NHTSA Complaint #11539667 — 2023 TESLA MODEL X

Touch capacitive buttons on the steering wheel and doors are major safety hazard. The touch buttons on the steering wheel for critical functions like blinkers, headlights, wipers and the horn are all moving with the steering wheel (so you have to look down to locate these critical functions while still moving, especially if you are turning at all), and worse, these buttons sometimes fail to activate even when you do push them. I have several times tried to turn on my blinker for a sudden lane change due to a hazard ahead, and the blinker does not respond / activate. My wife was driving and someone started to run a stop sign in front of us - I yelled "HIT THE HORN!" and she replied with "I CAN'T FIND IT!!!" (we were driving on a bend in the road, the steering wheel was not in the neutral position, and the horn is a tiny touch capacitive button). The button on the driver door to get out is the same or very similar, and I have a 30 second video I can forward you of how this button can fail to respond. In the video, you can see the tip of my finger bend when I first touch the button, I move my finger all over and around the button, and nearly 15 seconds later, the button finally responds and opens the door. The driver door also pops out about 10 degrees when it does open, then becomes very stiff and you have to push hard to get the door to open the rest of the way. The button for the headlights is also a safety issue - if you push and hold the headlight button for too long, it locks the high beams on, instead of just flashing them (or a long duration flash). When you push the headlight button, a menu pops up on the bottom center portion of the center screen, that will allow you to toggle automatic high beams on and off, but when moving, it is only there for 2-3 seconds, and the buttons are extremely small, making it hard to change settings for the headlights safely (must look away from the road, and try to hit the small buttons while moving / bouncing around).