I was involved in a collision while driving my 2019 Tesla Model 3. The incident occurred on April 2nd 2026 in [XXX] Prior to the collision, the vehicle was operating normally The crash resulted in damage to the front driver-side of the vehicle, including a destroyed headlight and body panel damage. At the time of the incident, weather and traffic was light and normal. The vehicle was set and supposed to head straight when suddenly at the intersection it jerked right and headed straight into another vehicle. I attempted to take control but was unable to due to resistance on the wheel and how quickly the incident occurred. There was no warning or emergency braking which should've also been expected from my tesla. I am submitting this report to document a potential safety concern and request review. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)
2019 Tesla Model 3: jerking or lurching
5 of the 624 complaints about the 2019 Tesla Model 3 describe jerking or lurching.
- owner complaints
- 5
- of this car's complaints
- 1%
- recalls
- 0
Jerking or lurching by model year
What owners say
I have a 2019 Model 3 and yesterday, while making a left turn and applying pressure to the brake, receiving feedback from the brake, my car lurched forward for about half a second. I thought I may have been rear ended, but no one was behind me. This has happened on the freeway before as well. I'll be accelerating at a totally even place and BAM, I'll jolt forward out of nowhere. On the rare occasions that I use the car's "autopilot" feature, I will also encounter phantom braking, but that's easily avoided by not using the feature, which I haven't since first encountering the problem. I haven't suffered any damages from this, but if my car is able to do this, that's extremely alarming. What if this tripped while I was parking?
The lane keeping assistance will send the car jerking left or right without reason or warning. (I’m not sure if the car is reacting to a shadow on the road or for some other reason.). This has occurred a number of times with an abrupt and violent movement. The last time this occurred was at around 6:50pm on Wednesday April 5, 2023 while driving westbound approaching the northernmost Palm Beach Island bridge. The car made a violent and completely unnecessary shift out of the lane and I had to make a forceful corrective steering response that scared both myself and my passenger.
My friend was driving the car (a 2019 Tesla Model 3) while it was engaged in Full Self-Driving Beta 10.12.2 mode. The Tesla attempted to cut across the freeway while merging from the on-ramp. The auto-steer function attempted to drive perpendicular to the on-ramp and cross the lanes on the freeway, forcing the driver to disengage Full Self-Driving mode to avoid a collision with high-speed traffic approaching from the rear. The extremely dangerous event was recorded by using a GoPro camera, and a link to a video of the incident can be found below: https://vimeo.com/729927123/a5cd8eeb15 The car was originally positioned in the wrong lane of the on-ramp, and then suddenly lurched to the left while making the right-hand turn to merge with the freeway. With traffic approaching at such a high speed, the sudden movement into the middle of the freeway was highly dangerous and the FSD Beta 10.12.2 did not give the driver much time to react.
I turned into a perpendicular parking space in a home depot parking lot. I let up on the accelerator as the car inched closer to the curb. As I began to press the brake to bring the car to a complete stop, the car suddenly lurched forward, jumped the curb, crossed the grass median and come to rest on the hood of another car. I know my foot was on the brake at the time and contend that the incident was due to a vehicle malfunction.
Service bulletins that may apply
Related recalls
No recalls on record for this model year.
Questions about the 2019 Tesla Model 3 jerking
Is jerking or lurching a common problem on the 2019 Tesla Model 3?
5 of 624 owner complaints about the 2019 Tesla Model 3 (1%) mention jerking or lurching. The model year with the most reports is 2018.
Is there a recall or service bulletin for this on the 2019 Tesla Model 3?
There are 0 recalls and 1 service bulletin for the same area of the car. Check them below with your VIN.
Other symptoms on the 2019 Tesla Model 3
Adaptive cruise 56Ball joint 51Phantom braking 45Backup camera 19Grinding brakes 19Sudden acceleration 19No deployment 10Seat belt 10Lane assist 9Wipers 9Airbag light 8Headlights 8Loss of power 7Collision warning 6Power steering loss 6
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