2022 Tesla Model Y Exterior lighting Problems

The passenger-side (right) headlight assembly suffered an internal mechanical failure and is stuck aimed too high. It cannot be calibrated or lowered to factory specification. This poses a severe safety risk by blinding oncoming traffic at night. The vehicle was inspected by a manufacturer service center on July 13, 2026. The factory technician confirmed in the official service notes that the right-side headlight is 'internally faulty and will not lower the headlight height to specification,' requiring a full assembly replacement. This is the second time this exact OEM component has failed under normal use; the entire assembly was previously replaced for a failure just over two years prior. No external damage, collision, or impact caused this internal mechanism to fail.

NHTSA ID

11750229

Incident

Jul 13, 2026

My driver side headlight assembly stopped working. The headlight assembly includes the driving lights, high beams, and turn signals. I am open to having this product inspected upon request. This impacts the safety of me and others due to decreased visibility and the inability to appropriately indicate when I am turning. The dealer has not reviewed this yet, but I have a scheduled appointment on Friday, April 24. Vehicle has not been inspected by any third-party, improving manufacturer, police, insurance, or other representatives. There were no warning, lamps, messages, other symptoms of the problem prior to failure. The failure first appeared at around 55,000 miles, which was 5000 miles beyond my warranty. I believe that Tesla is pushing out updates that intentionally cause light assemblies and other high priced items to stop working after the warranty. there are multiple instances people replacing the same fixture after their warranty period has expired. Tesla charges $2000 to replace one light fixture. I believe this is fraudulent and corrupt business practices by Tesla.

NHTSA ID

11732040

Incident

Mar 14, 2026

During a snowstorm, the headlights caused blinding visibility issues due to the reflected light from the snow flakes. Normally, using low beams fixes this problem. I tried all combinations of headlights during the drive- auto high, high, auto low, manual low, just parking lights. All resulted in horrible visibility conditions that limited speed to around 20 MPH. The vehicle was inspected by Tesla service. Tesla reported the headlights operate as designed. There is a light bar above the headlight that remains on when driving and this illuminates the snow. This lightbar should turn off at night or at least have an option to turn off by the driver.

NHTSA ID

11708174

Incident

Dec 10, 2025

The headlights turned off while driving. Not being able to see where you're going is risky. The problem has occurred twice under the same conditions - light snow covering on the car. It has not been reproduced at dealer or service center. Components have not been inspected. The headlights operate properly when the snow is removed. No warning, messages or symptoms. Tesla Assist states that if there if driving in snow or low viz conditions, the headlights should be turned on manually, which is not intuitive or appropriate given the advanced nature of the car

NHTSA ID

11708173

Incident

Dec 31, 2025

I believe that all Tesla have an issue where the brake lights do not turn on soon enough when the vehicle is slowing down especially at slower speeds and I feel this makes them get in a lot of rear end accidents at lower speeds. I've seen many videos online of people getting hit and the car in front of them is braking and the Tesla slows down with no brake lights then the vehicle behind them hits them.

NHTSA ID

11636582

Incident

Jan 16, 2025

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.

NHTSA ID

11604720

Incident

Jul 25, 2024

Tail light assemblies on vehicle develop moisture inside of them when it rains. Tesla claims that this is normal and refuses to service the part. The concern is that the electronics inside the light assembly will be damaged by the moisture. This places the burden on the consumer to frequently test and inspect the tail light for an impending failure of the light which may inadvertently occur during driving and result in an accident. In certain instances the amount of moisture that may develop unbeknown to the driver while operating the vehicle, may decrease the light transmission through the light assembly, rendering the function of the tail light to fall out of NHTSA mandated standards for light transmission for the fixture.

NHTSA ID

11571831

Incident

Feb 2, 2024

Our High voltage battery died on the side of a highway, stranding us until a tow arrived at 4am. During this time, the onboard hazard lights were activated, and no other vehicle systems besides the standard interior features were active. The low voltage battery died within 35 minutes of the high voltage battery. After the low voltage battery died, we were left on the side of the highway at 4am with no active hazard lights, the emergency vehicle door openers were required to be used, however, the windows were rendered unusable, so the doors could not be effectively shut without risking damage to the windows. Having zero hazard or external lighting emitting from the vehicle after just 35 minutes at 4am on a dark stretch of highway put us in an extremely dangerous situation, and in our opinion, the hazards should have functioned for at least 2-3 hours. The vehicle has since been repurchased from the manufacturer as a lemon due to other unrelated issues.

NHTSA ID

11548968

Incident

Jul 10, 2023

Passenger side lights flashes and flickers on / off after firmware update. This has been confirmed by Tesla Service as a “known issue” of the most recent software update 2023.26.7. I have a video of this flickering. There was no warning prior to the failure. This has been reported to Tesla. Representative said they won’t come out to service the vehicle because “there is nothing for them to fix (physically)” as it is a “firmware issue” and will be fixed with an update. However the fix is currently not available and Tesla is still working it. This renders the car undriveable at night. The flickering lights incite road rage from others who don’t understand the flashing is unintentional and not a sign of annoyance. As a result, we were subjected to road rage from other cars when the light on the car suddenly starts flashing.

NHTSA ID

11538537

Incident

Aug 13, 2023

The high-beam headlights are randomly turning on while city driving. The auto high-beam function is turned off, so high beams should not turn on. This affects the safety of the other cars around me. I typically drive in the city and using the high beams is not necessary because of dense traffic and available overhead street lights. This issue has not been confirmed by a dealer, service center, manufacturer, police, etc. There is no warning before the high-beams turn on. When they turn on, the blue high-beam indicator on the driver display does illuminate.

NHTSA ID

11505948

Incident

Feb 7, 2023

The lane departure warning goes off frequently and at random times when there is no issue with it at all. The windows are constantly malfunctioning and turning down when there is nothing obstructing the path of the window. The tail lights will go out at random times and will only be notified by other drivers particularly at night making the vehicle unsafe to operate and unreliable.

NHTSA ID

11494829

Incident

Nov 24, 2022

What component or system failed or malfunctioned, and is it available for inspection upon request: Auto high beams; car is available for inspection How was your safety or the safety of others put at risk: In Arlington Heights, IL the car started automatically switching the high beams on and off. At first the auto high beams would engage for 7-10 seconds, then disengage for 7-10 seconds. Then the auto high beams engaged for 2-4 seconds and disengage for 2-4 seconds, as if flashing them. This is unsafe as it is distracting to the driver (me), it can obstruct the view of oncoming traffic, and it makes it appear as if I am driving erratically which can result in a traffic stop / unnecessary police intervention. Has the problem been reproduced or confirmed by a dealer or independent service center - no, they will not take the vehicle in to their service center and only provided mobile service appointments during the work day. Has the vehicle or component been inspected by the manufacturer, police, insurance representatives or others - no Were there any warning lamps, messages or other symptoms of the problem prior to the failure, and when did they first appear - the car was recently serviced (October 5, 2022) for a nonfunctioning A/C compressor and heating pump. I am not aware of what other service / software changes+resets were made to the car while out of my possession.

NHTSA ID

11489083

Incident

Oct 8, 2022

Taillights habitually fog up (in moderate Southern California weather) and block the visual braking visibility. Tesla says having lights you can’t see when braking is normal

NHTSA ID

11483839

Incident

Sep 3, 2022

Turn signal does not always activate. If I hit the turn signal stalk so it goes past the first detent (for three blinks) but not hard enough to get to the second detent (on until cancelled or turn completed), it does not come on at all, either the three blinks or constant blinking. This is dangerous because the turn signal does not activate predictably, especially when changing lanes on the highway. I should be able to tap the turn signal to get the 3 blinks to come on and then switch lanes, but when used this way it does not always come on. I had this inspected by a Tesla Mobile Service technician and he reproduced what I reported but said this is working as intended because it is detecting an "accidental bump" and not activating. My vehicle is available for inspection upon request. There are no warning lights or messages.

NHTSA ID

11471304

Incident

Jun 21, 2022

Auto dimming and bright headlights do not dim for oncoming traffic consistently. Unsafe for other travelers at night. I’ve owned two Tesla’s model 3 and model y over the last 4 years. Both had issues with the Auto Bright/Auto dimming headlights. The automatic feature takes too long to turn on the high beams and takes too long to dim for oncoming traffic. The auto dimming function also reacts to reflective signs and turns off high beams when unnecessary. The auto dimming feature works best when you’re approaching a curve where the travel path is to the right where oncoming traffic crosses the field of cameras. Auto dimming rarely works when turning to the left or straight for on coming traffic since cars are to the left of field for the cameras or head on traffic but Auto dimming feature fails. The bright and dim will go on and off as cars approach further causing issues with people flashing lights at you in their direction of travel. The auto high headlights also react to reflective signs and will go high low high low further causing safety issues when they should remain on.

NHTSA ID

11470166

Incident

Jun 20, 2022

The contact owns a 2022 Tesla Model Y. The contact stated that while driving at 50 - 60 MPH, the headlights inadvertently turned off for a few seconds. The vehicle was taken to the dealer and diagnosed that the computer data showed the high-beam was turning on and off but not the low-beam. The vehicle was not repaired. The manufacturer was not made aware of the failure. The failure mileage was approximately 440. Consumer stated the incident happened several (4 or 5) times during a 4 mile drive. Each incident’s time ranged from a few seconds to about 30 seconds.

NHTSA ID

11446520

Incident

Jan 6, 2022

Mileage

440 mi