NHTSA Complaint #11604720 — 2022 TESLA MODEL Y

Here is what happened. I was traveling on a narrow winding two-lane road at night when, desiring to see the information on the current drive, I reached down to the lower left corner of the touchscreen to change the small sub-panel located there. It was on the music panel so I swiped to the left to change to the trip information panel. As soon as I swiped to the left my lights went out and I'm driving in total darkness! In complete fear of running off the road I managed to stop and switch on the 4-way flashers. Someone that had been following me went on around about the time I got the flashes on. Fortunately, I had stopped still on the road and pretty much on my side. (It could have been much worse!) Quite scared and flustered I managed to get the lights switched back on. I don't remember, but I must have used the normal lighting control buttons on the main touchscreen panel. For a while I had no idea how it happened but eventually figured it out. Whenever you change your lights with the turn-signal stalk (go to dim, to bright or flash them) a small sub-panel pops up in the lower left corner of the touchscreen with all the light control buttons. It stays for about 4 seconds and goes away automatically. So, if you reach down to start or pause the music a few seconds after dimming you lights, your headlights go OFF - the OFF button falls where the Play/Pause button was located a few seconds before. But its much worse than that. You can also simply swipe to the left (what I had done) and the row of lighting buttons act like a slider! The lights can go from AUTO to OFF without warning, no confirmation needed! Answers to the five questions follow. - This problem certainly appears to be a design flaw in the touchscreen user interface so can be reproduced and inspected. - We could have crashed or been hit by other vehicles resulting in injury or death. - No - No - No warning whatsoever. Please don't write this off as "operator error". That would be irresponsible.