Home · 2020 Tesla Model 3 Bev · Complaints

What 434 owners told NHTSA about the 2020 Tesla Model 3 Bev

These are the actual owner complaints behind this car’s reliability verdict, filed with the federal government, unedited. They’re unverified reports, not confirmed defects: read them as leads for your pre-purchase inspection, not a diagnosis.

All (434)Crash / fire / injury (57)Driver assistance (154)Speed control (68)Brakes (47)Steering (45)Electrical system (40)Suspension (38)Lane Departure (34)Airbags (29)Visibility & wipers (28)Seats (23)

34 of 434 complaints match · Lane Departure · clear filters · page 2 of 2

Jul 11, 2022Lane Departure

the recall NHTSA Recall Number21V-00D has NOT been fixed by Tesla on my car. I have scheduled service multiple times and they continue to deny availability of parts to repair. This is frustrating! How can this manufacturer have all the parts for nee car sales and not for a government mandated recall?? Can you do anything?? Please, advocate for me a tax paying consumer. Raul Martinez

NHTSA ODI 11473479

Jun 25, 2022Driver assistanceLane DepartureCrash

The Tesla lane assist and adaptive cruise control failed while I was driving on the highway (I-295 in DC). I have not paid for the full self driving, so I was using the autopilot every Model 3 uses by default. The car skidded into the barrier on the side of the highway and tore up the back left tire and scraped the car. Autopilot was engaged but the car didn’t slow into the turn. I started to slow it down manually by down clicking the knob on the steering wheel, but it lost control even though autopilot was on the entire time. I’ve driven on autopilot on that highway hundreds of times. Autopilot always slows down on its own going into a turn. I was paying attention and am a very attentive driver. But autopilot normally would never have a problem with a turn like that, so I didn’t want to hit the brakes or do anything to disengage autopilot at the last second. I thought that would make things worse. I took over manually once it hit the barrier, obviously. At that point, I kept it from veering back into the other lane so that it would not hit the car next to me. Normally, there is more traffic ahead of me when I drive in that lane at that point on 295, so autopilot slows down because there are cars directly ahead of me. In this case, there were no cars ahead, so the autopilot didn’t reduce speed until later than normal. But I have been using Tesla autopilot for almost 3 years. It normally works quite well. The issue here seems to be that the autopilot does not see far enough ahead. Even though a sharp turn was coming up, it did not slow down at all until it was very close to the turn in the highway. The reason I am reporting this now is that Tesla ignored me when I reported it. I brought it in for service, and it cost me $1500 for Tesla to repair the wheel after the crash. But Tesla didn’t investigate the failure by the autopilot, or pay for it. And I saw on the news that you are investigating autopilot failures, so I thought you should know about this one too

NHTSA ODI 11470987

Jun 23, 2022Driver assistanceLane Departure

On 6/18/2022, nearly all visual based safety and convenience features of my car ceased to function randomly. I was given errors/warnings on the screen that cruise ("autopilot") control was unavailable and that automatic emergency braking was unavailable. I drove the vehicle manually to my destination, and after sitting overnight, it magically all worked again. Software on the car at the time was 2022.16.1.1. I am filing this compliant because since obtaining this vehicle in March of 2022, the "autopilot" system has been a constant area of concern. Tesla really needs to get this system working, or perhaps be forced to reduce its functionality (like just have a normal speed based cruise?) until its ready.

NHTSA ODI 11470734

May 12, 2022Lane Departure

The blind spot warning is non-functional, plus the camera image system is defective in low light conditions as the image displayed is obscured by the glare of the turn signals

NHTSA ODI 11464305

May 10, 2022Lane Departure

When I signal to change lanes the side cameras show the blind spot. At night the camera is blinded by the light from the turn signal due to a fault in the camera, Tesla has a fix but want hundreds of dollars to repair.

NHTSA ODI 11464093

Feb 20, 2022Lane Departure

The Tesla rear facing repeater cameras show the driver's blind spot when changing lanes. The cameras are also used during automatic lane changes when the car is in drive-assisted (FSD) mode on the highway and in city (FSD Beta). The cameras have a manufacturer defect. At night, light from the turn signal led is blinding a large part of the vision field of these cameras. This renders the blind spot vision for the driver but also the computer assisted automatic lane changes for the car partially obstructed. Tesla has acknowledged this defect by redesigning the rear facing cameras so the blinding is remedied. Tesla is refusing to fix this issue under warranty and requires owners to pay for this safety fix. Tesla's statement on this issue: "Hi Stephan! The blind spot camera performance on your vehicle is neither a defect of materials nor workmanship. It is a characteristic of the product. And it's a characteristic that has been design enhanced in newer vehicle production. If you wish to upgrade to newer camera technology, you have an option to purchase the upgraded cameras and have them installed." I am having my cameras replaced, and will pay for it. I believe Tesla should, however, seeing how this is driver safety related even if they are unwilling to acknowledge this.

NHTSA ODI 11453132

Feb 8, 2022Visibility & wipersLane Departure

Tesla model 3 has side repeater cameras that work as blind spot monitor cameras and provide visuals for safe lane changes. However, my model 3 suffers from a manufacturing defect in the camera assembly which causes the visuals to wash out at night due to light bleed from the turn signal. This caused an unsafe condition where i almost ran into a car in my blindspot being unable to see them on the camera visual. I raised the issue with service and they do not consider it a manufacturing defect. The defect however has been confirmed by independent researchers like here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BUPsjguqdY

NHTSA ODI 11450931

Oct 26, 2021Lane Departure

The lane departure assistance in my car was malfunctioning. Yes it is available for inspection if you would like. Today I.e. 10/25/2021, I was driving manually on Interstate 5. The car wasn’t on autopilot or cruise control. I was trying to merge into right lane and had my right turn signal on and made sure there was no one in my blind spot. As I was merging there was a warning signal and message displayed on the screen that read something like- lane departing corrective steering applied. The car was trying to pull me back into the lane I was departing from and it was applying sudden brakes to slow me down. I had to apply lot of force to the steering wheel to pull the car into the lane I was trying to merge. It was rush hour traffic and the cars around me were going pretty fast. It was a really dangerous situation and there could have been a big collision if I didn’t apply that force to bring the car into the right lane. There were no warning signs leading up to what happened today. But there was some malfunctioning in my car previously when the car just stopped without any warning on the ramp to my driveway. It’s a steep ramp and the car stopped all of a sudden and would not move. I contacted Tesla service about this and no action was taken whatsoever. I am really concerned about the safety of myself and the drivers around me not knowing what kind of bugs are going to come up in the future. Please take some action to make Tesla responsible for this.

NHTSA ODI 11438166

Feb 18, 2021Lane Departure

I GET REPEATED WARNINGS THAT THE DOOR PILLAR CAMERAS ARE BLINDED. WHEN I CHECK IT IS CONDENSATION BETWEEN THE CAMERA AND THE PILLAR GLASS. THEY ATTEMPTED TO REPAIR THIS LAST YEAR BY REMOVING A SEAL FOR BETTER AIR CIRCULATION. THE PROBLEM REMAINS. IN COLD WEATHER THIS HAPPENS, AND IT MEANS THAT ANY OF THE AUTOMATED FUNCTIONS THAT DEPEND ON THE CAMERAS CAN'T WORK CORRECTLY OR AT ALL. THEY HAVE NO SOLUTION. THE FRONT CAMERA ACTUALLY HAS A DEFOGGER IN THE GLASS IN FRONT OF IT. WHY TESLA CAN'T SOLVE THIS PROBLEM IS ABSURD. THIS HAPPENS WHILE DRIVING ON ANY STREET OR HIGHWAY AND IS ALWAYS THE CAMERA FACING THE SUNNY SIDE, SO MOISTURE IS EVAPORATED FROM AROUND THE CAMERA AND CONDENSES ON THE GLASS, WHICH OBSCURES IT.

NHTSA ODI 11396830

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Working with the data? Download all 434 complaints as CSV · fetched from NHTSA July 19, 2026

How to use these: a complaint is one owner’s report, filed voluntarily and published unverified. Patterns matter more than any single story. If several owners describe the same failure at similar mileage, put that system at the top of your pre-purchase inspection list. Back to the full 2020 Tesla Model 3 Bev verdict →