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2021 TESLA MODEL 3 — Complaint #2085192

Open-data reference.

NHTSA Complaint about LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES:DOORS:LATCH:EMERGENCY MECHANICAL RELEASE filed April 22, 2025

NHTSA complaint #2085192 (ODI reference 11656199) concerns a 2021 TESLA MODEL 3 and was filed on April 22, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on April 5, 2025. The report was geocoded to District of Columbia 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
District of Columbia

Complaint Description

While traveling over 230 miles from home on a road trip, my 2021 Tesla Model 3 suffered a complete and catastrophic failure. While in North Carolina, the vehicle became entirely unresponsive—doors would not unlock, windows couldn’t be operated, and I was completely unable to access the charging port, trunk, or frunk. The vehicle was effectively bricked without warning. This wasn’t a minor inconvenience—it was a serious safety issue. I was stranded out of state from Saturday to Tuesday, completely dependent on others for transportation while waiting for the vehicle to be towed 58 miles to a service center. I was eventually informed of the cause, auxiliary battery failure, but the fact remains: this happened without warning, in the middle of a long-distance trip, and could have left me in an extremely dangerous or isolated situation. Tesla's systems failed without notice; an apparent design flaw left me with no way to access or secure the vehicle. The inability to open the door

Complaint Details

NHTSA Complaint ID 2085192
ODI Number 11656199
Date Filed April 22, 2025
Failure Date April 5, 2025
VIN 5YJ3E1EA1MF

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.