2018 Tesla Model 3
This year drew an ordinary 996 complaints for a Tesla Model 3 — the model's median is 415. What they were about is the unusual part: 6.4% of them mention control arm, against 0.7% across the model's other years.
Generation 1 of the Tesla Model 3, which began in 2017. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 996 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 415 |
| Involving a crash | 100 |
| Involving a fire | 4 |
| Recalls | 19 |
| NHTSA crash rating | 5/5 |
| EPA combined | 123 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- control arm — 6.4% of this year's complaints, against 0.7% across the model's other years (8.9×). Owners wrote it as: control arm, squeaking, lower control.
- charge — 7.4% of this year's complaints, against 2.7% across the model's other years (2.8×). Owners wrote it as: charge, conversion, power conversion, charger.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
Power Conversion System (PCS) failed Doesn’t allow car to charge. Car has only 33k Miles on it.
Power conversion system failure. Vehicle would not charge from a home wall charger. Issue was confirmed/reproduced by Tesla and the part was replaced outside of warranty coverage at 96,000 miles on the odometer. Failure was sudden with no error messages.
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 22V037000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 22V045000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 21V389000 SEAT BELTS Fixed free of charge.
- 21V00D000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 21V846000 FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE Fixed free of charge.
- 22V063000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 22V169000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 22V235000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 19. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Tesla Model 3 was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2018 Tesla Model 3? What happened to yours?
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