Complaint 2215298

Complaint Summary

SERVICE BRAKES

Owner Narrative

The forward-facing camera and Autopilot computer system on my 2021 Tesla Model 3 has failed. The dashboard first showed intermittent warnings that "Automatic Emergency Braking is currently unavailable" and "Adaptive headlight features are unavailable." Over several weeks the problem worsened from intermittent to constant, and the vehicle progressively lost its forward road visualization and all active safety features. Using the vehicle's Service Mode diagnostics, the Autopilot computer's Primary (A) processing node reports a "CRITICAL" status. The fault log records repeated alerts including dasMIA (driver-assistance system not responding), aebFault (automatic emergency braking fault), and fisheyeCamInitFault and fisheyeCameraStreamExit (forward camera initialization and stream failures). The cameras themselves are physically clean and unobstructed. Safety risk: the failure disables Automatic Emergency Braking and forward collision avoidance, lane-keeping/driver assistance, and the adaptive auto high-beam headlights. AEB is a critical crash-avoidance system; losing it leaves the vehicle unable to brake automatically for an imminent collision, and the loss of adaptive headlights reduces nighttime visibility. A Tesla service center inspected the vehicle, confirmed the diagnosis, and determined the Autopilot computer — a sealed, solid-state control unit — had failed and required full replacement at approximately $3,400. The vehicle is well under 50,000 miles. This failure appears consistent with the same car-computer power-component shorting failure for which Tesla issued a recall on its newer model-year vehicles. The vehicle and the failed component are available for inspection on request. The vehicle has not been inspected by police or insurance.

Owner-submitted narrative on file with NHTSA. Complaint narratives are self-reported and have not been verified.