Tesla Phantom Braking and ADAS Malfunctions Under California's Lemon Law

Is phantom braking a lemon law defect in California?

Phantom braking can be a lemon law defect because sudden, unnecessary hard braking on a highway substantially impairs a vehicle's safety, which is one of the three impairments the Song-Beverly Act recognizes. Under Civil Code section 1793.2(d)(2), a manufacturer that cannot repair a warranty-covered defect substantially impairing use, value, or safety after a reasonable number of attempts must buy the vehicle back or replace it, at the buyer's election.

The catch with phantom braking is proof. The event is intermittent, terrifying when it happens, and often invisible to a technician a week later. What wins these cases is documentation: report every event to Tesla in writing through the app, note the date, location, speed, and whether Autopilot or cruise control was engaged, and insist on a service visit and an invoice even when Tesla proposes to handle it remotely.

What Tesla driver-assist problems are commonly reported?

The most commonly reported Tesla ADAS complaints are phantom braking events, Autopilot and Full Self-Driving misbehavior, and driver-assist sensor or camera faults that disable safety features. None of this means every Tesla is defective; it means the complaint patterns are well documented in public sources rather than invented by lawyers:

• Phantom braking. NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation in 2022 into unexpected braking in roughly 695,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles. The agency closed that investigation in July 2026 after complaint volumes fell sharply, attributing much of the decline to Tesla's software updates. A closed federal probe does not decide whether your particular car has a defect under state law.
• Autopilot supervision. In December 2023, Tesla recalled approximately two million vehicles to add Autopilot driver-monitoring safeguards via an over-the-air update, and NHTSA subsequently examined whether that remedy was adequate after further crash reports.
• Sensor and camera faults. Owners report cruise control and emergency braking features becoming unavailable due to camera blindness, condensation, or calibration errors, which are classic warranty repair items when they recur.

How many repair attempts does Tesla get for a safety defect?

For a defect likely to cause death or serious bodily injury, two repair attempts can be enough. The Tanner Consumer Protection Act, Civil Code section 1793.22, presumes a reasonable number of attempts has occurred when, within 18 months or 18,000 miles, the manufacturer made two or more attempts to fix that kind of serious safety defect. The same statute supplies two other routes: four or more attempts for the same nonconformity, or a cumulative total of more than 30 calendar days out of service for warranty repair.

A car that slams on its own brakes in freeway traffic is the kind of defect the two-attempt prong was written for. Whether a court will agree in a given case depends on the evidence, but the framing matters from the first demand letter, so the safety character of the complaint should appear on every repair order.

Do Tesla's over-the-air software updates count as repair attempts?

This is an open legal question, and it may be the most important one in Tesla ADAS cases. The repair-attempt framework in the Song-Beverly Act was written for vehicles that go to a shop. Tesla often responds to ADAS complaints by pushing a software update to the whole fleet, or to your car specifically, without a service visit or a repair order.

There are two competing framings. Counting OTA updates as repair attempts helps consumers reach the Tanner thresholds quickly, since a complaint followed by an update that fails to cure the problem looks exactly like a failed repair. But manufacturers may argue routine fleet-wide updates are not vehicle-specific repair attempts at all, and in some cases the consumer is better served by arguing the manufacturer never even attempted a real repair. Practically, the advice to owners is the same under either theory: put every complaint in writing before the update arrives, and note whether the problem persists after it.

What can I recover if my Tesla qualifies?

A qualifying owner chooses between a replacement vehicle and a refund of what they have paid, less a mileage offset for miles driven before the first repair attempt, calculated under Civil Code section 1793.2(d)(2)(C) as miles divided by 120,000 times the purchase price. Our buyback calculator shows how the numbers work on your figures. If Tesla willfully failed to comply, Civil Code section 1794(c) allows a civil penalty of up to twice your damages, and section 1794(d) makes Tesla responsible for a prevailing consumer's attorney fees and costs.

ADAS complaints often travel with other Tesla issues. If your car also shows unusual range loss, see our guide to Tesla battery degradation claims, and the Tesla overview page collects the full picture.

Does AB 1755 change how I bring a Tesla ADAS claim?

No, not as of July 6, 2026. California's 2025 overhaul under AB 1755 and SB 26 applies its shorter deadlines, pre-suit notice requirement, and mandatory mediation only to claims against manufacturers that opt in, and Tesla is not on the DCA's published list, so the older rules apply to Tesla claims. GM, Ford, and FCA US are on the list; Toyota and Honda are not. A manufacturer can elect in at any time and appears on the list within two business days, so check Tesla's current status on the DCA's official list when your claim starts. The full picture of what changed is in our AB 1755 hub, and the basics of the underlying law are in the California lemon law guide.