All of us wished that 2020 was buried with all the bad things it brought, such as the . Sadly, it persists, like some other stuff that should be long gone. . We have reported cases in March with the Tesla Model 3. In October, a Model Y also presented the issue – on the rear right door in most cases. After a while, we thought Tesla had fixed it. Inderpal Kaur's story shows we were wrong.
Kaur lives in California. She bought a 2021 Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus and received it at home on the evening of January 1.
“The exact same thing as you wrote about in March happened to me minutes after delivery. It was the back right window of my car as well, except me and my sister were in the car and were reversing it. I’m very disturbed by this and obviously very disappointed as well. We thought we were getting shot at. Although this was a crazy event, I’m definitely counting my blessings that no one was in the backseat and that we decided against taking it on the road that night!”
Unfortunately, Kaur did not have any cameras working around the car or in it to show the glass shattering on its own. However, a new video would not show anything different from what our other videos – embedded here – have already presented.
Kaur kindly sent us pictures of her car after everything happened. She is currently waiting to fix this, but it is proving to be more disappointing than the problem itself.
“So far, the vehicle is still sitting in my garage in the same state. I was told by roadside assistance to take it to our nearest Tesla service center on Saturday and when we did, they told us the service center was closed. Since then I opened a service ticket and was able to get a response on January 4 from someone who was actually really helpful and who escalated the ticket to have someone come out earlier.”
More Glass-Shattering Issues With Teslas:
From what Kaur heard from this Tesla representative, the company is taking full responsibility for the issue. They even offered her an explanation.
“Although no one has actually taken a look at the car yet, they have hypothesized that it was due to a defect in the window along with the elevated cabin pressure of a new Tesla.”
Another theory is that the panel gaps and the window shattering could be happening due to assembly mistakes with the subframes. If it was solely a production issue with the glass, why would it affect only the EV's back rear door? Perhaps Sandy Munro can check the body geometry with the future teardown of a 2021 Model 3 to see if this hypothesis has any substance.
Gallery: Tesla's Spontaneous Glass-Shattering Issues Strikes Again, Now A Brand New 2021 Model 3