2015 TESLA MODEL S — Complaint #2165838
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about EXTERIOR LIGHTING:HEADLIGHTS filed January 13, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2165838 (ODI reference 11710658) concerns a 2015 TESLA MODEL S and was filed on January 13, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 13, 2026. The vehicle had 100,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Virginia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as exterior lighting:headlights, 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 S cohort independently describe similar exterior lighting:headlights 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 2015 TESLA MODEL S shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2015 Tesla Model S. The contact stated while driving 40 MPH at night, one of the headlights became inoperable. The contact stated that both headlights had become intermittently inoperable, causing the contact to hesitate to drive the vehicle due to safety concerns. Upon investigating the issue online, the contact learned that several other vehicle owners were experiencing similar failures. The manufacturer was not notified of the failure. The vehicle was not diagnosed or repaired. The failure mileage was approximately 100,000.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2165838 |
| ODI Number | 11710658 |
| Date Filed | January 13, 2026 |
| Failure Date | January 13, 2026 |
| VIN | 5YJSA1S17FF |
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.