Other electrical problem on the 2016 Tesla Model S
5 crashes 3 fires 4 injuries 12 of the 73 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When other electrical problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 Tesla Model S report other electrical problem at a median of 47,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 12,500 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles, from 44 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 85,000 miles. It is the 3rd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 75,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 73,440 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
43% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,300 miles | 13,153 miles | 48,385 miles | 65,000 miles | 75,740 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 5 a crash, 3 a fire and 4 an injury are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $250–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 11 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2024, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2012 at 90,000 miles.
By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 132; the 2016 has 73. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
The ?stalling? Problem happened to my model s since I started to drive the new car in 03/16. I got kicked from ?d?/?r? To ?p? At beginning stage when I start to press the accelerator, around 50% of the time when I started or changed my sitting position. The problem would stop after I adjust my sitting position/posture several times. I reported to tesla roadside service several times in 04/16. There was no solution on-line, I have never got any follow up from tesla as promised. I took my car to sales agent [xxx] in bethesda, md. He could not solve my problem, suggested to go to service shop in rockville, md. The stalling problem becomes a hazardous issue when it happened on the road, especially in slopped busy intersections. On 05/13/16, I took my car to service shop in rockville md. The engineers check out system & records. They verified stalling happened in that morning, & claim there was nothing wrong with car/system. The problem was ?nobody was sitting on the driving seat? When stalling happened. They want me to keep records. It was stupid ignorance & irresponsibility. On 06/11/16, I sent complaint to servicehelpna…
Here is another burned out tesla in the salvage yard https://www.copart.com/lot/34875876/photos?resultindex=14&totalrecords=21&backto=%2flotsearchresults%2f%3ffree%3dtrue&query=tesla&query=tesla&displaystr=search%20results tesla claims the fire problem has been cured by the addition of a titanium shield. So why are there so many burned out teslas in the junkyards?
I purchased the tesla model s on 10/17 with 'autopilot' hardware and features I've consistently used autopilot on the highway during the first month I've had the vehicle. The autopilot feature uses cameras and sensors to maintain speed and lane and avoid collisions. This car also features anti-collision features that are supposed to engage even when autopilot is not engaged, to detect both an object in front of the car and brake, as well as detect objects on either side that the car may be headed to collide with and swerve away. This features were all enabled at time of the accident. At the time of accident, I had autopilot engaged for approx 10 minutes prior to accident. I was still watching the road but periodically looking at my phone as well. Before the accident I had looked down at my phone for a period of time I'm not sure about. I didn't think it was longer than a few seconds, but I can't be certain. When I looked up the semi was merging in front of me. I would guess that the semi's trailer was perhaps 3-4 feet in my line, and I was maybe 50-100 feet away. So it was less than 1 second prior to impact. It was so quick there…
Also reported on the 2016 Tesla Model S
Other suspension problem
Infotainment screen failure
Backup camera failure
Other steering problem
Other speed control problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 73 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other electrical problem happen on the 2016 Tesla Model S?
Across 44 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 47,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 12,500 miles and a quarter after 65,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other electrical problem on the 2016 Tesla Model S?
73 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.1 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed