Tl* the contact owns a 2018 tesla model 3. The contact stated that while driving approximately 70 MPH while in the auto pilot mode and with the vehicle merging onto a ramp which is descending downward with on coming vehicles stopped approximately 200 feet ahead the auto pilot did not deactivate and slow the vehicle causing the vehicle to crash into the rear of a second vehicle. During the crash no injuries were reported. A police report was taken at the scene (9675202000182). The vehicle was destroyed and towed away. The manufacturer and local dealer tesla of costa mesa (3140 pullman rd. Costa mesa ca) were notified of the incident. The failure mileage was 20,500.
2018 Tesla Model 3 acceleration complaints
Page 4 of 4: complaints 71 to 92 of 92, newest first, as owners wrote them.
Tl* the contact owns a 2018 tesla model 3. The contact stated while attempting to park the vehicle, the vehicle independently accelerated without warning and crashed into another vehicle. The contact stated that the air bag failed to deploy. There was no injuries sustained. A police report was not filed. The contact stated that the vehicle sustained bumper damage. The vehicle was not taken to be diagnosed nor repaired. The dealer was notified on 01/28/20. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 9,999.*dt
Oct 15, 2019 at 12:30 pm I was going to park the car, was rolling to a stop between parking lines in front of the curb when car suddenly accelerated and crashed into a style fence. Reported the problem the same day to tesla and took the vehicle to the service center and complained. They logged the complaint and said they would get back to me about it. Called and emailed a couple of times. No response to date on why this happened.
On 4/17/2019 at approximately 2:40pm I pulled into a small shopping center parking lot and turned right to park in a parking space facing a store front. I was going to a nail appointment, was early and not in a hurry. The car was moving very slowly under the car's own power as I entered the parking space. When I pressed the accelerator to pull to the front of the space the car suddenly accelerated at a high rate of speed jumping the curb, and landing on top of the sidewalk with the front end inside the store front window. I was braking from the moment of fast acceleration and could not get the car to slow down or stop until it was stopped by the store front glass wall. Fortunately no one was injured, but there was property damage to the glass and frame store front and to the front end of my car. The car was fully up on the sidewalk with the front end into the front of the pizza shop. The curb was approximately 8 inches high, so when the fireman reversed the car to move it to the parking space the entire underneath scraped along the bottom, fortunately there wasn't any damage to the battery pack. The police and fire department came to t he scene, and a police report was filed due to the property damage at the business. The fireman had to back the car out due to potential integrity issues with the damaged glass store front. I was not cited. A claim was filed with state farm. I can obtain the police report if needed. There weren't any other vehicles or people involved.
I went to large grocery store and pulled into the parking spot and parked in an empty spot next to another car. As soon as I parked, my car tesla model 3 suddenly accelerated at a high speed and sharply turned right on its own without any prompting. It went fully on top of the plant beds and hit two other cars from the front. Luckily, I slammed on the brakes in time after I processed this terrifying occurrence and prevented the car from hitting any pedestrian. Weather conditions were normal for the area with some light rain. I had not used/engaged any of the tesla automatic driving features during my trip and parking.
Driving on highway 10 lake city to jacksonville fl, suddenly heavy rain caused car to skid driving in autopilot mode at 70mph , the road changed from asphalt to concrete and car could not handle that change , car went into hydroplan/skid mode with 15 snake lapses before I could bring it to rest on shoulder , we were lucky to have survived as a semi truck was just 20 seconds behind us. The car even after halting accerelated on its own causing another small burst of skidding..to add to the woes - the auomated wipers on this car are too slow , sudden rain pour on windshield cause lack of visibility and to turn the wipers to full mode , it takes 3-4 swipes on cars computer , which during crucial moments is a very bad design and can cause unitended accidents
The car accelerated suddenly on autopilot causing the car skid and fall into a ditch oat 80 MPH in utah. The damage was to the body but the accident could have been worse as it almost went into the other lane
I own a 2018 tesla model 3 mid-range (non-autopilot, non-self-driving, software update v10.2 - 2019.40.50.7). I experienced a cruise control related safety defect on my non-self-driving, non- autopilot tesla model 3 several times since 2019.40.2.1 update. First time it happened at highway speeds. I was going 60-65mph with no cars in front of me. I set the cruise control, let my foot off of the accelerator expecting the cruise control to active like it always had in the past. Suddenly, instead of maintaining the speed it was set at it, the car slowed down with full regenerative braking to below 50mph while still indicating the set speed on the display. I have had the car for over a year (purchased in december 2018) and use car with the cruise control more or less daily. The issue never appeared until after the 2019.40.2.1 update. I was away from home when the update was installed, so I didn't actually start experiencing the issue until january 6, 2020 when I resumed my daily commute. The most recent time it happened, I was actually on my way to the tesla service center in bellevue wa for an unrelated service appointment. In the this instance, I was turning right onto a four lane, non-divided surface street and accelerating from a stoplight. I remember accelerating to 33mph and seeing the user interface feedback (black circle around the set speed) as I activated cruise control. Before I could react, the car had slowed to about 20mph, while the user interface indicated that the cruise control was still active at 33mph. I was going up a moderate hill at time. The uphill combined with the full regenerative braking effect made me feel unsafe to say the least. I felt fortunate that there were no cars following closely behind me.
My tesla model 3 has a defect with autopilot sensors and sound. When on autopilot (adaptive cruise control), the sensors can sometimes freeze up and or fail, causing autopilot to cease functioning and issue an audio alert. However, system sound (blinkers, notification alert system) sometimes fails, thus preventing the autopilot from alerting the driver that it will no longer be breaking and or steering. For example, I am driving using the autopilot cruise control, which is supposed to steer /brake/accelerate for me and instructed to keep eyes on the road, however, when the autopilot stops working as well as the audio notification, the driver will not know that it has failed and the car no longer brakes, thus making it likely to have a collision. I have recorded the flaws and defects and have it on video. This can happen anywhere, on highway or on a regular road. Tesla has been unable to fix the problem.
This is a complaint about a new development in the tesla autopilot experiment. Electrek which is a very influential tesla publicity publication has just released a highly irresponsible article and video. Https://electrek.co/2019/09/19/tesla-autopilot-v10-commute-without-driver-intervention/ this even shows the tesla fitted with a "nag defeater" on the steering wheel. This is going to cause owners to have even more misplaced confidence in the autopilot and will most certainly cause more deaths. Please stop this dangerous experiment which is recklessly endangering innocent road users. Please note that I have used the VIN of a wrecked tesla model 3 so as to be able to file this complaint. I am not a tesla owner but I have to share the public roads with these lethal vehicles. Thank you. Note - dummy USA address used to negotiate your website. Correct name and address supplied with this complaint.
I was driving northbound on ca hwy 101 when I initiated a lane change from left to right with autopilot engaged. After beginning to make the lane change to the right, the car abruptly veered back into the left lane, then slowly started to move back into the right lane. It was at that time that I disengaged the autopilot.
In order to cancel cruise control or autopilot in a tesla model 3, the primary mechanism is to push the right stalk upwards as far as it will go. However, pushing the same stalk upwards only part of the way will cause the car to shift into neutral. This can cause a driver to put the car into neutral while it is underway. This is especially dangerous in a tesla because if the car is in neutral regenerative breaking is disabled and it is the common driving habit to use regenerative breaking as the primary braking mechanism. Essentially, a driver can accidentally make the car unable to accelerate and unable to use primary braking when in motion. In addition, there is no audible alert that the car has been shifted to neutral and only a very small visible change to the touchscreen. I alerted tesla to this issue in august of 2018 and there has been no change to the car's behavior since then, despite numerous over the air software updates.
On 04/13/2019 the car abrupt stopped in the middle of the road while I drove it along northbond santa rita road in pleasanton ca. . Cars coming from behind had to make urgent braking or lane change to avoid hitting us. My young child was crying in horror, and we have no way to get ourself to safety with the car totally unable to move. We called 911, and local police was dispatch to help other card avoiding hitting us, while we waiting for tow truck to arrive. The car was unresponsive for about 20 minutes, with the display showing messages: "unable to drive, pull over to safety. Car shutting down". The car resumed operational after about 20 minutes, without any noticeable change. I drove the car to nearest service center (pleasanton ca). After a few days, I was contact by the service center stating the car can be picked up, while nothing was done to fix the issue. Their official invoice states: "this is currently scheduled to be fixed in 2019.20, but the customer can continue driving. If it happens again (seems unlikely), they can just get out of the car and get back in to resume operation.". I pointed to tesla service representative that their recommended solution is unacceptable - just like what happened to us already - it would be illegal and unsafe to exit the vehicle if it stops in the middle of highway, with no chance to pull over even to the curb. The tesla representative brought an engineer to help "explain" the information, when he mentioned that this issue is a known characteristic related to use of cruise control. And the engineer said he would personally be ok to drive the car without using cruise control. I asked if that means the cruise control is not safe, they said it would be my own judgment. I think this is a significant safety hazard tesla is intentionally ignoring and need thorough investigation.
Tl* the contact owns a 2018 tesla model 3. While driving with the cruise control set at approximately 67 MPH, the vehicle independently accelerated to 75 MPH. The failure occurred without warning. The contact was able to disengage the cruise control. A dealer was not contacted. The manufacturer was contacted and an engineer was sent to diagnose the vehicle. The engineer was unable to provide a cause for the independent acceleration. The contact stated that the failure recurred several times. The vehicle was not repaired. The approximate failure mileage was 4,000. *bf consumer stated vehicle either slows down suddenly or speeds up. This has happened multiple times.
1. We picked up the car on dec 30th, from the fremont factory, the car was not even fully charged, and there was a message on the console saying, that, 'it needs a software upgrade.' we went back inside and asked one of the sales people, he said, 'this is the end of the year, the cars are not coming fully charged, and he laughed about the software upgrade.' we came home and upgraded the software. No-one went over the operations of the car. 2. On jan 1st, the 30 day trial for the autopilot feature popped up on the console, and we clicked yes. We decided to try the auto-trial feature in the evening from santa cruz to our home. We enabled the auto-pilot on route 880, it kept asking to keep your hands lightly on the steering wheel, while the hands were on the steering wheel at all times. After maybe 10 minutes, in the centre line, at a speed of 63 MPH, red warning started saying, 'the car can no longer auto steer.' we canceled the autopilot, manually drove the car. On local street on mowry avenue, between 6:30 pm and 7 pm, while driving, the car in front of us slowed down, removed the foot from the accelerator, car continue to accelerate, while the brake pedal was pressed. No collision warning, and car kept going until it ran into the next car and stopped. We pulled over and assessed the damage, our car has small nick on the center of the bumper. 3. Arrived home, with about 80 miles charge left. After plugging in the charger, about 15 minutes later, message on the phone came that charging interrupted, as it has 78% of charge on the battery. Additionally, these are the some of the other concerns, -rattling noise on the right side during driving -while driving slowly at about 5 miles an hour, there is a brake noise -there is wind leak on both front windows and doors. -right rear seat belt does not always lock
Tesla model 3 (2018) proceeded to accelerate while brake pedal was depressed going through an intersection causing uncontrollable maneuver and vehicle control loss. The vehicle failed to respond to pedal input and failed to deploy airbags upon impact with a tree and fence continuing to accelerate throughout such incident. Autopilot was engaged prior to crash. No forward collision warning activated.
On october 3rd, at 5:26pm, I entered the vehicle, stepped on the brake and shifted the car into d to pull forward out of a parking space (I backed in). As I gently applied the accelerator pedal to ease forward (and turn left) out of the parking space to head down the parking aisle, the car moved forward much faster than expected so I let off the pedal. The vehicle stops accelerating after letting off the pedal. I try pressing the pedal gently again and the car lurches forward pretty quickly as if I depressed the pedal about halfway down (I did not). Letting go of the accelerator pedal didn't seem to kick in regenerative braking so I pressed on the brake to slow the car down to a speed appropriate for a parking lot. After using the brake, the problem never reappeared and I resumed my drive although I was shaken a bit by the incident. It's almost as if the "throttle map" was messed up for a few seconds asking the car to deliver much higher current than it should have at a 5-10% pedal position.
Sudden unintended acceleration. Vehicle was retrieved from service center after a center screen/computer replacement. Later that evening, when arriving at the destination at a residential neighborhood, I released the accelerator pedal and turned to approach the curb. When the vehicle was next to the curb, it suddenly accelerated. I quickly applied the brake pedal and turned the wheel to steer away from the curb to avoid collision with a parked construction vehicle. Video of the incident was captured with the ring doorbell camera and video footage is available.
Driver felt sudden unintended acceleration while parking the car. The acceleration happened within the last couple of seconds when the car was turning 90% at pretty normal speeds to park. The car hit a tree, and suffered significant frontal damage.
Tl* the contact owns a 2018 tesla model 3. While attempting to park the vehicle, the brake pedal was depressed, but the vehicle accelerated rapidly on its own without warning. As a result, the vehicle drove over a curb and crashed into part of a store. The front end of the vehicle was damaged. The air bags failed to deploy. A police report was filed and there were no injuries. The vehicle was driven to the contact's home. The contact notified tesla's service center at (610) 407-7030, but the dealer and manufacturer were not contacted. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was not available.
Here is a video that has just been uploaded to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4guhsmipiq4 this owner thinks it is perfectly safe to jam some fruit in the steering wheel to eliminate the "hold steering wheel" nags. He does not seem to be a complete idiot. The problem is that he has been mislead by the hype spread by tesla and ceo elon musk. Despite several fatal crashes musk is still spreading the message that the federal safety agency found autopilot is 40% safer than a human driver. The federal safety agency has now revealed that the claim was based on tesla's own (unverified) data. More people will die unless this uncontrolled and highly dangerous experiment is halted immediately. Please do something. Thank you. Deeply concerned citizen.
Unintended acceleration of 2018 tesla model 3. Issue description: issue occurred on 05/04/18 at approx. 11:52 am while trying to park the vehicle in a parking lot of a grocery store. The vehicle was in the parking space position when it suddenly accelerated without any input from the driver. The brakes were applied however they felt inoperative. It felt as though the driver had no control over braking and the vehicle had a mind of its own. The driver turned the steering wheel to avoid directly hitting a dumpster while trying to brake. The passenger side of the vehicle then hit a curb and a pony wall. After the impact, the driver was able to turn the vehicle while applying the brakes that eventually brought the vehicle to a stop. Probable cause: unknown. Given the vehicle is new, it is difficult to identify a reason why would it accelerate unintentionally. The vehicle is equipped with enhanced auto pilot which was not engaged at the time of incident. The night prior to the incident the vehicle displayed software glitch where in it would not control the volume of the radio while driving with the buttons on the steering wheel and was stuck in controlling the steering wheel position. Car is running software version 8.1 (2018.14.13 9e3b7ff)
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