Problems with 2013 Tesla Model S STRUCTURE

On november 1, 2019, i was slowly braking and start turning right into my driveway on the 2013 tesla model s. i felt a surge of the vehicle and 1 second later, the vehicle landed on top of the staircase of my house entrance and driveway. i did not press on the accelerator at all when i slowly turning into the driveway.the vehicle sped on its own for only a split second. i called tesla roadside assistance. the representative contacted me and direct me to a repair shop and he told me that he would have the vehicle's information to be sent to the engineers to find out what happened. i had my vehicle towed but to repair shop but tesla support team has been ignoring all my calls and email. my vehicle was considered to be total loss by my insurance company.

The driver's door handle (exterior) will not present, which makes it impossible to open the driver's door from the outside. the vehicle is 6 years old with less than 40k miles on it. the tesla customer service rep said this was a known defect, but they are still charging over $400 to fix it. this happened when the car was stationary. i pulled over on the side of the freeway to help someone, and when i tried to get back into my car, the handle would not present and i had to enter from the passenger side which was very dangerous with oncoming traffic. the handle has not worked since. many other tesla owners have reported this problem. door handles are a necessity for all vehicles, and should last a reasonable lifetime for a car. not being able to enter your car is a safety issue.

11 days ago, the doors and windows stopped working on my tesla model s. the car was parked, and when i clicked on the "open" button to cause the door handles to extend, i discovered that the driver-side handle no longer opened. in fact, 3 of the 4 doors no longer opened. in addition, after crawling in through the passenger side door, i discovered that the windows no longer opened either. in addition to being a nuisance, this is a serious safety issue for several reasons. first, if the car is in an accident, emergency first responders will not be able to open the door. second, if a driver is approached by law enforcement or another person, he/she cannot open the window to communicate. in fact, earlier this year, a driver perished in a fiery tesla crash. the police were unable to rescue him, because they could not open his door. see https://www.autoblog.com/2019/02/25/fatal-tesla-model-s-crash-fire/. "according to reports, emergency responders and onlookers say they were unable to rescue the driver. the automatically deploying door handles on the outside don't appear to have deployed." apparently there are hundreds if not thousands of tesla cars with this problem. see https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/door-handle-not-functioning for a snapshot. for an example, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4j3beb5nog. i contacted at least 7 different people at tesla, but none of them seemed to view this as a safety hazard. they were more focused on charging me for what they call an "out-of-warranty" event, even though this problem with defective windows and doors has persisted since the very beginning. in fact, i have documented a long list of service failures with this tesla model s. i have over 100 emails outlining these problems, ranging from defective doors/windows to a battery malfunction to more. i can share these upon request.

The doors open by themselves!! this can happen at a variety of times, but the most concerning to me is when i open the drivers door, right rear passenger door opens by itself. if i don't notice, i will be driving down the road w/ that door open, multiple times it has been literally swinging open as i go around a corner!!! my children ride in my car in the back and i am concerned that they will fall out of the car!! note, this issue has affected many many many of the tesla model s owners, which you can see by referencing the different forums. in fact, it appears that owners that haven't experience it are hugely in the minority.

The front passenger door handle presents to open, but will not open the door when pulled. this is the second door for this malfunction.

When door handle presents itself, it extends too far so that the car thinks someone is trying to open the door and the car pops open the door by itself. this creates a safety hazard as well as a security issue because the doors do not lock when one is open. this issue occurs whenever the owner approaches the car (causing the handles to present themselves) and whenever the driver puts the car in park (also causing the handles to present themselves). online research shows that many. many owners of early tesla model s cars are experiencing this issue, which seems to relate to a design defect in the first generation of door handles. tesla should issue a recall for all first generation door handles. here is the youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5xain-k2pu&app=desktop

My car went over a pothole on 101 s just short of woodside rd. exit. i heard a loud thud and my car went out of control and veered into the lanes next to me as i tried to control it. after several attempts to stop it, it finally came to a stop. the rear, right tire burst and the wheel impacted badly. rear suspension broken and the 'quarter and rocker panel' broken.

Slowly pulling into a parking spot at a strip mall, i released my foot off of the gas, lightly tapped brake and the car "unintentionally accelerated" into a palm tree in front of a brick pillar at a strip mall. i backed out to assess the damage. husband was witness in driver's seat. this is the 2nd time this happened to me, (last year at a grocery store parking lot) altho the first time no damage was done and no reports were filed. poor decision in hindsight! since no person was injured, the police dept would not take a report. insurance was called as well as tesla. tesla took 6 days to pull logs and assured us it was being taken seriously and escalated to management. we received a call yesterday from tosha at tesla, relaying that they determined that t was driver error and log reports show that as the car was pulling into the spot, it was on a 3 on a scale of 100 and then it accelerated 87% and the brake was applied. does not make logical sense that the car could accelerate 87% in a matter of 2 feet! i am 150% sure i did not hit the accelerator. i am 47, not a 90 yr old woman who may have pedal confusion. this has never happened with any of our other non-tesla cars nor in my 40+ years of driving cars or motorcycles. their response is suspect and we are quite frankly fearful to drive the car safely. this stip mall has lots of people that walk by, esp elderly and the fact that no one or the pillar was hit is a blessing. air bags did not deploy. i will be asking tesla for a written report of their findings but not confident it will be provided. we plan to seek counsel as well esp since this is considered an "at fault accident".

The ventilation in the 3rd row is awful in the model s. there have been many people complaining of sick kids throwing up because it's too hot. tesla acknowledged it over a year ago and still hasn't fixed it. we have tried contacting them and have been unable to get a response. *tr

This is not so much a complaint as it is a question. i had thought about purchasing a tesla and i saw pictures of the recent accident that sparked, literally, a fire -- apparently a front end collision. the excuse from tesla was that a piece of metal pierced the batteries and that will, as i understand it according to tesla, cause a fire. i believe that when nhtsa crash tests these cars, it is into concrete. as most crashes are metal to metal, shouldn't you test, especially this car, by crashing it into another car? *tr

I removed the rear bumper cover from the car to install a trailer hitch. three of the four nuts were not tightened on the right side of the steel bumper cross member. the nuts were loosely started onto the studs. the nuts are located in an area that cannot be inspected without disassembling the rear of the car. i believe this is a serious safety issue as it affects crash crumple zone integrity and protection for the rear facing jump seats in this vehicle. there was no accident and i do no believe there is a design problem. however, there is an assembly quality control issue. *tr