NHTSA complaint #11570504

Owner complaint summary

Twice in a span of six weeks my 2019 Tesla Model 3 simply stopped operating - dead stop. First incident was on a road trip over the Christmas holidays ([XXX]). We had stopped in suburban Chicago before continuing our trip home. The vehicle control screen went black and the vehicle ceased almost all operations. The vehicle could not be started nor put into a gear for towing. All functions accessed through the screen (virtually every function) was rendered inoperable. I called Tesla who told me that according to their computer systems the vehicle was active. The mercifully nearby service center said no fault was recorded by the computer log. They were able to get the screen reactivated and we continued our trip with no further incident and they weren't able to explain what happened. On Friday [XXX] the same thing happened in our garage. The vehicle was towed to Tesla. They diagnosed the issue to an electrical fault in the steering column which shuts the vehicle down. The remedy is a replacement of the entire steering column at a cost of $2100 plus labor. I don't know if this is a typical remedy for other manufacturers but this is quite a expensive solution for an issue unrelated to the steering function. From a safety perspective this was an astounding occurrence. If this winter was colder or we were in a more remote place we would have been in pretty big trouble not being able to activate the heat or any other function of the vehicle. I believe the totality of the shutdown makes this fault an extraordinary concern with an extraordinary price tag for Tesla drivers. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. 552(B)(6)