2015 Tesla Model S: adaptive cruise control problems

Filed Feb 2, 2026 · Driver assistance · SC

Tesla Model S has a notorious back hatch latching failure. It’s a flawed design that every replacement is a “when” and not “if for failure. As an owner its failed be about 4-5 times in 5+ years of ownership. The hatch back latching issue causes cruise control as well as their Autopilot steering navigation feature to be disabled when latch starts acting up or failing to fully close, which are helpful safety components to keep your car on the road going at proper speeds and staying in lane. Reporting this in hopes someone pushes Tesla to do something about this flaw that should be a manufacturers defect.

Filed Feb 19, 2021 · 63,000 miles · CO

I installed the recent software update this morning. Part of the software update is a "driver visualization improvement" which changes the layout of indicators in the screen of the dashboard. While previously the cruise control speed and the autosteering indicators were on either side of the speedometer and set at the outer edge of the dashboard's "center display zone", they are now both clustered to the left side of the speedometer. When driving, this puts the cruise control speed indicator too close to the speedometer and I cannot differentiate them in my peripheral vision. I now have to take my eyes off the road for upwards of a full second to to parse the information given by the two indicators. This, as I am sure you are aware, is unsafe. I have contacted tesla with my concerns and am told they can do nothing to revert the update. Please inquire as to why such a change was made, what human engineering factors and studies lead to this arrangement, and what can be done to fix the unsafe condition it creates.

Filed Jan 29, 2021 · Driver assistance · 80,000 miles · WA

When my mcu fails, I receive a message that says, "autopilot safety/convenience features unavailable." tesla's text messages to me state: - "the issue that you experienced with the center display resetting .. Was a continuation of the firmware issue we had identified..."- "this was caused by a known firmware issue",- "we do have a couple of known firmware issues that causing occasional resets or slow performance",- "since there are no repairs to be made at this time .. I will go ahead and close your service request" [and effectively refusing to repair my car under the warranty adjustment program] this issue is not an academic or financial one. I was driving on an interstate freeway in heavy rain approaching a needed charging stop when I suddenly lost control of the heat and defrost systems, the cruise control, all navigation displayandcontrol, and the "safety systems" which I assume are aeb. I had to either risk pulling over on the freeway, which is never completely safe, or scramble with the navigation on my phone to make sure I know which exit to take. On several other occasions, I have lost similar systems and the back up camera feed as I was backing up or needing to back up. Tesla has refused to honor its warranty adjustment program in writtentext messages, is creating an ongoing risk to the public, and seems to have, in addition to the known memory issue, a known but uncorrected software problem that significantly implicates safety. I strongly encourage the federal safety agency to follow up on the issues raised by tesla's actions asap. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Filed Jan 15, 2021 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · GA

The main screen stays blank and the backup camera does not work. All controls that were on the main touch screen do not function include safety features such and adaptive cruise control and emergency breaking.

Filed Oct 23, 2020 · Electrical, Lights · 81,000 miles · CA

Infotainment system has stopped working, along with important safety features like lighting, blinkers, cruise control, climate.

Filed Oct 5, 2020 · Airbags, Electrical · 131,191 miles · CA

My center screen that controls the vehicle functions such as air conditioning, all vehicle settings, map, cruise control, vehicle collision sensors, lder, etc are not functioning because the mcu unit failed. The emmc chip inside mcu failed when the vehicle was downloading a update sent from tesla over the air. The car doesnt want to turn on half the time and vehicle driveability and functions are very limited. Tesla hasnt responded to my complaints and my issue. The car was in my driveway and downloading when the screen qent black and nevwr turned back on. I took it to a tesla 3rd party shop and they advised me to keep calling tesla to notify them of faulty mcu and emmc unit. The danger is that the vehicle collision and safety features are disabled and its dngerous driving on roads.

Filed Aug 10, 2020 · Acceleration, Driver assistance · 54,000 miles · TX

This complaint is about tesla's first generation media control unit (mcu). The mcu is the brains of the car and control the big center screen that the tesla model s is known for. When it failed not only did I lose the ability to use this big screen but I also lost key safety items signals, backup camera, cruise control, automatic breaking, and auto pilot. All the sound features are also disengaged as well and this was evident in the lack of sound for the turn signal as well as the lack of sound for the alert if your seatbelt is undone. Specifically in regards to the turn signal for example if you put the turn signal down to as if you are turning left the nob will lock into the down position leading you to believe your turn signal is working but unless you are outside the car you have no awareness to the fact that the signals are not blinking. In addition to this my car lost its control of the air condition and any millage tracking features were lost. The mcu completely failed on me 3 times. The first two times it came back after a few hours and the third time it never came back (was driven to the service center after 3 days and it still hadn't come back). The failed mcu allows you to continue to drive the car and you have no awareness to the safety features that are disengaged. Also, all the sensors are disengaged to me the user which stops the car from alerting me to objects ahead, behind and to either side of me. There are endless articles about the first generation mcu failures. The chips inside these cars are known to fail after a certain numbers of cycles and tesla has yet to address this known issues leaving the consumer to fend for themselves. Please investigate these issues and hold tesla accountable.

Filed Aug 2, 2020 · Acceleration, Electrical · 48,000 miles · FL

After we returned from our summer home, I tried to drive the tesla. The main screen did not light up but I figured that a normal reset would fix the problem. As I drove, I attempted a reset but the screen remained black. I also learned that the turn signals would not work including the cruise control, windsheild wipers and headlight high beams. Worried about other problems, I returned home and have not driven the car since. Over the summer there had been several updates to the cars firmware and I was looking forward to the improvements. Prior to that. We were driving with other members of the family, all with the tesla app on their phones. The car went into "limp home" mode on I-95 and would not respond to numerous attempts to remedy the problem. The seat heaters would turn on and off, the doors would unlock and the entire car seemed to have a mind of it's own. I asked everyone to turn off their phones and the problem disappeared. Tesla service said they'd never heard of such a thing.

Filed Jun 24, 2020 · Electrical · 76,000 miles · NJ

My mcu or main touch screen has failed. I no longer have control of navigation, music, HVAC controls, back up camera, turn signals, autopilot, adaptive cruise control, headlight controls, sunroof controls, or any function besides driving, steering, and braking, the car was at my home when it was receiving an over the air update. The car then notified me that the download had failed. I went out to the car to find the screen completely black. Trying to reset the screen did not work and tesla diagnosis LED me to believe that the mcu no longer works. Doing my own research I had my emmc chip looked at and found the files were corrupt and the chip was 90% full. Tesla will not replace just this chip and only the mcu in full. I have not driven my car since this issue. *ln*jb

Filed Jun 24, 2020 · Acceleration, Electrical · 72,000 miles · CA

Mcu failure (march 2020) from emmc memory wear-out resulted in non-functioning car. Car would not "turn off," thereby entirely draining batteries. Since the air conditioner was on during mcu failure, it would remain on, no matter what I did, thereby (a) running down the battery, and (b) potentially creating a maintenance or fire hazard (AC running for 12 hours). Also non-functional was cruise control, radio, rear camera, audible warnings (like turn-signal clicks), inability to control battery charging, loss of navigation, parking warning chimes, energy usage graph, cell features, etc. Significantly, the "creep" feature, which moves the car forward when pedal is lifted, also did not work -- causing me to have to relearn certain drive features, and at one point allowing the car to roll backward when it usually would have creeped forward. It's unknown if certain emergency braking features would have worked. Main vehicle control systems functioned (steering & brakes), but nothing else did, and driving was very concerning. Cost to repair was $1575. However, the same type of computer was installed, which leads to concerns that the same problem may occur in the future. See also the federal safety agency action number: pe20010.

Filed Jun 11, 2020 · Acceleration, Electrical · 73,150 miles · CA

On june 9 at approximately 10:30pm, the car accelerated on its own at a high rate of speed. The cruise control was off, as such, so was the driver assist mode. In addition, without prompting, the sunroof opened and the windshield wipers turned on. The only way to stop it was to reboot the computer. The fact that tesla denies this is a problem is ridiculous. There is clearly a software issue that has been recently introduced. I have had the car for more than 5 years and have never had this type of problem until now.

Filed Jun 10, 2016 · Acceleration · 10,000 miles · KS

While driving the car and accelerating to highway speed, with autopilot/tacc enabled it will brake hard from highway speeds to and incorrect "known" 45 MPH (+5 MPH auto pilot threshold). I use "known" as it appears to be GPS data that presents the MPH. The actual speed limit is 65 MPH. Drivers will notice the cars dash board will display the incorrect MPH as well. Result is that when getting on to highway, it slows you back down to 45-50 MPH. If accelerating on an on ramp, with cruise control active it will slow the vehicle. Merging into traffic already at highway speeds and having the model s cruise control/ autopilot slowing down will cause rear end accidents into the model s. This specific scenario was on a has happened multiple times and I have made tesla aware of the defect/bug. This also happens when passing under overpasses with a MPH that is less than the highway speed limit. It has been 3 months and it has not been corrected. This incident happened in a cloverleaf interchange. I have uncovered other defects of this nature and will report them in separate incidents. All incidents have been submitted to tesla motors and to my knowledge they are planning to correct the situation. I have more data on this such as GPS location data, logs, ect if needed.