general problems of the 2020 Tesla Model Y - part 1

I have a Tesla Model Y and a model 3. Both of them 2020 year purchased. The miles on Model Y is 96k and 43k respectively. In Feb 2025, my Model Y windshield had cracked and I had made a Tesla insurance claim and paid the 500$ deductible and got it replaced. Now, in may 1st week, the same Model Y's windshield is cracked. When I take to Tesla service center, they say that its because of an external impact and so, they can't consider a warranty claim and I have to make another payment for this. That's the first thing. Now, with my model 3, there is a crack developing on the rear windshield. I understand from Tesla that it has to be replaced too. I had a chat with safelite auto glass company technician and he said that Tesla's glasses are too thin to accmmodate sensors and thats why this is happening repeatedly.

Problem: I purchased a 2020 Tesla Model Y long range awd, epa-certified at 316 miles. My vehicle consistently delivers only 120–150 miles per full charge, and just ~80 miles from the recommended daily 80% ? 20% soc window. This is less than half the advertised/certified range. I have meticulously logged trips since July 2025, recording start/end battery %, mileage, wh/mi, and driving conditions. Even after following Tesla’s own efficiency guidance (chill mode, conservative hvac, no sentry mode, no cabin overheat protection, speeds at/below limits), the shortfall is repeatable. Company’s response: Tesla repeatedly stated: no warranty action unless there is a system alert. My range loss is due to “short trips” or “driving habits. ” they “cannot go off epa numbers,” though Tesla advertises the epa rating. To review my logs, I must pay $235/hour, while I cannot access my own internal vehicle data. On Aug 7, Tesla told me 33% soc should equal their quoted range. In reality, I received only ~40 miles before needing to recharge. At my Aug 21 service visit, after 1. 5 hours onsite, I was again told results were “normal,” despite my detailed logs showing otherwise. Why it matters: epa ratings are federally mandated certification numbers. Dismissing them as “not applicable” contradicts federal law and advertising practices. A consumer should not accept half the advertised range while being told it is “normal. ” charging $235/hour to access my usage data blocks validation of Tesla’s claims. What I request: investigation into whether Tesla is failing to deliver its epa-certified range. Enforcement of Tesla’s 8-year/120,000-mile battery warranty, as my results suggest excessive degradation or defect. Requirement that Tesla provide consumers access to their own vehicle/battery data without fees. Written clarification of Tesla’s real-world range obligations under arizona conditions. Evidence available.

Component or system failure: the hvac system, specifically the compressor and supermanifold, failed on my 2020 Tesla Model Y. Tesla retained the replaced components during service, so they are not available for inspection. Safety risk: this failure caused a loss of cabin heating and prevented proper windshield/window defrosting during cold weather, severely impairing visibility and creating unsafe driving conditions. Critically, this system also regulates battery heating. Without it, battery performance in cold temperatures can be compromised, reducing driving range, impairing charging capability, and risking vehicle operability in freezing conditions. Problem confirmation: Tesla service technicians diagnosed and confirmed failure of the compressor and supermanifold. Full replacement was required to restore proper hvac and battery heating functions. Inspections conducted: the vehicle was inspected by Tesla service both before and after the failure. Prior to my ownership, the vehicle had been brought in by a family member (prior owner) for hvac performance concerns. Hvac issues reappeared around 28,000 miles, but I was unable to immediately schedule repairs due to the Tesla service center being approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes away and personal scheduling constraints. The vehicle was finally repaired on April 24, 2025, at 38,511 miles. Warning indicators: before the failure, hvac symptoms included inconsistent heating, occasional hvac warnings, and degraded cold weather performance. Additional context: I was required to pay $2,992. 89 for the repair out of pocket, as the vehicle was just outside of warranty. Due to this failure, I drove for an extended time without reliable cabin heat, defrosting, or proper battery heating in winter conditions, exposing me to serious safety risks. Tesla has acknowledged hvac component contamination issues in official service bulletins, suggesting a known systemic problem.

?to whom it may concern, ?I would love some help with an issue I'm having with Tesla. I purchased my 2020 Model Y used from Tesla and the car was and is still under bumper-to-bumper warranty. I've had dozens of issues with the built-in dashcam and sentry modes that have stemmed from an update Tesla made, which has also resulted in my usb drives causing repeated errors. And while the usb drive error may not seem bad, it causes issues with the sentry mode and dashcam where they don't work and these features are some of the main reasons that I purchased the car, also making the car valuable to me and my family. Despite this, even though the car is still under warranty, Tesla service? in sacramento is trying to charge me for my ninth service center visit for this same issue. Here's a list of my visits for this same (and related) issue: - 4/4/2024 - 4/19/2024 - 7/24/2024 - 10/25/2024 - 11/20/2024 - 12/18/2024 - 2/5/2025 - 3/6/2025 I have invoices for each, and again, each ?correlating visit ha?s been under warranty and now even though my car is still under warranty, Tesla is trying to charge me for attempting to fix this for my ninth visit for this same issue. C?an you please help me with this ongoing issue that Tesla is now trying to charge me for even though the car is under warranty?.

Tesla has automatic windshield wipers that are supposed to engage at various wiper speeds when rain is detected. The system does not activate soon enough or at an appropriate speed. Example: in rain situations on a highway when passing a large truck, the amount of spray on the windshield will completely occlude visibility at critical moments. Also if driving through a neighborhood in a drizzle, when kids are walking to school, the wipers do not adjust properly occluding visibility at critical moment’s. Potential solution : in both cases above the Tesla cameras detect the truck and the pedestrians, this data should be used to increase wiper activation and frequency. Tesla also collects user input data from drivers and perhaps collecting data when drivers activate their wipers compared to what the cameras are seeing will help adjust the wiper activation algorithm.

In summon mode, autonomous driving, our car collided with another stationary parked car.

We were in a head-on collision (not our fault) in April. The police determined the combined speed of the crash impact to be 60-65 miles per hour. The 2020 Tesla y  did not deploy its airbags. And as far as we can determine, the accident was not automatically recorded by the Tesla as it should have been. Because the airbags did not deploy, I sustained a fracture to my sternum that traverses over to my collarbone.  we both have tbis and other injuries. With that kind of an impact, one would expect an airbag to protect oneself, yet it did not. There were no warning lights/messages/etc from our vehicle. We are asking that you please look into this safety matter. (especially since you are part of the push to have us own electric cars, they need to be safe for us). I do not know how much longer the Tesla will be available to inspect.

Tesla Model Y, loses control in snow and fish tails, making it unsafe. This has happened multiple time in winter and even in heavy rain. I follow standard recommendations for winter/snow driving, if you skid, ease off acceleration, and do not brake to avoid skidding. If we do this, the regenerative brakes kick in and brakes the car, causing the skid. Have had several narrow escapes in highways and even in regular roads. I hope Tesla will can give an option to turn of the regenerative braking for winter driving. Thanks.

I can’t use the full self drive capability without the car malfunctioning or slamming on the brakes. I paid extra for a service that not only doesn’t work but makes the car unsafe to drive. They’ve continually tried ota updates and nothing can fix it. They need to recall this car and reimburse.

Unexplained sudden acceleration. At kroger parking lot. I was at complete stop, then lightly stepped on accelerator to start moving and car suddenly, rapidly accelerated causing me to hit stop sign. Unexplained acceleration! fortunately no one was standing in front of the car. Caused some damage to the right, front area of the car.

I purchased our Tesla Model Y 3 years ago. I intentionally disabled and did not subscribe to any autonomous driving features because I don’t trust them. I disabled all aspects of auto pilot functions. Despite this, my car still will automatically swerve at random times, slam on the brakes randomly with no reason to break, etc. It is terrifying when this happens unexpectedly and infuriating that I have disabled all these features, but it still does this. This is most common when I put it in cruise control. Rarely these will happen when, for example you cross a double yellow line, but most of the time they happen when nothing has occurred to prompt them. I believe this is an unsafe feature, and needs to be investigated. Unfortunately, with Tesla they have no customer service so there’s nobody that I can report this to.

While I was parking the car at a parking spot for a doctor's appointment, it accelerated by itself and drove over the parking spot front bump and drove a short downhill covered with grass. Then it drove across a street and stopped by hitting an SUV parked. During the whole process, I tried to stop it by braking it, but failed. While it slides down, I gave up controlling the car.

Rear door is stuck and does not open, nor will the emergency release in the door, when activated, allow it to open. Poses a significant danger to anyone in the backseat, or if trying to get a child out from the backseat, say in the event of an accident on the opposite side. This must be addressed via a recall ASAP, or there will be serious consequences eventually.

On several occasions, my car will either I) slam on the brakes when in assisted driving for no reason, ii) start beeping for a lab departure when I have no even made the slightest move to switch lanes, iii) windows will roll back down when I try to roll them up (not sure if that’s related to the fsd issues). I paid an extra $15,000 for fsd and not only does it not work, but it seems to have created unsafe driving conditions in my car.

The drivers side rear door no longer opens. As a parent who drives with 2 children in car seats, this has made getting our kids in and out incredibly time consuming and awkward. Not to mention it just isn't safe at all to have a non operable door. From what I've seen after doing a quick google search, this is a common problem with Model Y and model 3 rear doors, which is absolutely unacceptable and needs to be addressed. You can even watch youtube videos of other Tesla drivers experiencing the exact same scenario as my family currently has. The day it happened I drove straight to a Tesla service center to get it taken care of. They told me they were too busy to take my car and that I needed to make an appointment. Their first appointment date at the local center was over 2 weeks out, which is also unacceptable for an issue involving passenger safety. So I set up a mobile service appointment for the following day which the following day Tesla changed to a service center appointment a week and a half out, citing they needed to order parts to fix this, granted no one has seen this door to diagnose what is happening but they already know enough to order parts to fix it, which means that indeed they have a manufacturing flaw that needs to be adressed. If it wasn't for the car seats it would be an acceptable nuisance, but add car seats to the mix and this scenario is a hazard.

We were driving on a highway and suddenly we got a red steering weel image with a sharp noise and a warning message something about automatic emergency braking disable and we can't use a cruise control feature. I don't feel safe to drive. Tesla can't tell me when it will be fixed.

The navigation system needs to be updated to enable larger font sizes! this has been a problem reported to Tesla for many years (see Tesla users forum), but they don't address the issue. This is a serious safety issue! I cannot read the directions easily while driving. Consequently, I must move my head closer to the screen and spend more time looking at it to understand the next turn. This causes me to stop looking at the road for too long a period of time and almost causes me to have an accident! this needs to be fixed now!.

While driving with autopilot at 65mph, a vehicle 500 yards in front of me was turning left. My car suddenly braked to avoid it.

Hvac "dog mode" failed for the second time after repair. Manufacturer says this is a known issue but no alert sent to owners. Screen indicates rising temp, notification sent to phone of failure. No known timetable for fix but no alerts to owners.

Total failure of hvac system which could put driver in danger in extreme temperatures.

Touch screen in the car does not work. Completely unresponsive. This have I cannot have anything in the car - a/c, use safety features like update auto pilot speed, etc. Issues persists even after vehicle was left idle.

My Tesla was in auto pilot, not full self drive. I was merging into traffic on an interstate, in the acceleration lane. Even though the car was in auto drive, I stepped on the accelerator to merge a little faster. The car stopped dead. It coasted to a complete stop responded to no controls. It had to come to a complete stop in traffic traveling at 65 miles an hour before I could get it to start again. Luckily, I was being followed by my husband because I was taking the car to the auto repair for bodywork. He was able to stop behind me and luckily, neither of us were hit.

Unexpected activate brakes while in autopilot. Rapid deceleration can occur without warning, at random, and often repeatedly in a single drive cycle .

We had a crack on the windshield that safelight tried to fix, but the crack expanded and needed to get a new windshield replaced. It has been 2 months now that we have been waiting on Tesla to get the new part in. In the. Meantime, the crack has expanded to over 16 inches and keeps growing. Tesla keeps pushing back the service date claiming that they did not get the windshield in yet. If they do not have windshields, then how are they building new vehicles daily if they have a windshield shortage? the crack in the meantime keeps growing and it is a safety hazard.

While sitting behind a car at a red light, the car suddenly went into autopilot and spontaneously accelerated forward at a high speed, causing a rear end collision and over $7000 damages to my car. The sedan that was rear ended by me incurred damages but I have no idea how much. . This is the second time this car has suddenly unintentionally accelerated forward while at a full stop since 1/22 ( I've owned the car since 7/2020). The first time while sitting at a drive through pharmacy window- thank goodness there wasn't a person in front of me! the second time, as stated above, at a red light at a busy intersection. Once again, thank goodness there was a car in front of me to stop the car, otherwise I might have ended up in cross traffic with potentially fatal results. Un-nerving. In light of the washing post article, I believe this safety hazard issue needs to be thoroughly investigated before someone gets killed. I've asked for the car data and am still awaiting a manager from Tesla to contact me to discuss what happened and if there was anything on my end that could have caused these incidents to occur. I rarely used by autopilot but since have completely disabled it.

The car was almost parked and the parking button was about to pressed when the car suddenly accelerated hitting a light pole in front on the passenger side and the car ended up on a lane in a four lane local road perpendicular to traffic flow. The accelerator was definitely not pressed. I have been driving the car for last year and three months and have 26000 miles on it. There was no warning of nearby obstacles or any beeps.

Tesla recently release their version 11 user interface. This update took a lot of safety features and put them behind menus. Windshield wipers, defrosters, seat warmers were all easily accessible in the previous version. Now they are wall hidden behind menus. If you need one of these features while driving, you get distracted while trying to find it which is dangerous. But these features are necessary to use while driving.

I think regenerative braking makes the Tesla y fishtail and swerve when driving in snow, ice or slippery surfaces when you decelerate or go downhill. The regenerative brakes cause the car to suddenly brake in snow or ice. If you brake suddenly in snow in a normal car, you may swerve, and this swerving is worse if the car is turned slightly. A friend swerved suddenly going downhill in wa in a snow storm. He recovered by lightly touching the accelerator. My Tesla y spun 90 degrees when I took foot off accelerator in snowstorm in ri and I was able to recover. Minutes later on expressway at 25 mph, I took foot off accelerator and the car spun 180 degrees and hit a guard rail. In the chevy bolt owners manual, under winter driving, the first bullet point they make is to put the car in d--which turns off regenerative braking. You can reduce the amount of regenerative braking on a Tesla, but you can not turn it off. Under driving in winter on the Tesla on the website, there is no mention of reducing the regenerative braking in snow or ice. I think any ev with regenerative braking is at risk of spinning out in snow, ice or on slick surfaces.

Cabin climate control and preconditioning for the battery have failed. Message: "cabin climate control needs service". First noticed around 1/5/22 and report to Tesla service. Car interior will not heat up at all, causing the car to be unusable due no heat, unable to defrost windows. This is a definite safety issue that Tesla has yet to address. We live in upstate NY, and outdoor temps have been very cold. But we did not have any issue in the winter of 2020-2021. We first complained to Tesla on 1/5/22. Tesla scheduled an app't to fix it on 1/18/22 (about 2 weeks later). They then cancelled it, saying "parts are unavailable. " we have not been able to use the Tesla since 1/5/22. We have not been able to get any answers from Tesla service about what parts need to be replaced, or how this can be fixed if it's a software issue. We are leaving for FL tomorrow, and even asked Tesla if they can find a service center between upstate NY and FL that will have the part (or whatever is needed) to fix this. They have been unable or unwilling to give us an answer. In fact, they have not been responding to text messages with the service. They are unwilling to give me a date when this might be fixed. It would be extremely dangerous for us to start the trip in the Tesla y without any cabin heat/defrosting ability. And normal day-to-day use of the Tesla y is impossible unless you dress for extreme cold temps -- even that doesn't solve the safety issue of keeping the windows defrosted. Very unhappy with Tesla service and their lack of ability to help with this safety issue.

Periodically my car slams on the brakes for no apparent reason. This typically occurs on interstate highways at normal highway speeds. Sometimes there are bridges or other objects observable but sometimes it's on the open road with no cars or visible reason to rapidly slow down. This is very scary especially for my wife that has back pain all the time. We have chosen to not use the automated driving feature fsd because this seems to be where it occurs most frequently. Although we don't drive that much it has happened enough times that we are very concerned that it could cause a rear end collision if we are in heavy traffic.

In a recent software update, my Model Y’s backup camera has essentially become inoperable. Sometimes the backup camera does not display, or if it does the video feed lags significantly from real time making it unreliable and dangerous.

Backup camera intermittently fails to activate/engage when the vehicle is in reverse.

Side cameras have terrible glare which make them useless.

After driving the vehicle in cold temperatures (below 28 degrees) the hvac stops heating the car and a warning appears on the center screen that heating/cooling is limited or unavailable. Only cold air flows through the vents providing no heat. The heat does not come back after turing the car off or coming back a few days later, it has to get serviced. This issue has reoccurred twice and has been serviced both times, but now the heating system make extremely loud noise and shakes the car each time it is started which causes the alarm to go off. I have another service set up for investigation into that problem. The heating the car after the first visit worked for a few weeks and then stopped working, which I believe is going to happen again is few weeks after this second time fixing the heating.

The system crashed and it said car was forward mode when the gear stock was stuck in reverse and I went ahead and banged behind car when removing car from parking instead of going forward .