Tovarisc

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Oct 25, 2017
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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Friday it will review a petition asking the agency to formally investigate 500,000 Tesla Inc vehicles over sudden unintended acceleration reports.
The petition covers 2012 through 2019 model year Tesla Model S, 2016 through 2019 Tesla Model X, and 2018 through 2019 Tesla Model 3 vehicles, the agency said. The petition cites "127 consumer complaints to NHTSA involving 123 unique vehicles. The reports include 110 crashes and 52 injuries," the agency added.
Many of the complaints report sudden acceleration incidents when attempting to park vehicles in a garage or at a curb. Others claimed the sudden acceleration happened while in traffic or when using driver assistance systems and led to crashes.

In one complaint, a driver said a 2015 Tesla Model S 85D in California was closed and locked when he claimed "a few moments later the vehicle started accelerating forward towards the street and crashed into a parked car."

A Tesla driver in Avondale, Pennsylvania, was pulling into a parking spot at an elementary school when the vehicle accelerated on its own, the complaint said adding: "It went over a curb and into a chain link fence."

Another complaint said a Tesla driver in Andover, Massachusetts was approaching her garage door "when the car suddenly lurched forward: and "went through the garage door destroying two garage doors." The Tesla stopped when it hit the garage's concrete wall.
Last week, NHTSA said it was probing the Dec. 29 crash of a Tesla Model 3 that left a passenger dead after the vehicle collided with a parked fire truck in Indiana.

The crash is the 14th involving Tesla that NHTSA's special crash investigation program has taken up in which it suspects the company's so-called Autopilot or other advanced driver assistance system was in use.


People more knowledgeable about Tesla designs, what could be causing this if actual issue in design?
 
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DrROBschiz

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,558
The plight of network connected and software driven vehicles.

They might benefit from have some features of these cars independent/redundant and cut themselves off from software automation during certain scenarios

Hopefully they can get this figured out quickly

And the idea of a malicious actor somehow doing this to peoples cars is another level of scary but seems more like a bug at this point
 

PeskyToaster

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Oct 27, 2017
15,336
Not a Tesla fanboy by any stretch but I thought that in the past this was mostly just people accidentally pressing the accelerator. I think it was Toyota that had a bunch of issues and a lot of them were found to be operator error. Could be wrong though, just going off of memory.
 

Deleted member 4367

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Not a Tesla fanboy by any stretch but I thought that in the past this was mostly just people accidentally pressing the accelerator. I think it was Toyota that had a bunch of issues and a lot of them were found to be operator error. Could be wrong though, just going off of memory.
Toyota/Lexus had floor mats that could jam the accelerator.
 
Oct 31, 2017
1,854
This story is not saying that 500,000 Tesla cars have had claimed unintended acceleration events. It's 127 complaints about 123 vehicles.
 

Doran

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Jun 9, 2018
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People thought I was crazy when I refused to switch from stick to that new automatic wizardry.
 

thepenguin55

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Oct 28, 2017
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I haven't experienced this and I've had my Model 3 for over a year but it's hard to discredit 500,000 so I hope this gets worked out for those impacted.
 

Goldtones

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Oct 29, 2017
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There were similar complaints in the past but it turned out people are either just accidentally hitting the wrong pedal or are just not used to how fast electric cars accelerate.
 

Kyuuji

The Favonius Fox
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Nov 8, 2017
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..other passengers of the faulty models described moments while driving where the steering wheel would lock and the car start to accelerate outside of their control. After a few seconds they say a recording of Elon Musk shouting "buckle up bitches" would play, followed by laughter for ten seconds. "I was terrified honestly" said one passenger..
Huh.
 

pj-

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,659
I'm no tesla fan but this is probably user error.

Speculation is that it's because of regenerative braking and "one pedal driving". If someone is pressing neither pedal and the car is slowing down from regenerative braking, their brain might assume their foot is hovering over the brake pedal. If they then want to actually apply the brakes to slow the car down more quickly, they put their foot down. If their foot was actually over the gas pedal then they're gonna have a bad time and assume the car is broken.

In any case, this graph is concerning and it's appropriate to do an investigation imo

EJ4MI0nUEAANdhR.png
 

Kenstar

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Oct 25, 2017
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I'm no tesla fan but this is probably user error.

Speculation is that it's because of regenerative braking and "one pedal driving". If someone is pressing neither pedal and the car is slowing down from regenerative braking, their brain might assume their foot is hovering over the brake pedal. If they then want to actually apply the brakes to slow the car down more quickly, they put their foot down. If their foot was actually over the gas pedal then they're gonna have a bad time and assume the car is broken.
If that was the case why werent absent minded manual drivers contantly slamming into cars in front of them when engine braking with their foot off the gas and deciding they need to stop quicker by mashing accel
 
Oct 31, 2017
1,854
I'm no tesla fan but this is probably user error.

Speculation is that it's because of regenerative braking and "one pedal driving". If someone is pressing neither pedal and the car is slowing down from regenerative braking, their brain might assume their foot is hovering over the brake pedal. If they then want to actually apply the brakes to slow the car down more quickly, they put their foot down. If their foot was actually over the gas pedal then they're gonna have a bad time and assume the car is broken.

I use one-pedal driving all the time in my Bolt. Regenerative braking on the Bolt will cause the brake lights to turn on, and can even bring the car to a complete stop. Couple that with a hill-holder feature and my foot is nearly always hovering over the accelerator, rather than the brake, when I'm stopped. I've been trying to force myself to step on the brake once I'm stopped because there have been more than one occasion where I've stepped on the accelerator by mistake, fortunately without hitting anything...

So yeah, at least some of these incidents could certainly be related.
 

pj-

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Oct 25, 2017
1,659
If that was the case why werent absent minded manual drivers contantly slamming into cars in front of them when engine braking with their foot off the gas and deciding they need to stop quicker by mashing accel

IDK, it's all speculation. I would assume most tesla drivers are coming from other non-manual cars, since basically nobody drives stick in the US anymore.

When I use engine braking my right foot is generally over the brake pedal because I know I'm going to be using the brakes soon. In a car with regenerative braking, people may be used to almost exclusively using the accelerator since the car can bring itself to a stop with no brake pedal input.

Edit: and looking at the non-teslas in the chart I posted, most of the ones with higher complaint numbers are also EVs or hybrids which I would bet also do regenerative braking
 

Trickster

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Oct 25, 2017
6,533
Obviously needs to be addressed if there's any merit to it. For some reason though, I feel like we've had threads like this before, and then it turns out to be nothing or something not unique to Tesla cars
 

RiOrius

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Oct 27, 2017
6,095
If that was the case why werent absent minded manual drivers contantly slamming into cars in front of them when engine braking with their foot off the gas and deciding they need to stop quicker by mashing accel
Again, this isn't 500k reports, this is about a hundred reports (from models that have sold a total of 500k vehicles). So it's not a problem where Teslas are "constantly" crashing into things.

I'm pretty sure manual drivers have done dumb stuff as well, they just aren't going to complain that their car's been hacked or assume it was a bug in the autopilot.
 

Deleted member 8741

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Telsa also continues to oversell its autopilot feature which is not up to the standard of true autonomous driving and still requires the driver to have their hands remain on the wheel.

What are you even talking about? Oversell? I think they are pretty explicit when you are interested in autopilot with what you are getting. And if you have to have your hands on it still, doesn't that indicate they aren't overselling it at all?
 

Kernel

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,245
This is what happens when software engineers make cars

On the plus side the computer will actually have a record of what happened.

which is not up to the standard of true autonomous driving and still requires the driver to have their hands remain on the wheel

It sounds like how autopilot works on planes which is where the name comes from?

It's just morons who think they can watch movies on their phone with AP on.
 

SapientWolf

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Nov 6, 2017
6,565
To those saying user error. There have been multiple reported incidents where autopilot was engaged and the car accelerated.

Telsa also continues to oversell its autopilot feature which is not up to the standard of true autonomous driving and still requires the driver to have their hands remain on the wheel.
The autopilot crashes are not included in the 127 claims, to my knowledge. Tesla maintains that the car logs show the accelerator pedal was pressed in all cases.
 

Faddy

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Oct 25, 2017
9,256
What are you even talking about? Oversell? I think they are pretty explicit when you are interested in autopilot with what you are getting. And if you have to have your hands on it still, doesn't that indicate they aren't overselling it at all?

Are you blind. The "founder' and CEO is going on official conference calls and lying about the capabilities of Tesla systems. Many crashes involving Tesla has been due to people not having their hands on the wheel because Musk tells people that their cars have "Full Self Driving"

Tesla fanboy who cannot see the harm Musk is doing when he lies about Tesla's is a bigger problem than Tesla detractors.
 

Argyle

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Oct 25, 2017
1,056
Typically the problem in these cases was sitting in the driver's seat. People involved in a few of these cases started threads on other forums, where the drivers sent their hardware to third party hardware hackers to inspect the logs, the results were always that they pushed down the accelerator themselves.

That said, there are at least two driving modes in a Tesla, one is called "creep" which simulates a typical automatic transmission in that the car will creep forward and you'll need to press the brake to come to a stop. The other is called "roll" and I think that is where people are more likely to get in trouble if they're coming from an ICE automatic. In this mode you need to feather the accelerator in order to move at all, combine it with the gear stalk design (you click it up and down to go into drive and reverse, it returns to center when you release it) which may not be familiar (I think Mercedes uses a similar design? But I've never seen one on say a Japanese or other American car)... And I think if you were in reverse when you expected to be in drive or vice versa and you feather the accelerator and go the opposite way you were expecting, your next instinct might be to press the pedal more, which is probably the wrong thing to do.


(In more recent Teslas they just added a "hold" mode which is similar to "roll" mode but it allows true one pedal driving as the car will regen down to 0 mph and then apply the brakes to prevent rolling. Some people have been asking for a hybrid between "hold" and "creep" where the car will creep backwards only in reverse.)
 

Deleted member 8741

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Are you blind. The "founder' and CEO is going on official conference calls and lying about the capabilities of Tesla systems. Many crashes involving Tesla has been due to people not having their hands on the wheel because Musk tells people that their cars have "Full Self Driving"

Tesla fanboy who cannot see the harm Musk is doing when he lies about Tesla's is a bigger problem than Tesla detractors.

Yes. I'm a blind fanboy. You caught me.
 

Trickster

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
6,533
It usually ends up being people pushing the wrong pedal.

Yeah that definitely seems like the thing that would be the most probable scenario. Could see it being especially true due to the large amount of people currently switching from their ICE cars to a Tesla. Mistakenly pressing the speeder while trying to break is probably a huge shock if you still haven't gotten fully used to the acceleration in a Tesla yet.
 

Faddy

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Oct 25, 2017
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On the plus side the computer will actually have a record of what happened.



It sounds like how autopilot works on planes which is where the name comes from?

It's just morons who think they can watch movies on their phone with AP on.

On large planes they have Hands Off autopilot where no one needs to have physical contact with the controls.

The autopilot crashes are not included in the 127 claims, to my knowledge. Tesla maintains that the car logs show the accelerator pedal was pressed in all cases.

Tesla can claim the pedal was engaged but afaik all systems on Tesla's are electric so it is impossible to know if the control was engaged by the driver or as an error by the system.
 

Bad_Boy

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Oct 25, 2017
3,624
not to sound conspiracy theorist... but how do we know it isn't big gas feeling threatened by tesla. especially with news that tesla is worth more than other major gas companies.

I'm probably just speaking out of my ass but I vaguely remember gas corps creating propaganda when alternative fuels were becoming a future talking point about cars like 15 years ago. admittedly, i don't know much about the NHTSA.
 

The Albatross

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Oct 25, 2017
39,536
I'm suspicious of these reports in general.

3 reports of unintended acceleration. 500,000 cars being investigated as a result. That's well within the "human error" factor. People crash their cars inadvertently and then convince themselves that the car did something unexpected, when really, their body did something unexpected.

I'm reminded of the fiasco surrounding Toyota a decade ago that cost them, what, a billion dollars in settlements and legal fees, was human error 100% of the time, yet a mass hysteria took hold that "Toyotas were accellerating against the will of the driver!" A massive DOJ investigation took place, costing tax payers tens of millions of dollars, Toyota's brand was dragged through the mud, and the entire thing was drivers stepping on the gas instead of the break. Even the horrifying 9-1-1 call of the guy who called police screaming that he couldn't slow down... It was horrible, the audio of it is tragic, they all died, but the guy had his foot on the gas when he thought he had his foot firmly planted on the brakes, he was jamming the gas pedal down instead of the brake pedal. It was a tragic human error.

This episode of Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History is one of the best:

 
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Felt

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
3,210
Pretty good clickbait.

about 120 complaints... I wonder how many of those are user error. The ones about the car driving after the owner has left is a little discerning and warrants the investigation though. I wonder if those are just people who wrecked their garage and trying to blame it on the car lol

unlike Toyota, Tesla has access to all cameras and logs of the cars behavior from the cloud and an analyst can easily see exactly what happened for each incident, I.e. teslas are awesome for insurance purposes.
 

SapientWolf

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Nov 6, 2017
6,565
On large planes they have Hands Off autopilot where no one needs to have physical contact with the controls.



Tesla can claim the pedal was engaged but afaik all systems on Tesla's are electric so it is impossible to know if the control was engaged by the driver or as an error by the system.
Autopilot doesn't have to engage the pedal to accelerate. The pedal being engaged and the car accelerating are two separate sets of telemetry. They can show whether the pedal was physically pressed or not.
 
Feb 1, 2018
5,083
These types of clickbait articles are very obvious attempts at stock price manipulation and you're all getting worked

Critical thinking, how does it work?