For everyone that didn't read the whole thread and needs to catch up ...
Today while out for shopping my wife met with an accident in the parking lot of a grocery ...The vehicle was in the parking space position when it suddenly accelerated without any input from her.
I know there are several cases registered with NHTSA and I even found class action lawsuit against Tesla regarding sudden or unintended acceleration, I feel mine is the first case of a Model 3 with behavior that has been seen with S or X several times. What is surprising that EVERY instance of this case has pointed to driver error. I find it ridiculous to dismiss people reporting a serious security flaw with a vehicle to saying - the logs show 100% accelerator press by the driver as the car will NOT do ANYTHING the driver does not intend for it to do. Then how do you explain an individual's reaction to STOMP on the wrong pedal while they are trying to ease into a parking spot?? - it is illogical and irrational to ever surmise that a driver's who's so familiar with the concept of regen braking will press the (wrong) pedal so hard that the car would suddenly accelerate like crazy.
What she went through today is very disconcerting and unsettling. My confidence in cutting edge technology is shaken that helps Tesla to beat other automakers in making technologically forward vehicles. I have been a software professional my entire career and can understand bugs / glitches in the Software. It is one thing to not be able to control volume of the radio of my car (as it happened last night while driving from our friend's house, the left scroll button kept moving the steering wheel even though the option was not enabled), it scary to even think of the car doing what it did! The consequences could have been catastrophic. I am thankful that she is safe as there was the wall protecting her from cross traffic on the main street.
My wife's car was in an accident. It crashed into a curb and a dumpster. It might have been her fault but because there have been other Tesla's that have had the same thing happen, I'm blaming the car.
What I find peculiar in most of the reported incidents is that they happened when you are about to park. It is odd to think that a driver whose familiar with an electric car's automatic slowing while regen braking would suddenly apply full pressure to the "brake pedal" to slow the car from 2-5 mph to zero.
More specifically, I'm blaming the part of the software that is in effect in parking spaces.
What bothers me is that both myself and my wife have over 20+ yrs of driving experience in several cars. We both are in SW engineering and understand technology fairly well and its limitations, however we are baffled by the behavior we saw with our car. If pedal misapplication is so common, why did it not happen to either of us in other cars - EVER?
We've both driven a lot so this couldn't possibly have been the drivers fault since it has never happened before.
If we are to refute every single claim of misapplication, could there be a design flaw in the pedal geometry that might cause a user error despite their muscle memory? All the drivers instinctively let go or ease off the accelerator pedal when approaching a stop to prepare to press the brakes. The pedals are designed differently to allow your feet to "feel" what pedal is being pressed. It's crazy to think that your brain forgot a pedal feel just by driving an electric car with its eccentricities.
Maybe it wasn't the software, it may have been the physical pedals being designed wrong.
I do sincerely hope that it is not the car but a human error, however I also cannot completely trust the technology. If there's an iota of truth to the SUA theory in any of the cases reported, regardless of manufacturers, I hope engineers are able to fix the root cause so that we can go enjoy driving without worrying about the safest cars becoming our own enemy.
If anyone here has details on how these modern day throttle pedals work in a Tesla or other cars, please share.
I really hope it was my wife's fault (not really), but I'm still going to blame the car. Oh, and can anyone supply some information so that I can look like I'm being fair, but I'll ignore it anyway.
AZRED - you and I are as much Tesla fanboys as any other on this forum. I have been a Tesla shareholders since the stock was $22.
For me safety of my family and friends is paramount - no matter what. As I said in my earlier post, if there's a slightest chance this is not a result of a human error, then we owe ourselves to get educated on the root cause and find the circumstances that lead to such behavior. No one here on the forum can guarantee me that Tesla or any other company has worked ALL the bugs out of their firmware and there can be NO CORNER CASES that might result in the car misbehaving.
I'm saying I'm a shareholder so everything I write is, of course, completely unbiased. But, since there is not a 100% chance that this was human error, I'm still blaming the car.
I have discussed with my wife multiple times since the incident to recall if she was in any duress, pre-occupied, on the phone, listening to loud music, health issues etc. etc. She's maintains her position about being fully and situationally aware of her and the car's role when parking and can recall up to the point within the parking spot when she says the car suddenly accelerated ...
As I posted on my original thread, the car has about 1100 miles - loosely translated this equates to between 150 - 200 parking events from home, work, visiting friends, errands etc. Majority of the events executed by her.
99% of my logical brain wants to believe the pedal misapplication theory but that 1% human emotional brain still argues - what if it were the machine?
Tesla has reached out for pics of the car / event - hope they are objective, unbiased and completely transparent in their analysis.
I'll take a bruised ego any day over a design flaw.
My wife still says it wasn't her fault. She has parked the car a lot so, of course, couldn't have made a mistake. I sent Tesla pictures of the car, I think they're going to lie about what happened.
I'd hypothesize that the rate of SUA is greater in Tesla's than regular ICE cars though NHTSA's claim is 16000 per year for pedal misapplication.
If it's found that battery regen is behind the reason why Teslas are more susceptible to a driver pressing the wrong pedal, then something needs to be done to change the design as it is a flaw. Hundreds of NHTSA cases on Teslas with people wrapping their cars around trees, houses, walls, and other cars is not something to be trivialized despite what the majority of the forum might be saying. A value of human life is far greater than any technology - no matter how cool it might be. And it's a simple fix - turn off regen completely by default. Allow a driver to change the setting by accepting a liability waiver similar to Autopilot.
Here's another eerily similar example here in AZ that happened on Friday as well - a fluke you say???? -
Sudden Unintended Acceleration
Tesla have this happen more often than others because of regenerative braking. See, something similar happened to someone else .. it must be the car.
And I bet this will continue until we either change Driver behavior or find what’s really causing these misinterpreted pedals and clear the gremlins in our brains or the car. Why do we not see that there’s a pattern and there might be a burden or responsibility that has to be shared between drivers and car manufacturers?
I'm going to say it might be driver error, but, in the same sentence, I'll strongly imply that it really isn't and that there is some hidden "real" cause.
... has anyone here have looked at cross referencing what the ECU did vs. what the ACTUAL PHYSICAL pedal position was? Given all throttles are wired, a user does not need to press a pedal in order to control the accelerator - it is merely used as another input for driving a car.
Case in point - when we engage AP, we are not touching the accelerator or the brake and the pedals are not moving PHYSICALLY while the car drives on its own, slows down and speeds up.
What if there are declarations of global variables that when initiated contain incorrect value and when certain conditions are met, are called by a subroutine resulting in incorrect data being send to the vehicles ECU resulting in erroneous behavior?
Do we have anyone on the forum who's done embedded programming for cars who can chime in? Also I do not know if Tesla uses MISRA guidelines and if they do - what SIL level have they adopted?
I'm saying it really is the car now since there are things in the car that really do control acceleration without driver input, it must have been one of those that did it. I'll toss out some programming lingo and, again, ask for input that I'll discount as not being certain enough.
I can understand that the physical pedal did not have a malfunction in its operation i.e. no spring jam, no lockup etc. and also the way the HW processor redundancy eliminates false positives when it does not agree with current signal from the throttle.
What we don't know is what you called out in your thread regarding the lack of code access to know what and how Tesla has implemented it's SW and what HW is being used to control the vehicle operation? ...There's a significant amount of black hole when it comes to knowing how the AP algorithms interface with vehicle operation algos.
This issue aside - some folks here have reported that the car suddenly decelerated or shifted lanes while operating on AP. Hence, any undesirable outcome from a HW/SW control should be investigated.
It probably wasn't the physical pedal. It was most likely a software control of a piece of hardware that did it. Since other people have reported problems with auto pilot doing strange things I'll surmise that that is he cause.
Complaint has already been filed with NHTSA. I am not hopeful anything would come out of it as they, just like some members here, are sick and tired of hearing the same saga over and over.
And yes Tesla, if not for hubris, can help fix whatever is wrong with a SW download. I have not heard from them but I expect the same boilerplate rhetoric - wrong pedal pressed, car accelerated, $hit happened, move on.
I filed a complaint with government but I expect both them and Tesla to tell me it was human error - but I won't believe them.
Is it only me or is there generally a greater force needed on our M3's to stop? My Infiniti has one of the most agressive brakes in any cars I have driven. They BITE!
I also suspect that given the car is so new (1100 miles) and very few instances of braking needed due to regen, its possible that brakes might need a lot more force to stop the car given they have not been burnished properly.
Maybe it wasn't software, or regenerative braking, or a control function ... I'm thinking now that it was really poorly designed brakes.
Till now, I have been working on two possibilities with their probabilities -
1. Driver error (waiting for Tesla logs and wife maintains what she went through): 99%
2. Code defect (no way of knowing and forum members pooh-pooing the idea that this is even possible): 1%
What if that 1% code defect could be hypothesized as a potential hack? It's doable and possible as has been shown many times on other cars.
Ok, maybe it wasn't brakes, someone hacked the car and made it drive into a dumpster .....
I'll think of something else after this is refuted....
