Moderator note: Moved a post (plus one response to it) to snippiness. Let's stay nice, folks.
Thanks,
Bruce.
Thanks,
Bruce.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
There’s a complete syslog, but none of the “good” stuff is in it, just authorizations, traffic reports, process crashes and such. Gigs and gigs of syslog crap.
William13
Active Member
I agree with post #19. Hitting the curb knocked your foot into the he pedal and Tesla's famous high torque acceleration occurred.
I am an aggressive driver with a P85D so I certainly would not be happy if anything was forced on me, but yes this is a great idea. In fact since the car already knows your home and work addresses (for most of us) that could just be an on/off setting associated with the address. Default it to on for that matter.
A more sophisticated solution would be to use the GPS data and/or the camera to detect when you are off of a road, or in a parking lot, and then automatically enable chill mode (again, optional setting) and then disable it when you return to a street.
Good afternoon,
I am replying for my wife so you may get a bit of different perspective. There are actually 2 other Teslas in my family with another on order. I have been following Tesla since 2005. My background is in mechanical engineering.
Status update:
1. The damage to the car is pretty limited, just the bumper, radiator, and labor, with an estimate to fix of about $4k. Lucky to say the least. Unfortunately, the quoted time to fix is 5 weeks.
2. While my wife has received a phone call saying it is her fault (18% throttle application), we are still waiting for an email with the promised report (and hopefully supporting evidence). We asked for information on brake application but the service person did not provide it nor felt that there is a need to do so. The Tesla team has been adamant that they will NOT provide datalogs. To say the the customer service experience has been frustrating is a bit of an understatement.
3. We would very much like to take Jason (@wk057) up on his offer to get at the datalog (sent PM!). I do hope this is possible remotely as we are located in the SF bay area while he is on the east coast (I think).
4. Very obviously, the vast majority of people here assume it is her fault. Fine. She is convinced that she did not step on the throttle. Maybe she is right, maybe she is wrong. However, this is one of first cars where the datalog can provide clear evidence to exonerate Tesla yet the staff is not willing to release it. Without this evidence, how can I convince her the car is safe to drive when her memory tells her something very different?
5. My wife is a good driver, not the distracted or indifferent type. She had one accident a decade ago but I'll go out on a limb here and say that her record is at least as good as half the people here. She was not on the phone or in a conference call and the car had creep mode enabled (my choice would be different). I find it highly unlikely that she made a mistake but I ALSO find it highly unlikely that the car accelerated by itself.
6. At this point, my wife is anxious at the prospect of driving the car again (once we get it back). How can she convince herself the car is safe to drive when the company that made the car is (so far) unwilling to release datalogs (from a car SHE owns and paid a ton of money for) that contain all the evidence to settle the issue? Maybe put yourself into her shoes and think of how you would feel under the circumstances.
Well reasoned post. Appreciate your calm demenour.
I concur with everything you said except on one point :
Asking Tesla to provide the logs mean:
- either Tesla provides you the raw binary output which is pretty much useless to you or anyone. Even if you think you can somehow magically decipher it, Tesla will rightly say your interpretation is bollocks.
- Or, Tesla gives you the processed output that is relevant to you. But then they have already done that by stating that the accelerator was pressed 18%. They are only going to say same thing again.
So either way asking Tesla for logs really does not get you a) anything useful or b) anything new. So I am not really sure where you are going with that angle.
I concur with everything you said except on one point :
Asking Tesla to provide the logs mean:
- either Tesla provides you the raw binary output which is pretty much useless to you or anyone. Even if you think you can somehow magically decipher it, Tesla will rightly say your interpretation is bollocks.
- Or, Tesla gives you the processed output that is relevant to you. But then they have already done that by stating that the accelerator was pressed 18%. They are only going to say same thing again.
So either way asking Tesla for logs really does not get you a) anything useful or b) anything new. So I am not really sure where you are going with that angle.
Last edited by a moderator:
I agree. Thank you for following up, Ying
I think the issue is that Ying would like that information in writing rather than over the phone. I think that’s a reasonable request.
Scott_K
Member
There have a few people suggesting that some of these cases of sudden acceleration maybe due to accidental activation of cruise control. I don’t know what happens for others, but this is the error message that I got while testing this theory while parking today (the car refused to resume cruise).
I drive a late 2017 Model S 100D with EAP.
I drive a late 2017 Model S 100D with EAP.
I cannot help but wonder if unintended acceleration has become more common partly because the spring force on electronic accelerators is universally less than the spring force on cable throttles. Humans are pretty universally bad at knowing what we are doing with our bodies, so that extra feedback might be helping when it exists. (For an example of this, try closing your eyes and moving so that your two index fingers are pointing at each other in a straight line. Then open your eyes and see how accurate you were. It's very rare for them to be well lined up.)
mal_tsla
Member
I thought there was a minimum speed for TACC activation that precludes parking situations. Will try it.
I tried engaging TACC at a stop by pushing the stalk up or down. It set it to 18 mph but the car didn't move. If I try to enable TACC while moving below 18 mph, it won't engage. I suppose if someone came to a complete stop, pushed the stalk up or down and then pushed the accelerator, then it might jump to 18 mph but I haven't tried that yet.
Once you activate the actual brake, it deactivates past cruise command. It happens when you are using regenerative braking. Then you attempt to apply the turn signal but toggle the cruise instead. It is looking more likely, in the OP case, that the accelerator was pressed by mistake.
Last edited:
Scott_K
Member
Funnily enough there wasn’t actually an obstruction in front of me when I got that warning, it just beeped at me and popped up every time I tried to activate cruise control from a slow speed.
pedriscoll
Active Member
This is a well reasoned post. I see your quandry. But as others have said, the raw data will be meaningless, and Tesla has already told you their interpretation. Unless you can find an expert who can interpret the raw data, I don’t see how it will help you.
Convincing your wife will be difficult. Earlier in this thread I posted about my similar accident. At the instant it occurred I was absolutely convinced that the car had accelerated on its own. Only when I carefully reconstructed the events in my mind in chronologic order did I realize that while one pedal driving my foot was still on the accelerator and not the brake as I thought. When I had the unexpected acceleration from feathering the accelerator instead of the brake, I mashed on what I thought was the brake, only to have the car massively accelerate, jumping over the parking barrier and curb. I then did hit the brake but by then the damage was done. I honestly think this is what happened to your wife, and do not doubt that she is a good driver. I had never had an at fault accident in 47 years of driving before this. Since the repairs I am always very careful to be sure I know where my right foot is at all times and in 10,000 miles since the event, there has been no recurrence of unexpected acceleration.
FlyF4
Son of a MX
Short of suing Tesla (costing you even more money), I'm not sure how you can force them to turn over the logs and even then, then logs may not work in your favor.
One thing you said had caught my attention, "If I applied the pedal, I would not be able to apply my brake in a split second." Maybe that is your case, but I would disagree that most people can make that reaction time. I certainly can apply the brake really fast, yet I am a "two foot driver". One foot for accelerator and one for brake. In 40 years of driving, that technique sure has helped me several times to prevent ever hitting anyone or anything. I speculate that 95% of drivers are one-foot drivers and that makes reaction time longer.
Three personal anecdotes on SUA:
In the early 70's my parents had owned a Oldsmobile station wagon for several years and my dad bought a Mazda to have a second car (both of them drove both cars regularly). Within a few months my mom had 2 incidents of SUA, fortunately both in parking lots with very minor consequences, though after the second one my dad gave her a pretty hard time, saying that she did it deliberately because she was mad about something. A few weeks later my dad was driving, came to a stop sign, braked for a rolling stop, saw an oncoming car, braked harder to come to a complete stop, and the car suddenly accelerated into the path of the oncoming car. Fortunately the other driver reacted well and avoided a collision. My dad concluded that because the pedals were in different places between the two cars he (and my mom) were accidentally hitting the gas in the Mazda when they intended to hit the brake.
25 years later I had a similar experience: my BMW was in the shop so I borrowed my boyfriend's Honda Civic. Driving in city traffic I hit the car in front of me when that driver braked suddenly in order to turn into a side street, forcing me to brake suddenly. As this was happening I had the sense that the brakes had failed on the car, and I actually pulled the parking brake (which helped slow the car, but not enough). What really happened was that I had hit the clutch instead of the brake (after the impact and the car coming to rest, my right foot was still on the clutch, and the fact that the engine was still running proved that it had been there through the deceleration). Afterwards I looked closely at the difference between the pedals in both cars and discovered that in the Honda (FWD) the pedals were angled toward the centerline of the car, and the clutch was basically in line with the center of the steering column. In the RWD BWM (where the transmission bell housing intrudes into the footwell space) the pedals are angled outboard, with the brake aligning with the center of the steering column. (I think I read an article in on of the SAE publications where they studied this phenomenon in detail.)
Third anecdote happened some time in the late 90's before in-car GPS navigation was common, my boyfriend was driving a new route that I wanted to share with friends, so I was taking notes from the passenger seat, recording comments into a voice memo recorder like "in 3.5 miles turn left onto Main Street." At one intersection I told him "turn left" and he turned right. I said, "Stop, you went the wrong way" and he said, "You told me to turn right." I said, "No, I said turn left. Let me play back the recording I just made and prove it to you." (At this point I would have bet $10,000 that I had said "turn left"). When I pressed play and heard my own voice say "turn right" my head exploded and I said to him, "how did you manage to get in to the recorder and change the recording of my voice?" (I was joking, yet in a profoundly real way I was completely serious; the intuitive part of me was more willing to accept that explanation than the alternative, that my memory was faulty, because I was so certain my memory was correct (after all, I had just uttered the words mere seconds before).)
The point of these three anecdotes is to show the possibility that SUA is caused by unfamiliar pedal placement (made more likely by the fact that car was a recent purchase) and then the memory of the details of the accident are distorted by remembering what "should" of happened, rather than what actually happened.
Bonus anecdote on creep feature: when I bought my first Model S I traded in my Lotus Elan (my daily driver at the time!) and the salesman said "you probably don't want creep since you are used to driving with a clutch). I agreed (I've never owned a car with an automatic). When I traded my first S in on my second the salesman wanted to turn creep on and explained it that it would prevent SUA (he didn't use those words, but that was his point). When I told him I had had it off in my first car he relented, but cautioned me that I should turn it on if I loaned the car to other people. Perhaps this would help prevent SUA by forcing people to have their foot on the brake pedal in low speed situations, I don't know...
In the early 70's my parents had owned a Oldsmobile station wagon for several years and my dad bought a Mazda to have a second car (both of them drove both cars regularly). Within a few months my mom had 2 incidents of SUA, fortunately both in parking lots with very minor consequences, though after the second one my dad gave her a pretty hard time, saying that she did it deliberately because she was mad about something. A few weeks later my dad was driving, came to a stop sign, braked for a rolling stop, saw an oncoming car, braked harder to come to a complete stop, and the car suddenly accelerated into the path of the oncoming car. Fortunately the other driver reacted well and avoided a collision. My dad concluded that because the pedals were in different places between the two cars he (and my mom) were accidentally hitting the gas in the Mazda when they intended to hit the brake.
25 years later I had a similar experience: my BMW was in the shop so I borrowed my boyfriend's Honda Civic. Driving in city traffic I hit the car in front of me when that driver braked suddenly in order to turn into a side street, forcing me to brake suddenly. As this was happening I had the sense that the brakes had failed on the car, and I actually pulled the parking brake (which helped slow the car, but not enough). What really happened was that I had hit the clutch instead of the brake (after the impact and the car coming to rest, my right foot was still on the clutch, and the fact that the engine was still running proved that it had been there through the deceleration). Afterwards I looked closely at the difference between the pedals in both cars and discovered that in the Honda (FWD) the pedals were angled toward the centerline of the car, and the clutch was basically in line with the center of the steering column. In the RWD BWM (where the transmission bell housing intrudes into the footwell space) the pedals are angled outboard, with the brake aligning with the center of the steering column. (I think I read an article in on of the SAE publications where they studied this phenomenon in detail.)
Third anecdote happened some time in the late 90's before in-car GPS navigation was common, my boyfriend was driving a new route that I wanted to share with friends, so I was taking notes from the passenger seat, recording comments into a voice memo recorder like "in 3.5 miles turn left onto Main Street." At one intersection I told him "turn left" and he turned right. I said, "Stop, you went the wrong way" and he said, "You told me to turn right." I said, "No, I said turn left. Let me play back the recording I just made and prove it to you." (At this point I would have bet $10,000 that I had said "turn left"). When I pressed play and heard my own voice say "turn right" my head exploded and I said to him, "how did you manage to get in to the recorder and change the recording of my voice?" (I was joking, yet in a profoundly real way I was completely serious; the intuitive part of me was more willing to accept that explanation than the alternative, that my memory was faulty, because I was so certain my memory was correct (after all, I had just uttered the words mere seconds before).)
The point of these three anecdotes is to show the possibility that SUA is caused by unfamiliar pedal placement (made more likely by the fact that car was a recent purchase) and then the memory of the details of the accident are distorted by remembering what "should" of happened, rather than what actually happened.
Bonus anecdote on creep feature: when I bought my first Model S I traded in my Lotus Elan (my daily driver at the time!) and the salesman said "you probably don't want creep since you are used to driving with a clutch). I agreed (I've never owned a car with an automatic). When I traded my first S in on my second the salesman wanted to turn creep on and explained it that it would prevent SUA (he didn't use those words, but that was his point). When I told him I had had it off in my first car he relented, but cautioned me that I should turn it on if I loaned the car to other people. Perhaps this would help prevent SUA by forcing people to have their foot on the brake pedal in low speed situations, I don't know...
Similar threads
