Model X driving forward when in reverse?

[cmorgan]

Here is the video guys. I went in to the service center today to take a test drive of my car with the service technician and he told me the issue occurred because I had slightly accelerated and I was on an incline. I wasn't on an incline though and the car behaves exactly as though it was in drive. Also, I put the car in both neutral and tow mode multiple times and the vehicle would not budge with me pushing as hard as I can. I told them it was a safety issue and that I need a resolution before I'll drive the car again. They are going to "open a case" which was explained to me as a way to have the engineers who "made the car" look into the issue. I'm starting to get really nervous about this and do not have a very good feeling after this the third time they have told me that it was an incline issue.

I had a tough time seeing the vehicle moving forward. If you went several mph forward and had the console showing R that would make it super clear. Not saying it wasn't moving forward just that if it is so slow and the distance is so small it may be that you are releasing hill hold when you touch the accelerator and then the vehicle is rolling due to incline.

 

[Ulmo]

An update:

Team, I think I might have finally found the root cause here or rather the circumstances. I think it has to do with the "roll forward" that happens if the car is parked down an incline. As you can imagine, usually when reversing, one does not push the accelerator too far down as it is always a slow reverse action. When down an incline, this can lead to the car rolling forward a bit based on how steep the incline is versus how far the accelerator pedal was pressed. I was able to arrest the roll forward by pressing a bit harder on the accelerator. Under similar circumstances, the roll forward can also happen if one needs to stop the reverse action (e.g., when there is something/someone behind the car) because usually one might just release the accelerator pedal but when on a downward incline one needs to use the brake as well.

Does this make sense or am I rationalizing it? I would have thought that engaging the reverse shift would act like a brake for any forward motion.

I have not driven an ICE car in 6 years except for a few occasions so I am not sure how other cars behave but my i3 does not behave like this (it is a much lighter car). Also I have not encountered the circumstances above that often.

Is it possible to hold the car with the left food on the brake pedal while putting the right foot on the accelerator pedal, and slowly letting go of the brake pedal, or does the car not allow this?

 

[ohmman]

Is it possible to hold the car with the left food on the brake pedal while putting the right foot on the accelerator pedal, and slowly letting go of the brake pedal, or does the car not allow this?

I believe in a pre-ABS RWD ICE, that's called "power braking," and it's used to smoke the tires off of a car. I haven't tried it since I was about 17 years old.

 

[travwill]

Is it possible to hold the car with the left food on the brake pedal while putting the right foot on the accelerator pedal, and slowly letting go of the brake pedal, or does the car not allow this?

It warns you that both pedals are pressed and to an extent when you let off brake you can accelerate. Not quite the same as the combo used to start a launch mode though.

 

[Pandamoanium]

So your situation is probably different. I noticed that in my garage, the MX likes to move back. The ground is flat but towards the actual lift door it slopes just slightly to get water out away from the house. I think the MX is just very sensitive to the slope it's on.

 

[K-MTG]

Do you think I should take my ICE instead on my road trip to Lake Arrowhead next month

 

[ohmman]

Do you think I should take my ICE instead on my road trip to Lake Arrowhead next month

If it were me, I wouldn't. Only you can decide for yourself, though.

 

[K-MTG]

If it were me, I wouldn't. Only you can decide for yourself, though.

It should be a 160 mile round trip so range shouldn't be an issue with my 90D right? No super chargers along the way.

I live on a hill and my X never rolled back so I guess that is not a real issue.

My ICE is a FWD (not the doors) so my X should be more equipped but I don't have the Tesla chains for my X as I do for the ICE so I'll have to spend $500 for the Tesla chains I presume? But then it doesn't really rain/snow in SoCal anymore....

Still deciding between Lake Arrowhead and skiing at Snow Valley or Kirkwood in Lake Tahoe (which definitely requires more planning).

 

[jmorenzo]

After speaking with the Tesla service folks we decided to take my car back to the parking spot where the issue occurred. When I got there I looked and there was a rather large cutout in the front of the parking space to help water flow to a storm-water drain. This was an incline I did not realize was there as I was in a bit of a rush when I originally parked and was not able to see the incline with the car parked in the spot.

I parked the car in the spot and sure enough was able to duplicate the issue of going forward when feathering the accelerator. When I originally had the issue there was a van that blocked part of my view and there were cars going back and forth behind me so I feathered the accelerator to be safe and not cut anybody off/hit anyone. Thinking back to the day of the issue as I got closer and closer to the curb I pressed on the accelerator more and more lightly for fear of going over the curb which now I know only exacerbated the problem. With regards to why the car wouldn't move when in neutral or tow mode what I think happened is we tried that after trying to back out time and time again hence the front tires were quite close to the curb and the incline kind of flattened out towards the curb. I put the car in neutral and the car rolled forward until almost on the curb.

At the end of the day I'm very happy with the way the Tesla service team handled this/me (they must have been thinking I was crazy the whole time but they certainly never made me feel crazy.) I am very confident this will be a one time issue as now I know exactly how the car behaves in this type of a situation and in all honesty this was kind of a perfect storm with the really oddball incline.

 

[MP3Mike]

Thank you for coming back and letting us know what was happening!

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

I park at the top of small hill to get mail and sometimes I will get in my car shift to Reverse as I roll away forwards toward my house. This way I can use the accelerator to feather the Reverse (regen) to bring me to a stop and then back into my spot without ever needing to fully stop and change gears.