NHTSA Complaint #11417699 — 2020 TESLA MODEL Y

I was driving East on May 7, 2021, on I-94 toward New Buffalo, MI, on a clear day; no rain. A semi-truck was going 60 mph in the center lane of three lanes. I moved to the left lane to pass as I was going about 70 mph, the posted speed limit. There were no cars ahead of me in my lane for as far as I could see. Another car pulled up behind me very close—way too close—tailgating me. I was passing the truck and was parallel to the truck when suddenly the Tesla automatically slammed on my brakes!!! The idiot who was tailgating me fortunately reacted quickly and also slammed on his brakes and simultaneously swerved hard left onto the shoulder—thereby averting what could have been a fatal accident!! My car could have been pushed into the wheels of the truck on my right and we could have been killed!! I was badly shaken but, fortunately, we were not injured and there was no crash. When we arrived at our destination I phoned the salesman at the Chicago Tesla sales office and described the incident. I asked him if I could disable the automatic braking feature and he talked me through the procedure. The Tesla has a rear-facing video camera. I believe Tesla should program that camera to see a tailgating car and make certain that no automatic braking be engaged if a car is following too close!! I believe Tesla should investigate why this happened and should reprogram the software yo prevent it from happening again. I sent the Tesla Company two electronic messages through the Tesla Phone App as the Tesla salesman suggested, but I have not received any response more than one week later. This is irresponsible!! We could have been killed yet Tesla has ignored my two messages! If Tesla does not fix this problem, it is certain that people will die in a parallel situation. We were just very lucky.