Verified government source

NHTSA complaint #11452447

This page summarizes an official U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration owner complaint. Use the verification links below to confirm the record directly with NHTSA.

Vehicle

2022 TESLA MODEL 3

Manufacturer

Tesla, Inc.

Components

SERVICE BRAKES,FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE

Dates

Incident: 01/10/2022
Filed: 02/17/2022

Owner complaint summary

There are two problems with our new 2022 Model 3. 1) The car randomly "phantom brakes". I counted on Monday-- 5 times in roughly 50 miles including twice from 75 MPH to under 40 MPH with maximum braking. All events were on a wide open freeway in a rural area with very light traffic and no movement or vehicles that would possibly explain it. The phantom braking is so bad that the car isn't safe to drive. 2) ABS malfunctioned resulting in a very slow speed impact. A car stopped abruptly in front of me, I hit the brakes where ABS kicked in, the car also automatically braked, but the deceleration was no more than just lifting my foot of the throttle. The ABS was chattering audibly and pulsing through the brake pedal so the ABS was definitely triggered but it appears it was falsely sensing wheel lockup when there was none. If I had been able to just lock the tires up or modulate the brakes myself to prevent lockup, the accident would not have happened. For ref, I'm 52, I've been driving since I was 15, and I have roughly 1,500,000 miles of driving experience. I ride motorcycles and am also a commercial pilot. This is the first accident involving another car I've ever had (never been hit or hit anyone). Tesla has refused to provide the crash data recorder info stating that they are not required to do so in Texas. Based on a conversation in person with a Tesla technician, it appears this is a very new policy with Tesla. At the risk of being accusatory, there are very few reasons Tesla would refuse to provide this data and most if not all of those reasons are to prevent owners from getting data that shows the car malfunctioned. I do have the camera video showing the accident and you can see at 20-25 MPH, I was in full ABS roughly 3 seconds before impact. This was on a dry, clean roadway. I'd guess I should've stopped in 1-2 seconds easily and my 8,000 truck can stop much shorter than what the Tesla stopped in.

Crash reported
This is an owner complaint filed with NHTSA (ODI #11452447). It is not automatically an official recall, investigation outcome, or manufacturer admission unless the complaint text itself describes one.

Official record ID (ODI): 11452447. This page is the human-readable source link used across afterwarranty. The raw JSON link proxies NHTSA's public API for machine verification; prefer this page when reading the complaint.