2018 TESLA MODEL 3 — Complaint #2142914
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE: ADAPTIVE CRUISE CONTROL filed October 24, 2025
NHTSA complaint #2142914 (ODI reference 11695523) concerns a 2018 TESLA MODEL 3 and was filed on October 24, 2025. The owner reports the failure occurred on October 5, 2025. 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, 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 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 2018 TESLA MODEL 3 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
Repeatedly and randomly, with cruise control (not FSD) engaged, the car would brake, sometimes aggressively. The last time, it braked so hard the tires or brakes squealed and the car swerved slightly before I was able to regain control. This was on the freeway (in Colorado, if I remember correctly) while I was cruising at 70 or 75 MPH. I decided that that was the last time I would use cruise control; it was just not safe. I had an appointment on October 22 to take the car in for service. But then a friend told me this was called "phantom braking" and that there was no fix. A friend suggested that I contact the NHTSA.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2142914 |
| ODI Number | 11695523 |
| Date Filed | October 24, 2025 |
| Failure Date | October 5, 2025 |
| VIN | 5YJ3E1EA6JF |
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Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
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