2018 Tesla Model S
Complaints about this year name police report far more often than the model's other years — 9% of them, about 9× the usual rate of 1%.
Generation 1 of the Tesla Model S, which began in 2012. Everything below compares this year against the others in that generation, not against a different car wearing the same name.
| Complaints filed | 387 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 136 |
| Involving a crash | 90 |
| Involving a fire | 6 |
| Recalls | 11 |
| EPA combined | 102 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- wall — 8.5% of this year's complaints, against 2.3% across the model's other years (3.8×).
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.
Also unusual this year
- accelerated — 12% of complaints, 4× usual
- work — 12% of complaints, 3× usual
- injuries — 9% of complaints, 4× usual
What owners wrote
while pulling into a parking space, the vehicle accelerated at high speeds without any warning, causing the vehicle to run through a construction site and collide with a building. The air bags were deployed, and the passenger in the vehicle was injured and sou…
while driving down an inclined driveway the vehicle suddenly experienced unintended acceleration causing the driver to lose control of the steering and crash into the nearby RV garage. During the incident, the airbag was deployed and the driver sustained injur…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 22V037000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
- 21V035000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 21V00B000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
- 21V846000 FORWARD COLLISION AVOIDANCE Fixed free of charge.
- 22V169000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 22V818000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 23V085000 STEERING Fixed free of charge.
- 23V838000 ELECTRICAL SYSTEM Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 11. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Tesla Model S 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 S? What happened to yours?
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