2026 Tesla Model 3. Credit: Tesla
Tesla North America said on September 13, 2026, that the 2026 Model 3 earned a 5-star overall rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), plus 5 stars in every individual category the agency scores.
In a post on X, @tesla_na wrote that the 2026 Model 3 “earns a 5-star overall rating (and each category) from NHTSA,” putting the refreshed sedan at the top of the federal crash-test scale across frontal, side, and rollover assessments. The claim covers the current model year rather than a prior generation, and Tesla North had not previously covered a full 2026 Model 3 NHTSA scorecard.
The result tracks with other recent Tesla safety milestones on the site, including the 2026 Model Y’s perfect 5-star NHTSA score and the Cybertruck’s 5-star NHTSA ratings for driver and passenger protection. NHTSA’s five-star program remains one of the clearest U.S. consumer labels for crashworthiness, and a clean sweep across categories is the strongest mark the agency publishes for a given vehicle configuration.
Tesla did not break out trim-by-trim footnotes in the North America post, so the company’s framing is a full-category 5-star result for the 2026 Model 3 as announced. For shoppers comparing new EVs on federal safety labels, that puts the sedan in the same top tier Tesla has been highlighting for its volume cars this model year.
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