NHTSA Complaint #11494302 — 2018 TESLA MODEL 3

I have been using autopilot on my 30 min commute for the past 4 years with zero major issues. On Sept 20th, 2022 at 5:45pm I was driving on my usual route at 70 mph under autopilot. I tried to disengage with the normal procedure of lifting the right stalk. It did not disengage. I tried moving the steering wheel by changing lanes, and again, it did not disengage. Finally tried to brake, and it did not brake. I was essentially stuck in 70 mph. I then quickly rebooted the car with the 2 scroll bars while driving and after about 1 minute stuck in 70 mph, the system rebooted and I was able to slow down with my brakes. Needless to say, this could have ended horribly if I did not reboot. I called Tesla right away to report it and the rep stated a service adviser will contact me in the morning. I did get a call from Drew at Tesla on Barranca in Irvine the following day and he stated that it sounded like a “unintentional acceleration” issue. He stated it will be escalated to engineering department and someone will call me in a few days. At this point, I am so freaked out driving my Model 3 fearing the brakes can lock up at any time. I wanted to share this with you so maybe others have had similar situations. I just want others to know how to reboot while driving if this ever happens to them (a life and death situation). I loved Tesla, but this situation scares me in so many levels. To this day, Tesla “engineering team” has not responded. I have requested an answer from Tesla 3 times since that day over 3 months ago, and still no explanation as to what happened that night of Sept 20th. I have. It used autopilot since that day (fearing the brake would fail to disengage) and so I have not be able to reproduce the situation. The vehicle still has not been inspected by the manufacturer since reporting the issue. Finally, there were no warning messages prior to the failure. I just wanted a response from the Tesla team, and unfortunately was not able to get one.