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2021 TESLA MODEL 3 — Complaint #2059797

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NHTSA Complaint about LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES:DOORS:LATCH:EMERGENCY MECHANICAL RELEASE filed January 27, 2025

NHTSA complaint #2059797 (ODI reference 11638685) concerns a 2021 TESLA MODEL 3 and was filed on January 27, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on December 30, 2024. The report was geocoded to Texas based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as latches/locks/linkages:doors:latch:emergency mechanical release, 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 latches/locks/linkages:doors:latch:emergency mechanical release 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.

Vehicle
2021 TESLA MODEL 3
Component
LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES:DOORS:LATCH:EMERGENCY MECHANICAL RELEASE
State
Texas

Complaint Description

The Tesla model 3 has a manual release lever for each door in the front. The passenger side lever doesn't work, creating a safety issue if the car were to lose power then that door would not be able to be owned in case of an emergency. It was never used before and just doesn't work. I've heard this is a common issue on the 2021 model as it was the first refresh or re design.

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 2059797
ODI Number 11638685
Date Filed January 27, 2025
Failure Date December 30, 2024
VIN 5YJ3E1EA0MF

Similar LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES:DOORS:LATCH:EMERGENCY MECHANICAL RELEASE Complaints for 2021 TESLA MODEL 3

Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.