AbstractTensor products usually have nonzero torsion. This is a central theme of Auslander's 1961 paper; the theme continues in the work of Huneke and Wiegand in the 1990s. The main focus in this article is on tensor powers of a finitely generated module over a local ring. Also, we study torsion-free modulesNwith the property thatM ⊗RNhas nonzero torsion unlessMis very special. An important example of such a moduleNis the Frobenius powerpeRover a complete intersection domainRof characteristicp> 0.