2021 TESLA MODEL 3 — Complaint #1796012
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL:SOFTWARE:SIGNAGE/SIGNAL RECOGNITION filed February 18, 2022
NHTSA complaint #1796012 (ODI reference 11452797) concerns a 2021 TESLA MODEL 3 and was filed on February 18, 2022. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 6, 2021. The vehicle had 50 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Iowa based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as forward collision avoidance: adaptive cruise control:software:signage/signal recognition, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same TESLA MODEL 3 cohort independently describe similar forward collision avoidance: adaptive cruise control:software:signage/signal recognition failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2021 TESLA MODEL 3 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2021 Tesla Model 3. The contact stated while driving at 55 MPH with the Forward Collision Adaptive cruise control engaged, the driver was approaching a railroad overpass and the vehicle stopped independently. The cruise control was disengaged and the vehicle operated as designed. The contact stated that the failure was intermittent. The contact stated that the Adaptive Cruise Control signal recognition was not functioning as designed. The contact reached out to the manufacturer and provided an online form describing the failure. The manufacturer confirmed that the issue was a known failure and that a fix was in the process. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The manufacturer was made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 50.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1796012 |
| ODI Number | 11452797 |
| Date Filed | February 18, 2022 |
| Failure Date | June 6, 2021 |
| VIN | 5YJ3E1EB0MF |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.