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Unintended Acceleration Complaint

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Click on the press release for the full verbiage...Where they say the brake was being depressed the whole time during this incident. How could that be? Both pedals cannot be used that the same time and the brake pedal always wins in this scenario.

I'd bet money that while the car was moving slowly (not sure if forward or reverse as the full text does NOT say) the driver removed their foot from the brake and moved their foot to the throttle *thinking* it was the brake and when the car started moving more quickly pressed the pedal harder. Or the drivers foot slipped off the brake and onto the throttle but that is less likely.

The 92% vs 100% debate is easily understood with logs or is simply a mis-communication from the TM tech to the person who talked with them.

As well as the logs showing the delta or lack of delta between each pedal being depressed or not depressed and the %. The data should be every 100ms so should be interesting.

- - - Updated - - -

I would bet heavily on driver error. But perhaps the more important issue... what information does Tesla record and how long does it keep it??

They monitored Broder's entire trip, and I remember Elon saying something about only journalist cars are tracked like that. Hmm...

I'd bet that when the car registers an anonymous event (like taking out a wall) where there is sudden changes in sensor data (like the accelerometer) that the data is saved off.
 
The owner doesn't seem to really deny that his wife stepped on the accelerator, but claims that there's a discrepancy between 92% and 100% and therefore there must be some mechanical error. Step on the go pedal 92% and the Model S takes off; you don't need to depress it 100%.....

Anyways, it does seem clear that Tesla has logs.
 
Other than the mechanical floor mat issue, I still believe all of Toyota's woes were due to human error, and I'd er in that direction here as well.

Toyota was basically cleared by NHTSA of Unintended Acceleration issues (not sticky pedals/floor mats, which Toyota had addressed months before with recalls). Here is a link. The executive summary basically says a double failure (not seen in any cases) could result in unintended acceleration. And that ~100% were user error.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/UA
direct PDF: http://www.nhtsa.gov/staticfiles/nvs/pdf/NHTSA_report_execsum.pdf

People just can't drive.
 
Other than the mechanical floor mat issue, I still believe all of Toyota's woes were due to human error, and I'd er in that direction here as well.

I had an incident in our Camry Hybrid with the floor mat jamming under the acceleration (before all the news reports/recalls)

Scared the crap out of me, but at least I figured it out before things got totally out of control. I'm sure many of the reports were caused by mats, but the mat came free during the panic on it own, so it was not obvious.
 
I'm no engineer... But how is it with these "unintended acceleration " mishaps that the cars stops accelerating?

I mean it seems there would be tires spinning wildly until the vehicle was damaged to inoperable or the victim gathered enough fortitude to stop the car in some way. Which, in a panic situation, one would presume would take some time with tires smoking.

No mention that the S continued once the wall was hit and the driver woke up.
 
I'm no engineer... But how is it with these "unintended acceleration " mishaps that the cars stops accelerating?

I mean it seems there would be tires spinning wildly until the vehicle was damaged to inoperable or the victim gathered enough fortitude to stop the car in some way. Which, in a panic situation, one would presume would take some time with tires smoking.

No mention that the S continued once the wall was hit and the driver woke up.

Exactly! You'd think that once the car takes over that the acceleration would continue a'la Christine style or Maximum Overdrive style. If the car went into some kind of state where the throttle is maxed out you'd think it would stay that way.
 
Unfortunately, there are a lot of inattentive and distracted drivers out there, so it was only a matter of time before somebody had something like this happen and tried to blame the car. I think Tesla can pull their logs and get a pretty good picture of what actually happened.
 
I have hit the CC a couple of times intending to use my turn signal while slowing w/ regen and then the car 'unintendedly accelerates' for the split second I don't have my foot on the brake.

Not any different than CC in a gas car besides the gas car CC's suck at keeping a set speed!

If the user hit the CC, that will definitely show up in the logs :)
 
You'd be surprised how many people hit the accelerator instead of the brake pedal. When the wrong thing happens the instinctive reaction is to press harder. This sort of thing happens a LOT. Heck, it happened at the local convenience store; a lady put her car right through the front door.
 
You'd be surprised how many people hit the accelerator instead of the brake pedal.

That's exactly what this lady did. It's happens all the time.

epubybyn.jpg
 
I had an incident in our Camry Hybrid with the floor mat jamming under the acceleration (before all the news reports/recalls)

Scared the crap out of me, but at least I figured it out before things got totally out of control. I'm sure many of the reports were caused by mats, but the mat came free during the panic on it own, so it was not obvious.

I rented a Camry just this year and drove 6000 miles cross-country in it, and several times encountered the floor mat jamming under the accelerator. Agreed: it was scary. I figured it out right away and avoided any mishap but geez...

The thing that sometimes bugs me about the Model S is that it can get confused, and start rolling backwards/forwards depending on the incline, and do the opposite of what you wish, and it's sometimes hard to nudge the car into a parking spot. In an ICE, sometimes using the brake/accelerator together very gently gives you that last-6-inches of fine control you need to get the car parked. Often can't do that with the Tesla, I find. Car gets all snippy.

Here's something: I wish Tesla kept a count of all the times a driver has gotten the deet-deet-deet alarm whenever brake/gas-pedal pushed together. We could all compare stats. There could be a hall of fame (or shame!).