2024 Tesla Model 3
This year drew an ordinary 207 complaints for a Tesla Model 3 — the model's median is 445. What they were about is the unusual part: 34.8% of them mention signal, against 1.7% 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 | 207 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 445 |
| Involving a crash | 22 |
| Recalls | 5 |
| EPA combined | 131 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- signal — 34.8% of this year's complaints, against 1.7% across the model's other years (21.1×).
- turn — 43% of this year's complaints, against 11.2% across the model's other years (3.8×).
- steering wheel — 30.4% of this year's complaints, against 7% across the model's other years (4.3×). Owners wrote it as: steering wheel, buttons steering, stalks, press.
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
Tesla Model 3 2024 does not have stalks to enable turn signals. Instead, it has buttons on the steering wheel. Sometimes these buttons stop working, so I'm unable to enable the turn signal, which puts me and others at risk. After a few minutes, the turn signal…
Steering wheel buttons fail to activate turn signals no matter how hard they are pressed intermittently. Occurrences happens around 15% of the times when changing lanes or requiring signaling leading to increased danger due to failure of turn signals. Manifact…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 24V284000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 24V554000 LATCHES/LOCKS/LINKAGES Fixed free of charge.
- 24V935000 TIRES Fixed free of charge.
- 25V002000 BACK OVER PREVENTION Fixed free of charge.
- 26V445000 STRUCTURE Fixed free of charge.
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 2024 Tesla Model 3? What happened to yours?
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