Mileage when the problem started
Owner reports
Selected complaints filed with NHTSA by 2017 Tesla Model S owners, lightly cleaned up (personal details are redacted by NHTSA).
Approaching my garage door as it was opening when the car suddenly accelerated smashing through the garage door, through the back wall of the garage, through the laundry room and finally stopped in the main bedroom with the front wheels off the ground as the car rested on top of the washing machine.
-I think there is known problem with the Tesla. It autoaccelrates o behaves like someone is taking ove the control fo the car - The inital problem happend on June 24th 2022. I was in the parking lot of my work when It felt like I had lost control of the car to hit 2 parked cars. It cost severe damage to front of the car. Car was in the workshop for 4 months. This was completely unanticipated.I have hisotry of driving in US for over 20 years on major freeways before this without a single accident may have developed muscle memory( reflexes by repeated actions) in controlling the car. I was not distracted at the time. of note however my car had rear damages from being rear ended 10 days prior but Tesla authroized dealer had said it was drivable. …
The issue occurred twice over the period of the past two months, both times I was driving on highway with Tesla autopilot enabled ( It is Adaptive Cruise Control), for no apparent reason the car hit the brakes, all vehicles driving behind me had to hit brakes or change lanes to avoid Collision. Both times I created service request with tesla and got no clear answer to why its happening, first time I was told it is because the exit on map was about couple miles from car location so car had to hit brake hard and change lane to make it to exit but car never tried to change lane, it just did hard braking. 2nd time I was told it happened due to wheel alignment not being accurate. After wheel alignment was done I reached out to tesla again but so far they can not confirm or deny if tesla autopilot is safe for me to drive. I was told to use autopilot at my own discretion. …
Since full self driving, beta has been turned on my car no longer slows down when I reduce the speed or when it encounters a lower speed limit sign, which it will read the speed limit. Prior to this when I decrease the speed or it noticed a decrease speed limit sign. It would use regenerative braking to slow the vehicle down. Now it' just coasts , and actually sometimes maintains power at a high speed. There are times from going from a 60 and then to a 40 and then to a 30 mile an hour speed zone where it will continue to travel at 50+ miles an hour through the entire speed zone without slowing down which it did not do before FSD beta was active.I have to disengage the full self driving in order to get the car to slow down
Vehicle automatically and unexpectedly applies brakes when using Cruise Control when no other cars are in proximity or approaching. Sometimes braking is light but other times it is a jolt that is extremely starling. Often happens multiple times within minutes. Unpredictable when it will occur. I have taken the vehicle to Tesla 3 times and they say that they know about the problem but their Autopilot is still in Beta and are not actively working on a fix. On 4/28/2022, while on a trip, there were 5 incidents between 9:51am and 1:43pm.
This is aTesla Model S electric car. The battery was 80% charged at the time of the incident. Under normal driving at a speed of around 40 MPH in a city road road, suddenly the car lost power. The steering wheel locked and I had no control over the car. Display screen in the instrument panel and the large central tocuh screen display blacked out. A few seconds later, the car control returned and I was able to safely drive the car. But, the momentary loss of control is dangerous and scary.
I experienced the "Phantom Braking" phenomenon while driving on freeways. It has happened 3 or 4 times in the last year or so. I did not see any obvious reason for the car to have slowed down dramatically because there wasn't a car in front of me at such instances. it occurred while Autopilot was engaged. It has happened on different freeways (I-680, I-880), traversing in different directions and at different times of the day.
Software 2025.14.1, Full Self Driving 12.6.4 (FSD). Vehicle when using FSD continuously slows to 10 MPH below the speed limit. You can manually press the accelerator to speed up but FSD will not brake when doing so and warns you of the same. After a minute of being back at the speed limit, FSD again slows down. Repeat this process constantly. Very dangerous.
Stoped at intersection. While trying to engage signal lights, hit the stalk below that engages full self driving. Car immediately jumped into intersection .in front of another car and almost collided. Since the last update, Cars with my configuration wave been acting irradely and it is not safe to use FSD.
We were in a parking lot of "kidquest museum" in bellevue , wa. , taking our grand daughter, one year old, to the museum. Our car was in stationary position. We were trying to figure out where to park. During this time, our Model x, took off with unintended acceleration and we could not control the car. It was instantaneous, our car went and hit a parked Chevy van. This van fwent upside down and went over the fence into the lot next to it. After the impact our car went and hit eletric pole, went into bushes and over an electrical box of 5 by 5. I could not open the door. There was smoke in the car (my wife thinks smoke might have started while the car was accelerating"). Museum staff came and opened the passenger door. After she got out, first thing they did was to open the rear passenger door and took out our granddaughter. I came out thru passenger doo. Fortunately no one was hurt. …
NHTSA investigations
Sudden Unintended Acceleration
The Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) received a petition requesting that ODI reevaluate its decision to deny DP20-001 on the basis that intermittent high electrical current demands on the vehicles' 12VDC systems may have caused some or all of the incidents examined by ODI in DP20-001. The petitioner bases this information on a review of open-source research and the DP20-001 denial.
Acceleration complaints in other Model S years
Frequently asked questions
How common are acceleration problems on the 2017 Tesla Model S?
NHTSA has 35 complaints about the speed control & acceleration of the 2017 Tesla Model S, 8% of the model year's 428 complaints.
Is there a recall for 2017 Tesla Model S acceleration problems?
No. NHTSA lists no speed control & acceleration recall for the 2017 Tesla Model S, though it has 9 recalls for other components. If the problem is widespread, a repair may still be covered by an extended warranty or a manufacturer service bulletin — ask a dealer.
At what mileage do 2017 Tesla Model S acceleration problems start?
Half of the complaints with a recorded mileage happened before about 12,000 miles, and 77% before 25,000 miles.
Is it dangerous?
Owners linked 16 crashes, 0 fires and 11 injuries to speed control & acceleration problems on this model year. If you notice symptoms, have the car checked before driving further.
Source: U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) — owner complaints through October 20, 2026, recalls and defect investigations; fuel economy from the EPA. Complaints are unverified reports and are not proof of a defect. How we rate model years.