I've had the same issue but on the left front wheel and my car has only 1,000 miles. I went to check it twice to the Tesla service and the answer I got was:
Tech Diagnosed and Test drove vehicle. Verified customer concern. Found that there is a clunk / thunk noise coming from the front drive-unit when the accelerator pedal is modulated in a way the vehicle accelerates and decelerates very quickly. This causes the torque on the drive-unit to change direction rapidly. When the torque changes direction quickly, this could create an audible thunk / clicking noise coming from the gear lash of the drive-unit also known as backlash. This noise is to be expected and is considered normal. Compared this vehicle with others in the fleet with similar vin model 3's and found that same to be happening. This is expected behavior. No repairs performed at this time. No further action required at this time.
@Jurgen18 Whoa. Glad they at least acknowledge the problem, but that answer is unacceptable. Gear lash that you can feel or even hear IS a thing, on
some cars, but never on a Tesla in my experience!
Extremely smooth, extremely low friction operation of the direct drive unit has been a hallmark of every Tesla since the original Model S at least. (Probably the Roadster too but I haven't driven any.) I have an OG January 2013 Model S P85 (single motor RWD), a 2021 Model 3 Performance (dual motor AWD), and I've driven many other Model S over the years, single and dual motors, as well as three other Model 3's including an early RWD, as well as a Model Y dual motor. I never felt or heard any noticeable gear lash from any of them! Butter smooth drivetrains always. And I drive my cars pretty hard/fast at times - "accelerate and decelerate very quickly" is something I've done plenty of, especially the Model 3.
Heck, even when the rear drive unit on a P85D failed on me, the car still drove smoothly afterwards using only the front motor. Front motor
whine was pretty loud on those early dual motor Model S, so driving on the front motor only was especially loud, but still no gear lash issues!
Edit: Having gear lash clunk on a single speed, direct drive EV doesn't make any sense to me. As I understand it there are no gears that disengage or reengage, it's basically just a simple open differential in there. There is zero reason for a basic open diff to have loose tolerances that would result in anything resembling gear lash. Plus I imagine gear lash would be bad for efficiency, that's wasted energy going to the clunk. I bet the cars Tesla did their EPA testing with did not have such gear lash.