Coscienzios

Model years to avoid

Tesla Model 3

What it says about you

Opinion

You were early or you were persuaded, and either way the software updates still feel like a small event. You have explained the charging network to someone at a party.

Not measured, not from the data, and offered in fun. Everything below this is not.

10 model years on record, 4,235 complaints filed. No year stood out against this model's own history — which means it has not drawn unusual complaints, not that it is a good car.

What owners report, and when

Faults that dominated the complaints of more than one model year. Not the same question as which year to avoid — a car can have an ordinary number of complaints every year and have most of them be about the same thing.

  • cruise 2021, 2022 peak 46.1% of that year's complaints
  • turn 2024, 2025 peak 43% of that year's complaints
  • braking 2021, 2022 peak 40.4% of that year's complaints
  • steering 2024, 2025 peak 36.3% of that year's complaints

Every year

  1. 2026 1 recall 15 complaints
  2. 2025 3 recalls 113 complaints
  3. 2024 5 recalls 207 complaints
  4. 2023 12 recalls 415 complaints
  5. 2022 18 recalls 757 complaints
  6. 2021 22 recalls 655 complaints
  7. 2020 21 recalls 445 complaints
  8. 2019 22 recalls 606 complaints
  9. 2018 19 recalls 996 complaints
  10. 2017 16 recalls 26 complaints

What does a Tesla Model 3 say about you?

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Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints — compared against itself rather than against other cars, so popularity and age do not decide the answer.