This mimics numbers from Denmark, where Model 3 had a failure rate of 20-25% after four years a couple of years ago, and last year the first Model Y's had to go through their first 4 year inspection and 45% failed. 34% of Model 3's failed last year.
For comparison: Last year VW ID4 had a failure rate of 2%, and the average for _all_ electric cars (no matter age, including Teslas) was 7% failure.
Causes: Breaks, wheels, steering, and a few more critical things along those lines.
Objectively speaking, Tesla cannot manufacture cars that live up to European standards.
Source: https://fdm.dk/nyheder/nyt-om-trafik-og-biler/tesla-skandale...
Quite surprised about ID4 numbers. Ours in the shop a few times per year, and we often crack jokes about it with other owners.
The report from the original article is not a general problem rate but more specific: TÜV does mandatory technical inspections every two years. In those inspections, only safety- and environment-critical problems are checked for, so e.g. brakes, rust on structural parts, high emissions, non-working lights. But there is a whole bunch of stuff that they don't check for, e.g. heating/cooling, GPS not working, doesn't charge/start sometimes, ...
So it's quite possible that both are true: Maybe ID4 has lots of non-safety and non-environment problems, so it is in the shop very often, but still rarely fails an official inspection.
A sample of one but ours did fail the inspection (suspension). It also experienced a complete shutdown of instrument panel on the motorway: not something you reproduce easily in a regular inspection but a pretty damn serious condition. Fail to unfold the mirrors/engage parking assistant or rearview camera happened dozens of times.
None of other owners I spoke to were particularly happy with theirs either.
Oh I'm sure there's many faults on the VW (as well as Skoda, Audi and Seat) electric cars, but not in the "failing inspection" category apparently.
(I drive a Skoda Enyaq, so no particular shade meant towards the VW-group)
Yeah well, our ID.4 did fail its 4-year inspection, but that's not even the worst among the things it did.
(It's charging on the parking lot right now, unlocked because central lock has failed)
How do you find the Enyaq?
After an ongoing ugly experience with a GTI, we'll never buy another VW.
In The Netherlands, all ID3 and ID4 cars go through pre-inspection before they go for the annual technical inspection. Hence the low failure rates.
Going to the yearly inspection on worn tires and brakes is just owners failure.
Yes, but if a car is using regenerative braking 99% of the time, the car should track this and use brakes occasionally to "polish and maintain" them. It's not hard, and if the pads are running out, it should warn the user. Tesla does neither AFAIK.
You should check your tires, yes. At least while changing from winter to summer and vice versa, however if the cars torque profile is too aggressive and it's eating tires, you should note it at the user's manual that thread wear should be checked more frequently with respect to other cars.
> how is that to do with Tesla manufacturing standard?
My friend's Toyota Auris needs new discs every 100,000KM, new pads every 60,000KM. I change discs around 60,000KM (heavier car, mostly rush-hour traffic, hilly city, automatic transmission), and never failed an inspection w.r.t. braking power.
Worn brake disks are a manufacturing problem. Nominally my VW needs new brake disks every 100Mm. Practically it needs new ones every 40Mm, because VW makes them from shitty steel that rusts and wears like hell, especially when there is salt on the roads in winter.
Some manufacturers use better steel and therefore have a longer disk lifetime.
It is not wear that causes break systems to fail but lack of use resulting in a fairly recently discovered threat to blank metal: Rust.
> how is that to do with Tesla manufacturing standard?
Unless further data/evidence is provided, it is reasonable to assume all car owners treat their cars equally shitty, and as such can be ignored in this equation since it applies equally to all manufacturers.
When electric vehicles started to become mass produced one of the selling points was due to fewer mechanical parts, there’d be less wear and fewer parts to fail and replace on electrics; however it seems electrics have introduced other complexities that kind of wash the advantage of fewer parts…
The Irish NCT results for 2024 show high failure rates for Teslas in:
- Vehicle safety and Equipment
- Steering and Suspension
- Side Slip
- Wheels and Tires
- Lights
- Lighting and Electrical
Note that the oldest Tesla is 2015, and most are 2020+ which is significantly newer than a good chunk of the cars on the road here.
Also note that in my personal experience of ~10 NCTs, I've had 3 nominal failures which were stupid trivial things that aren't actually maintenance issues. (1, extra seat not in car. 2, tent peg fell in and folding seat didn't lock in place. 3, folding seat wasn't up when tested, as well as at least one where my mechanic swears that they screwed it up (steering rack boot not attached))
https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/nct-statistics-and...
An 18% failure rate on a one year old model Y under "suspension and steering". This is absolutely shocking.
For comparison the ID4 had 0 failures at this age for this category, and for a much larger sample size.
I assume these are all taxis as they're being tested so early. This implies there a ton of unsafe privately owned Model Ys on the road.
That is probably because the ID4s had pre-inspection before their yearly technical inspection. That is what they do in The Netherlands, probably also other countries. That makes their cars stand out in these reports.
Looks like the Tesla Model Y has roughly the same amount of faults after less than 3 years as the top cars in this comparison have after 11-13 years (https://www.tuvsud.com/de-de/publikationen/tuev-report/maeng...). That's not a good look.
I also don't buy the argument brought up several times in the comments here that this is caused by the lack of regular inspections. This is about very new cars, there shouldn't be that many issues to catch in inspections when the car is less than 3 years old.
> "Axle suspensions suffer under the high weight of the drive battery, and the brakes are rarely used due to regenerative braking," Bühler told ADAC. "This can lead to defects in the brake discs, and there is a risk of reduced braking performance."
I had a 5th gen Camaro that had terrible brakes because I could never get the rotors/pads hot enough during normal operation to properly "clean" them. They were so big you just couldn't do it without visiting the freeway or a race track. I had to get the rotors machined or replaced about once a year because the car mostly went to the grocery store.
I think the best thing you can do is to occasionally stand on the brakes as hard as you can from >60mph. In a heavy EV you probably only need to do this once a week/month.
There is something about mechanical contrivances and rare use. Complex machines tend to get sloppy when they aren't exercised regularly. The best way to prove a machine will work correctly is to use it frequently.
Standing on the breaks frequently is how you end up with warped rotors, so there's some nuance here. Once in a while will stop rust and guck building up, frequently and you're replacing the discs early.
Tightening lug nuts in a circular pattern instead of switching opposite sides is also a great way to warp rotors and I wager is probably more common than most think
> There is something about mechanical contrivances and rare use. Complex machines tend to get sloppy when they aren't exercised regularly. The best way to prove a machine will work correctly is to use it frequently.
I see this a lot on other sites where people talk about buying an old Landrover or Range Rover as a "weekend car". That's never going to work.
My nearly-30-year-old Range Rover had the fewest problems when I was putting around 3000 miles a month on it, all year round. If it sat long enough for the engine to cool to ambient, sure as shit you'd find something wrong the next time you started it.
That's a very fluffy blurb. They state simply state "drivetrain components" are unreliable on their overall EV set and don't get into any details on why the Tesla are unreliable. You're better off stopping at a Supercharger and asking 10 random strangers how their vehicle has held up.
I find any report that lists Mini Cooper and Audi as the most reliable cars to immediately be suspect. I'm not a Tesla or Musk fan by any stretch of the imagination, but Mini and Audi are not known for reliability, at least in their ICE vehicles.
Because TÜV report are bullshit, Audis get checked and fixed by the dealer before the TÜV checks them, of course they have lower failure rates. TÜV competitor Dekra stopped publishing this kind of report years ago because of this https://www.dekra.de/de/dekra-gebrauchtwagenreport/
Props for including the "Ü" in the title - although they somehow dropped it in the article text...
It looks like a happy little guy, who would want to turn that smile upside down by leaving him out.
In what world is this "The 2026 TUV Report doesn't mention which defects were responsible for the Model Y's disappointing performance." acceptable?
Why are they not publishing which defects exist? Not only it make more credible, it would also warn people of what to look for.
TÜV is the mandatory inspection that every car in Germany has to go through. Failing that inspection means you _have_ to fix the issues or may no longer drive that car on public roads.
So while it would be nice to get more detailled stats, I think this is still really helpful. For me the TÜV report was a very important source for my decission on which models (and to a lesser degree manufacturers) I should avoid.
There are more accredited inspection providers besides TüV in germany like Dekra etc. This matters because TüV does NOT have data for all cars and there might be self selection effects because drivers can choose where to do the inspection (many get it done by whatever provider their car dealer has a deal with, which might differ greatly by car brand)
TÜV is the largest such organisation in Germany and almost has a monopoly. The inspections themselves are colloquially even called "TÜV", even if you do it at some other org.
However, as others have written, there is still some huge bias in those numbers. Especially German brand car shops provide an inspection service, where they pre-check and repair the car before the official inspection. Many of those German brands are also very big on company leasing, to the point where almost nobody buys a new BMW, Mercedes or Audi privately, they either get a new one as a company car via company leasing, or they get a used leasing return car. All those leasing cars always have the aforementioned inspection service as part of the leasing package. So those numbers are to be taken with a huge huge grain of salt.
They are citing a blog post from the German magazine Auto Bild, which talks about the Auto Bild special "TÜV Report" edition. They are probably three or four layers of indirection removed from the original report produced by the TÜV itself.
I found a mention of the report on this page from the ADAC: https://www.adac.de/news/tuev-report-2026/
I think they mention suspension, brake and light related issues.
This is an article that summarizes a report. It is not the report. The actual report costs money (but isn't very expensive).
If you live in Europe your car has to be inspected every 2 years. For new cars this kicks in after 3 years, and then after that it is every 2 years.
The inspection is carried out by authorized mechanics and typically takes less than an hour. It is worth noting that authorities keep a close eye on authorized mechanics to ensure they do not cheat. If you cheat (eg let people pay you to pass their car), you lose authorization.
The reason the TÜV report carries weight is that Germany has Europe’s largest vehicle fleet and TÜV has a strong reputation. Inspection standards are largely harmonized across Europe, and approvals or methodologies used by TÜV are often accepted or mirrored elsewhere.
Defects are classified by severity. Serious defects can make the vehicle unroadworthy immediately; less serious ones require repair and re-inspection; very minor issues are simply noted.
Even non-EU countries like Norway and the UK follow essentially the same inspection framework.
Does this put Germany's car insurance in the lowest cost?
On average car insurance is cheaper in Germany, but I am unsure if this has anything to do with the required inspections. (Since it is mandatory anyway, it isn't a differentiator). I think it may be more about how insurance is structured and dealt with.
For instance US has a civil tort based system which tends to push prices up quite a bit because outcomes are entirely unpredictable. In Germany insurance is not litigation centric, so there are literally no punitive damages, pain-and-suffering awards are modest and predictable and compensation is based on standardized tables. So insurance cases very rarely make it anywhere near courts.
Typically Teslas have failed for suspension issues in Finnish inspections. Most common failure category for Model 3 was "rear axle" and "front axle" for Model S.
Do you really need any more reasons not to buy a Tesla?
“The Tesla 3 and Y are not so fortunate, landing in second to last and last place respectively due to faults in their brake disks and axle suspension.”
https://www.tuvsud.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/novem...
Just… I don’t know, actually look at your wheels and brakes every few thousand miles instead of let them ride for tens of thousands without service? Shouldn’t people be rotating their tires every 3-5000 miles anyways?
Tires are not mentioned here. You could rotate them every 10 miles and still have faulty brake disks and axle suspensions.
- Brake disks are not a regular maintenance piece. Brake pads are the pieces that need replacement every 30.000 kilometers, depending on how hard you use them. But brake disks can outlast the car.
- Axle suspension is also not regular maintenance piece. Damper, bushings and springs need supervision and get changed every 80.000 kilometers or so. But to change an axle suspension without a serious hit to the car is very weird.
Unless you are using brake disks and an axle suspension designed for a 1,000 kg lighter car. In that case, you might end with twisted or broken pieces after a few thousand kilometers.
What if the fault results in a failure after 800 miles? How does checking every few thousand help there?
> I don’t know, actually look at your wheels and brakes every few thousand miles instead of let them ride for tens of thousands without service?
Let's read the text further and see the description for the winner, Mazda 2, emphasis mine
--- start quote ---
Mazda 2. Only 2.9 percent of these French-manufactured Japanese hybrid compacts turn up at their first periodic technical inspection with significant faults at an average mileage of 29,000 kilometers.
--- end quote ---
And then:
--- start quote ---
At the bottom of the table, the Tesla Model Y took over in last place from the Tesla Model 3 (17.3 percent). Second to bottom was the Ford Mondeo (14.3 percent), while the third from bottom was the Tesla Model 3 at 13.1 percent.
--- end quote ---
So, at regular inspection intervals (as proscribed by manufacturers and regulators) Teslas show significant faults.
But hey, these are electric cars which don't need regular service!...
...at least that is how they are sold. And people take it seriously.
They cost less to service on average, which is true (at least in my country, Americans are weird with their cars and dealerships).
I just want a chart of total maintenance/running costs per model.
Also maybe a chart of "uptime" per model - ie. how many days in the year on average was it drivable, vs in the shop being repaired/inspected/waiting for parts.
Does anyone make that?
This is from November 2025. I suspect it was reposted due to the news[0] of Tesla discontinuing their other models and the Model Y being one of the remaining two (besides the Model 3).
Even that's a generous reading, given that Y and 3 are essentially the same car.
"The most important section is that of 2-3 year old vehicles, because maintenance and mileage play lesser roles in reliability. The best performers in this category were the Mazda2 (2.9% defect rate)"
Once again, my intuition is wildly off regarding how bad even the relatively good things are. 3% defect rate is good?
Tesla seems insane. How do you get away with being so much worse for so many years in a highly competitive market?
Can't Musk 'encourage' Germany and EU democracies to vote for the right people and take over a wrecking ball to all these agencies causing mischief to his many and varied businesses? I'm sure there are politicians who need a couple of hundred dollars.
One does not mess with the TÜV, it won't end well. Even in Turkey where they introduced TÜVTÜRK to get Turkey closer to EU regulations.
Fisker owner here, hold my beer
Is this once again because electric vehicles don’t get pulled into a mechanics shop every 10,000 miles for their oil to be changed and coincidentally inspected at the same time for mechanical defects that could be caught before they get pulled into a TUV annual inspection?
Hrm, I wonder.
If this was the case you'd expect a noticeable difference between ICE cars and EVs in the statistics. According to the statistics, EVs are a mixed bag. For instance the Mini Cooper SE and Audi Q4 E-tron have very low defect rates (3.5-4%). Overall defect rates for 2-3 year old EVs seem to be close to that of ICE cars.
Since Tesla have very high failure rates they may be dragging the overall EV numbers down. So the sensible thing to do would probably be to look at reliability of EVs with the Teslas taken out of the dataset and look at what it does to the overall reliability numbers for EVs. I have a feeling it might nudge EVs ahead of ICE cars more clearly.
All cars in Germany need an inspection every 24 months (or 36 months from new) - so you'd expect other electric cars to have similar issues here if that was the case.
Other brands do have scheduled inspection though.
> Is this once again because electric vehicles don’t get pulled into a mechanics shop every 10,000 miles for their oil to be changed and coincidentally inspected at the same time for mechanical defects that could be caught before they get pulled into a TUV annual inspection?
Last time I saw a TÜV report it was that electric cars show up with a) rather little service checks in between and b) they are too heavy for the axels and that causes wear compared to a regular car.
Other EVs are incomparably better though.
Other EV:s have service inspections as part of the warranty requirements. That means they get inspected by workshops, which means that problems are more likely to be first found during the government inspection.
I don't think the actual quality difference under Equal conditions is a large as the TUV report suggests.
This is the problem with this report. It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, it means that they are so rarely at the shop that the drivers don't notice the used brake pads, tires etc.
I’m an American living in a state with no roadworthyness inspections so I don’t have any first hand experience with this. But in previous threads, people have mentioned that the typical thing to do is, at the vehicle service (oil change or whatever) prior to the inspection, you mention “hey, my car needs to get the roadworthyness inspection soon, can you look it over for that while it’s in the shop?”. And if something is wrong, it’ll be brought to your attention and fixed before the official inspection. Then you show up for the official inspection and oftentimes, it goes smoothly. The pro-Tesla theory is that BEVs require less service so people don’t catch these things prior to official inspection.
Seems like if that’s true of BEVs generally one could find similar trends with Nissan Leafs, etc.
In my country, most people do the oil change and the roadworthy test at the same time, but we do drive less than in the US.
You'd need to be quite careless not to notice bad breaking on such a heavy car
Not really - EV regen is really good. Even on my 4000 pound Fusion Hybrid, I don’t brake as often as I would in a gasoline powered vehicle because I’m able to coast down on the motor braking itself.
But in an emergency situation you still want it to work and not being rusted away as it is "never" used.
This is a software, not a hardware problem. Suitably intelligent software could gently apply the brakes every now and then in addition to regenerative braking even when it doesn't need to, just to keep the brakes in good condition.
> This is the problem with this report. It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, it means that they are so rarely at the shop that the drivers don't notice the used brake pads, tires etc.
The average European drives about 12,000 km (~7500 miles) per year [1]. The maximum inspection period allowed by the EU for most personal cars is 2 years [2].
The average person in the US drives about 13,400 miles (~ 21,500 km) per year [3].
So, roughly, the average European vehicle is inspected after a driving distance which is about the same as that which the average US vehicle puts behind it in a year.
I thus doubt that the Tesla numbers from the article are greatly affected by a lack of inspections.
[1] https://www.acea.auto/fact/fact-sheet-cars/
[2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/45/oj/eng (chapter III, article 5, point 1).
>The maximum inspection period allowed by the EU for most personal cars is 2 years
Your source clearly says that the first inspection needs to be at least four years after registration, so if you now buy a Tesla Model 3, you won't need to have it inspected until 2030. It's how Finland does it, so 4 years to first inspection, then every 2 years until the car is 10 years old, and then every year (4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12…).
> Your source clearly says that the first inspection needs to be at least four years after registration, [...]
That doesn't mean the first inspection is only required after four years, only that it must be required after four years. The countries can still introduce stricter rules, like Germanys TÜV - the first inspection has to happen in the first three years here.
Thanks for pointing out the possibility (but, as someone else pointed out, it's just a possibility - the EU regulation obviously does not set a minimum) of a double gap for new vehicles. On the other hand, don't new vehicles typically see an extra inspection by the manufacturer/dealer early on? (I don't know).
It doesn't mean that the cars break down more often, but it does mean that the average Tesla Model Y on the road is in much worse shape than another car of similar age.
EVs have breaks, suspensions, and tires like all cars. A responsible owner should have his car checked out once a year.
I've been saying for ages that when I see a breakdown truck it most often has some sort of Tesla on the back, and lots of people sneer about that and say I must have some kind of "EV derangement syndrome".
Nope. I do see a lot of broken Teslas.
When they rolled out the Model X I remember the local Tesla dealership having to lease more parking space to fit all the broken Model X. I used to drive past the lot on my way to work, and it was always full and I'd notice cars standing there for weeks.
This is EU's fault because they have democracy and other liberal bullshit, pure woke propaganda.
~ Lord of the Lithium.