Warning Problems of Tesla Model S

Critical safety failure: loss of driver override and extreme hmi/signaling latency. 1. Loss of override & unintended acceleration: while operating fsd (supervised), the vehicle ignored a 65 mph set-point and accelerated to 80 mph. I attempted to reduce speed by pulling down on the steering stalk 4-5 times, but the vehicle ignored all manual inputs, requiring a hard disengagement. 2. Lane departure / path failure: the vehicle failed to maintain lane centering, specifically crossing over the centerline into opposing traffic. This occured without warning or system-initiated steering alerts 3. False signaling / path failure: I’ve seen at least two occurrences where system exhibits dangerous signaling conflicts, such as activating a right-turn signal while simultaneously executing a left-turn maneuver. One time it was on a 45–55 mph rural corridor where trailing drivers frequently overtake slower vehicles. A false right-turn signal acts as a dangerous "all-clear" for a trailing driver to pass on the left, creating a high- probability broadside collision scenario when the Tesla physically executes its left turn. I have no idea if this has occurred more than these two times as I don’t check this. The other time I caught on video, by chance, as I was trying to capture the surging behavior to show the Tesla service center 4. Audio & visual hmi latency: audible instructions arrive 100+ feet after turns, and the map ui auto-zooms away from the driver’s focus, requiring constant manual screen contact to view street names. This forces significant visual-manual distraction. 5. Confirmed inadequacy: Tesla service invoice #[xxx] (Jan 27, 2025) documents: 'the current computer is a little too slow for full self driving function. . . ' confirming the hardware is unfit for safety-critical processing. This incident is directly relevant to NHTSA investigation pe25012. Information redacted pursuant to the freedom of information act (foia), 5 u. S. C. 552(b)(6).

See all problems of the 2017 Tesla Model S 🔎.

My car is equipped with full self driving. When I use that mode the car drives over , on, or dangerously close to the middle yellow line. Basically it drives you into oncoming traffic every single time I use it. It also has erratic fluctuations in throttle control that would confuse other drivers and possibly cause an accident. It’s constantly increasing and decreasing the throttle and feels jerky going down the road. I took the car to the Tesla service center yesterday and they confirmed the issue and checked the hardware associated with the system. They indicated that the hardware was all working and adjusted properly and that the issue is a software issue. They told me to not use it and that eventually maybe Tesla will put out an update that may fix the problem. Tesla has sold thousands of cars with fsd and continues to call the system in beta. They have since moved on to 2 more versions of the software and not offered an upgrade to the thousands of early adopters with the original hardware and software. The system is dangerous to drivers and everyone on or near the roadways when these are activated. Tesla said that can upgrade these “older” 2015 and newer models but haven’t because it will cost too much for them. They charged over $8000 for the system and it has yet to work. They need to be forced recall the system and fix these cars for everyone’s safety. The service manager told me he has a similar issue with car and he just opts to not use it. So even the employees at Tesla know of the issue.

See all problems of the 2016 Tesla Model S 🔎.

On 09/18 , I was using the Smart summon feature of my Tesla Model S in the parking lot of costco, greenwood (indianapolis, in). The intent was to have the vehicle autonomously navigate from its parked spot toward my location, as designed and advertised by Tesla. During the summon operation: 1. The vehicle failed to correctly detect and avoid a fixed obstacle (the cart return stand where shopping carts are housed). 2. Instead of stopping or rerouting safely, the car collided with the structure, causing visible damage to the front of the vehicle. 3. While there was no damage to public property or injury to people, the incident demonstrated a serious safety risk, since pedestrians or nearby vehicles could have been struck had they been present. 4. The Smart summon system did not provide sufficient warning or correction during this event, despite being marketed as capable of safely maneuvering in such environments. This failure shows that the Smart summon feature did not perform as intended and behaved in an unsafe manner in a real-world public parking environment.

See all problems of the 2020 Tesla Model S 🔎.

Sometimes while making ordinary and safe traffic maneuvers the lane departure warning system sometimes emits a very loud, distracting, and startling emergency chime. In particular it does this while turning into parking garages or driveways, which are already high-workload moments with high likelihood of nearby pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.

See all problems of the 2024 Tesla Model S 🔎.

Without prior incident or warning all adas systems stopped working, including adaptive cruise control, ap, fsd, automatic emergency breaking, blind spot warning, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, lane keeping assistance, parking collision warning. There were no alerts displayed on either driver’s display (other than ‘park assist unavailable’). Also there was no visualization of surrounding traffic, roads etc that is normally visible. The cameras were clean. Rebooting the mcu did not resolve the issues.

See all problems of the 2023 Tesla Model S 🔎.

While merging onto the highway an error message showed up on the dash stating "steering assist may be reduced" upon immediately after the steering froze and could only be moved slightly using significant force. Approx. 75lbs. I am athletic and work out and had trouble moving the car to the side. If my wife or daughter had driven the car they would not have been able to steer and this could have caused a significant accident, injury or death. Upon pulling over, I rebooted both computers on the Tesla Model S 75 d and the problem went away. I immediately drove to the Tesla dealer in chesterfield, mo. There they seemed unconcerned, and advised me it was likely just a firmware issue and wouldn't be able to look at the car until the next week. I was shocked. Since the systems seemed to work I drove home and parked the car. On the driveway, the same error showed up and steering seemed again to lock up. After rebooting problem went away. Looking at the Tesla forums this seems to have happened before and poses a serious danger to the driver, occupants and fellow drivers on the road. I no longer feel safe driving the car.

10:12am 12/6/2024 autopilot randomly and suddenly starts jerking wheel back amd forth erratically and swerves all iver road onto wrong side of road. When I grab wheel to disengage it sounds alarms and alleges im departing my lane and activates lane departure/ assist despite the fact I have lane departure assist disabled.

3:17pm Nov 18 2024 - I was driving manually and pulled into my driveway and subsequently my garage. I had the blinker on. As I went to turn into the garage, I heard three beeps and no message was displayed on the screen. The vehicle also jerked the steering wheel towards the wall. I have all lane departure warnings, and assistance settings turned off.

10:33am driving manually very safely blinker on 5mph to turn into driveway. As I turn, sounds 3 beeps and displays “vehicle departing lane” on screen.

Oct 31 9:48am my blinker on taking on ramp to highway and it jerks wheel forcing me straight I have lane departure disabled, am manually driving under 15mph, and use proper blinker but this “safety feature” causes it to “jerk” the wheel and display warnings to the detriment of safety. This affects the entire fleet and was never an issue before around 2022-2023.

Oct 25 3:15pm blinker is on for right turn but vehicle jerks wheel left forcing me straight and sounds alarms I have lane departure disabled, am manually driving under 15mph, and use proper blinker but this “safety feature” causes it to “jerk” the wheel and display warnings to the detriment of safety. This affects the entire fleet and was never an issue before around 2022-2023.

The infotainment unit in the car that controls functionality, I. E. Navigation used to monitor battery availability is malfunctioning because of glue seeping from the unit and causing the screen to go black intermittently while driving creating a safety hazard for the driver and others due to a distraction. When this happens the driver loses visibility to navigation and other controls central to the vehicle functionality. Tesla is aware of this manufacturing defect that is a safety concern because it requires the driver to not focus on the road.

Oct 5th - blinker is on turning into driveway at 1mph and got the alarms / wheel jerking I have lane departure disabled, am manually driving under 15mph, and use proper blinker but this “safety feature” causes it to “jerk” the wheel and display warnings to the detriment of safety. This affects the entire fleet and was never an issue before around 2022-2023.

Was driving on a highway when suddenly a whole bunch of error messages came on and my car became hard to steer. Wobbled off my lane which was extremely dangerous going 70mph. I reported this to Tesla and set up a service appointment. The day before my appointment they rescheduled it, pushing it out 30 days saying they don’t have the part in store. They haven’t looked at my car. They said they’re waiting for a new steering rack but don’t know when it’s coming in. Mentioned towing the vehicle and it being unsafe to operate - they must know there’s something wrong and clearly there’s a backlog of issues. They should have told me this earlier. My car is practically new. There’s absolutely no reason the steering rack would have broken.

Received and error message, lane departure avoidance features unavailable and steering assist reduced simultaneously while driving between 65-75 mph. Steering will required extreme effort to turn. I was about 5 minutes from home exited the highway and took the backroads. Steering did require extreme effort. The following morning, car worked fine.

See all problems of the 2018 Tesla Model S 🔎.

I received a safety recall dated 2/8/2024, recall no 23v-838. Tesla has failed to remedy the defect & claims a remedy is not necessary. Specifically, I took my vehicle to Tesla on 3/18/2024 to update vehicle software to incorporate additional autosteer controls. See attachment: "repair notes: "no update necessary", despite the vehicle running a software version less than 2023. 44. 30 as specified in the recall notice.

Shortly after an update in December, my 2018 Model S started getting alerts: driving visualization temporarily degraded, charge port sensor fault, autopilot cameras unavailable, automatic emergency braking unavailable, lane departure avoidance features unavailable, steering assist reduced. The map no longer knows where the car is located and cannot navigate or tell what the battery percentage will be at. All automatic features have stopped working. The service center claims the ecu needs to be replaced. It was upgrade to the autopilot/full self-driving ecu in 2020. I have read reports from dozens of other Tesla owners that this update also broke their ecu. I believe Tesla knows the new requirements for full self-driving to be safe and usable does not work with their current ecu. They want to charge me $1600 to replace the ecu. I cannot receive the recall ota update with my current ecu.

1. Previously listed recall has been erroneously removed from recall history for my VIN. . Read more...

The car, which was equipped by Tesla's full self-driving beta software v11. 3. 3, attempted to make a premature left lane change in preparation for a left turn at the light, which almost put me in front of a pickup truck waiting in the center turn lane. Please find the attached dash cam video on this link: https://share. Icloud. Com/photos/0e9emy-_aqswxtcre9yedee7a.

Maryland state police report 7450004v says: on March 14, 2023, mark bova was driving his 2018 Tesla Model S in maryland on what is known in the dmv as the important highway, "the beltway". According to police report msp 74500047, "unit 1 was traveling southbound in lane 1 on I-495. The autopilot feature on the Tesla was engaged. The autopilot malfunctioned causing the Tesla to lose control and leave the highway on the left side. The driver was transported by ambulance to the hospital . . . . " "equipment failure, ran off road left".

The Tesla full self driving was on and it turned my car into the guardrail in the middle of the highway all by itself for no reason at 70mph. It looked like a truck was turning into my lane and instead of stopping the car swerved into the grass and I hit the guard rail. The car was totaled. I have a video of the incident. . Read more...

While using wildly falsely marketed $10k "full self driving" add-on across multiple software revisions and after reporting each and every bug to company I have experienced potentially fatal phantom breaking while at highway speeds and could have been killed by rear ending on at least 4 occasions. Have experienced 20+ erroneous forward collision errors with automatic breaking or lane assist corrections for obstacles such as hills, mailboxes, trees, absolutely nothing at all, etc. When driving around mildly banking left turn corners with 45mph speed limits whenever approaching a left turn lane within median the car will violently lurch into the turn lane causing panic for passengers and nearly causing a collision within resuming concrete median. While using autopilot the car failed to stop, correct or warn when a vehicle entered my lane and caused an accident with several thousand in damages. Car does not properly break for turns on highways requesting driver take over for what should be an easily navigable turn. Doesn't take apex or break early and will drift lanes making other surrounding drivers nervous. Moving the horn from muscle memory location to awkwardly placed touch button has prevented timely use of horn on multiple occasions which could easily result in fatal accidents. Overall this car is a literal death trap not at all even remotely ready for production use on public roads and neither I nor any of my passengers feel safe using the feature that was over priced, over promised and under-delivered. Tesla service center employees too worried about retaliation from management to inquirer about problems because of previous reparations from corporate offices. List of problems is shockingly egregious and should not be legally permitted on roads.

See all problems of the 2021 Tesla Model S 🔎.

Autopilot cut off while driving on curved highway exit ramp, leading to driver's side of car grazing guard rail and rims of wheels grazing curb. Mostly paint damage. Repair estimate: $7,000. 00 car sustained minor damage, but I was told by collision center that other similar incidents had occurred, including one in which car had gone off the road into a ditch. I have confirmed this is a consistent software problem, cutting off on all highway exit ramps. Problem reported to local Tesla service, and they uploaded data from the car remotely. There were three dings as an alert, and a warning appeared on driver's display "autopilot guidance complete" and beneath it, in very small letters difficult to read, "tap accelerator to continue. " I consider this a software design flaw. Default on a curve should be to switch from autopilot guidance to lane keeping, not shut off altogether. Also, warning should be more visually an audibly prominent. For example, when guidance is not available on a city street, there is a distinctive alarm and obvious flashing on dashboard display. There should be a similar warning when autopilot is about to shut off.

On at least nine occasions the car has very suddenly and with no input from driver braked hard during passing another vehicle, when assuming the original lane after passing a vehicle, and, on one occasion when no other vehicle was close by. I have brought all incidents to Tesla's attention. They tell me the problem resides in the software of the car and that they "are working on it". This is a very serious problem, which has been going on for over a year in my case. A totally unacceptable and extremely dangerous situation! occurred in December 21, 2020; several times during the summer of 2021, other sporadic times, and most recently on September 6 and 8, 2022.

This automobile has had the Tesla recall completed, replacing the 8gb with the 64gb. However, this fix is temporary and after a few months the control and information screens are malfunctioning and with ever-increasing frequency. I understand Tesla’s recent update ensures basic driving functions will continue to be operational during a screen blackout but it’s at best distracting and at worst plain dangerous depending on how lights/hvac are set prior to the screen freeze, not to mention distractions associated with a sudden loss of navigation and an inability to control other components. As a frequent highway driver this is dangerous, even after experiencing various versions of this event. Per service dept. , the only existing actual (non-temporary) repair for this is replacement with the newer version of the mcu, yet Tesla insists on using language as a loophole, calling the mcu2 an upgrade- which it was, but now as the sole remedy to restore previously existing functionality and safe operation of the effected vehicles, this should not be categorized as an option or an upgrade. Owners should have a better course of action than having to pay for an unwanted “upgrade” to regain original functionality.

My Tesla Model S has the v1 hardware, also known as mcuv1, with the daughterboard emmc replacement from the previous recall running on firmware 2020. 48. 37. 1. The sound for the entire car will cut out. It might come back, but even a reboot of the car does not solve anything. These sounds may include blinker noise, speed limit chimes, lane departure warning, autopilot engage/dis-engage chimes, gear warnings, collision safety chimes, early braking warning, and a lot more safety-related sounds. This happens every time I drive the car, not just the reported date. I have brought it in for repairs numerous times, but this has never been addressed. I am only told to wait for a new firmware upgrade, which I have been for years now since I first reported the issue to Tesla. This only happens with mcuv1 cars and they have refused to provide a free hardware upgrade even after my incessant reports and appointments stating that it is unsafe.

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 NHTSA to follow up on the issues raised by Tesla's actions ASAP. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

See all problems of the 2015 Tesla Model S 🔎.

My screen keeps freezing and is black causing a safety hazard and I can't drive the car anymore. I have taken the car to Tesla several times but they won't fix it. The computer is broken and the chip has failed. The ac doesn't work, I can't control my radio, my back up camera doesn't work, turn signals don't work, hands free system doesn't work, nav system doesn't work. Tesla needs to replace my entire nav, entertainment computer to return the car to what I actually paid for. The clock doesn't work, and I can't tell how much battery life I have left. This is a dangerous situation and they have refused to repair then computer. This is an electric car and 100% relies on the computer to control even the smallest details. I cannot drive the car and try to reboot the car while I'm driving. Nothing has worked. Tesla knows about this situation and I am not the only owner who has this problem.

2 weeks ago I was driving down the freeway at night. My infotainment unit turned black, I lost: 1. . Auto pilot 2. Hvac 3. Exterior lights 4. Radio 5. Maps, blinkers when I contacted Tesla, they said nothing was wrong with my car. We could have easily got into an accident losing these vital things. How do you get Tesla to fix this and what is the right fix?.

Large middle screen goes black which controls all the uses of the car. The car runs, but there is no navigation, no radio, no heat or air conditioning. It is very scary!!! it has happened a number of times since 3/2020-1/2021. I had the car checked in November 2020 and asked to have the mcu replaced, but they said there was no recall and it wasn't necessary. Also there is a yellow edge on the screen. I didn't think to take a picture, but will the next time it happens.