 30 mph, causing a sudden jolt to everyone in the car. There was nothing in front or reason for the car to break. No incoming traffic. It does not seem to have detected a "ghost" obstacle as an emergency. As there was no beeping or emergency message on display. No warning of any type. Luckily, no car was following me; otherwise, it could have caused a rear-end collision. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Around 3:54 PM EST, I was traveling on US 1 Route 1 North Bound, and I tried to turn right into Target Complex (4196 US-1, Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852) from Route 1. I slowed down to turn into the complex, and my vehicle had Sudden Unintended Acceleration while I am turning into a parking location. It jumped over the curbs and hit a tree. Airbags got deployed, and the car was damaged badly. Insurance deemed it a total loss. I saved videos from the crash from the USB. I can forward or upload them. | Crash: Yes Fire: No Towed | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | ELECTRICAL SYSTEM,UNKNOWN OR OTHER | I had the car for exactly one week. I was driving the vehicle in the street, and my vehicle jerked and stopped in the middle of the intersection and a warning sign came on “rear motor disabled”. Then stated it two or three more times, stating the vehicle is safe to drive under 50 miles, and no steel grades. I do not feel safe driving this vehicle at all at this time, and feel that Tesla needs to replace my vehicle as the vehicle is a week old, and the motor isn’t working. This is a huge safety concern as it could’ve caused a major injury accident, especially if I was on the freeway. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | While using the cars adaptive cruise control, or enhanced autopilot as Teala calls it, the brakes would engage randomly and unpredictability while driving highway speeds (phantom braking). There were no cars, objects, or any other hazards around to warrant this "phantom braking". This has happened dozens of times while taking road trips. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was using the advanced cruise control (autopilot without steering assistance turned on) on a four lane highway with light traffic on a clear partly cloudy late afternoon. The speed limit of the highway was 75mph which was my set speed. For no reason at all my system slammed on the brakes, hard. Tesla refers to this as "phantom braking" according to online reports. This almost caused an accident as the car behind me had to very quickly swerve out of my lane. This is unacceptable behavior for an ADAS system to push the brakes so hard without warning or reason. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | On a multi day drive across the country I had multiple episodes of automatic breaking while on autopilot and using Traffic aware cruise control. In all instances there were no vehicles in either lane ahead of my vehicle. Braking episodes did not result in an accident but made the features essentially unusable. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | At highway speed, using the autopilot feature for speed control only, the car applies severe braking when there is nothing obstructing the road or requiring brakes. This has happened dozens of times over the first several thousand miles we have owned the new car. We filed a report with Tesla and they said this is not a problem and is expected behavior. We are concerned this will occur with a vehicle behind us resulting in being rear ended. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | I was driving on free way with Autopilot (Adaptive Cruise Control) set at 79 mph. Without warning, the Model Y suddenly quickly decelerated. There was no vehicle or barrier in front of me. I was able to quickly response and started to step on the Accelerator and noticed the speed dropped to about 70 MPH. There was no sound alert during this process. It was about 8:20 in the morning and I was driving east towards the sun. My daugher was with me in the vehicle and experienced this scare. There was no vehicle closely behind me, otherwise this may cause collision. The vehicle functioned normal afterwards. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | Emergency bracking occured on multiple occasions during trip. When there was nothing to brake for, the brakes were automatically applied, sometimes severely. The car is available for inspection if requested. With unexpected hard braking, we could put someone following behind in danger of a rearend collision and possible injury to us and them. The problem has not been confirmed by a dealer or independent service center. The vehicle/components have not been inspected. There was no warning prior to this unexpected braking. | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The contact owns a 2023 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated while her husband was driving 50 MPH, the vehicle experienced phantom braking. The contact stated no warning light was illuminated. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The dealer was not contacted. The manufacturer had not been informed of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 1,000. | Crash: No Fire: No | 1,000 |
| Apr 2023 | FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | The car has been giving me fake forward collision warnings. Even in parking lots | Crash: No Fire: No | Unknown |
| Apr 2023 | VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL,SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE | on 30th MAR 2023, when my wife drove on to our drive way with gentle speed, car rammed into closed garage door and broke the door and rammed into living room wall with breaking room entry door . there is neither emergency breaking /stop nor collision warning . it damaged wall , garage door and more living room property damage with addition to damage to the car. i am really worried about the safety of the car.. | Crash: Yes Fire: No | Unknown |