Well there’s a thing, sudden unintended acceleration just happened to me

[MrWattson]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say yes. My dad’s driven commercial vehicles of all shapes and sizes his entire career and immediately took to it when I let him drive. Felt wholly natural to him.
I also have a buddy who drives a manual TSX daily. Same thing - he said it just felt completely natural ... and the only thing he’d consider aside from a manual. So he’s due for a Y, probably next year.

I had not thought about it but I have driven mainly manual transmission vehicles and the shift to one-pedal was not a big deal to me either. I use the 'hold' setting as well.

As a manual fan who found too few manual vehicle choices remaining, I skipped a life of CVTs and 10-speed paddle shifting and just went electric. Glad I did.

 

[MP3Mike]

Far enough to activate the brake lights which per the NHTSA document should limit motor power to 50 kW.

But it doesn't actually say that.

Except that, per the NHTSA investigation there is no required amount of brake pedal pressure for the car to limit motor power to 50 kW when both pedals are pressed. The NHTSA just stipulated the amount of brake pedal pressure required to be stronger than the 50 kW of motor power.

Maybe they didn't put all the details in. Try again with actually pushing the brake pedal more and see if it works how they describe it.

 

[noobla3]

So I know what responses this is going to get, because I have made the same responses. I’m going to send my experience as follows to Tesla and try to reproduce in a safe environment.

I was driving forward into a parking space, on the flat, feathering the accelerator to creep forward (I use hold mode). As I lifted my foot *off* of the accelerator the car lurched forward. Luckily I was quick on the brakes and I didn’t crash into anything. Chill mode might also have saved my front bumper...

Like I say, I firmly expect to receive a load of responses calling BS, but I’m just reporting my experience. It feels as though the car got confused by low speed where the “hold” action kicks in and the feathering of the pedal. It was enough for my wife to have a go at me about it.

I had this happen to me last week.

I pulled out of a parallel parked space creeping slowly to the red light. I was in the first space before the light and there was no traffic around. As I was so close to the line, I crept forward ever so slightly, feathering the accelerator. I would say speeds were between 0.5 to 1-2 mph. As I lifted my foot off the accelerator, I felt slight regen, then a pronounced lurch. I hit the brake pedal to stop crossing the line by 1/3 car length.

My setup: Hold mode, Std Regen, Std Acceleration (not chill).

Absolutely sure: did not bump cruise control stalk, no 2 foot driving, no depressing the wrong pedal (as I had lifted off at the time)

Condition: sunny dry day. Ever slight slope upward of road toward center lane (standard for drainage proposed, flat road,not hilly)

I was perplexed and thought about it for like the next 10 minute drive and didn't think about hitting the save on th dashcam.

I had another incident having to do with clicking noise of the mechanical brakes while also an ultra low feathering speeds.

I've read all the comments of this thread, and most people take it as user error, but I definitely think there is something weird at ultra low speed while feathering and coming to a stop.

 

[KenC]

I had this happen to me last week.

I pulled out of a parallel parked space creeping slowly to the red light. I was in the first space before the light and there was no traffic around. As I was so close to the line, I crept forward ever so slightly, feathering the accelerator. I would say speeds were between 0.5 to 1-2 mph. As I lifted my foot off the accelerator, I felt slight regen, then a pronounced lurch. I hit the brake pedal to stop crossing the line by 1/3 car length.

My setup: Hold mode, Std Regen, Std Acceleration (not chill).

Absolutely sure: did not bump cruise control stalk, no 2 foot driving, no depressing the wrong pedal (as I had lifted off at the time)

Condition: sunny dry day. Ever slight slope upward of road toward center lane (standard for drainage proposed, flat road,not hilly)

I was perplexed and thought about it for like the next 10 minute drive and didn't think about hitting the save on th dashcam.

I had another incident having to do with clicking noise of the mechanical brakes while also an ultra low feathering speeds.

I've read all the comments of this thread, and most people take it as user error, but I definitely think there is something weird at ultra low speed while feathering and coming to a stop.

You're in San Francisco. Did you have regen dots, indicating your battery was cold and might only have partial regen? If so, it could just be that what you felt is the limited regen. So, regen became less regen, and the car seems to accelerate as the regen becomes less.

 

[noobla3]

You're in San Francisco. Did you have regen dots, indicating your battery was cold and might only have partial regen? If so, it could just be that what you felt is the limited regen. So, regen became less regen, and the car seems to accelerate as the regen becomes less.

It definitely was not more or less regen as I felt a pronounced lurch forward.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

Kind of related...I had an instance where my model 3 failed to engage regenerative breaking multiple times.

I had just got my tires changed at a tire store and my car had been sitting out in about 45 degree temperature for a few hours.
My car was around 50% charged.

I got on the feeder road and when I got to a stoplight, i lifted my foot off the accelerator and the car did not start slowing down/regenerating like it would normally do.
I came to a stop using the brake...and then when the light turned green i started driving and the next time I tried to start slowing down and lifted my foot off the accelerator....the car did not start slowing down or regenerating like it normally does either.

Later on in the drive, it started acting normal for most of my drive back home.

However, when I got back in my neighborhood I messed around with it some more and noticed it was not working again and took some pictures of my touchscreen with my foot being on the completely off accelerator and the regeneration not engaging.

There were no messages or warnings on my screen telling me regeneration was limited...and even when regeneration is limited I've always had the car slow down/regenerate at least some when my foot is completely off the pedal.

Tesla told me that they pulled my logs and that when it the battery is cold regeneration doesn't always work....but on the phone they couldn't give me any actual details and they are having their techs look back at it again. I've driven my car in much colder temperatures with the battery being much colder and there was always some regeneration.

My theory is that my accelerator pedal is sticking sometimes....

no accelerator has stuck in a Tesla that I have ever heard of, so I doubt that is it.

Regen thinks your tires are slipping in relation to one another. happens every time I change tires to a different size. have swapped tires probably 100 times on my S and already 20-30 times on my 3

also if you run over a really slippery spot/ice on just 2 tires or similar you'll get 100% regen drop and it feels like acceleration almost

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

It definitely was not more or less regen as I felt a pronounced lurch forward.

I bet it was hold mode and the stripe. was it damp or cold? thermo is slippery compared to pavement. AWD or RWD?
if you are just using regen and it hits less traction on the front wheels it will drop a lot of regen if not all
& I hate hold mode because it does funky stuff w/ the brakes. semi personal thing. mostly left foot brake in Tesla too

 

[stopcrazypp]

Far enough to activate the brake lights which per the NHTSA document should limit motor power to 50 kW.

NHTSA document doesn't lay out the specifics for when motor power is limited to 50kW. Only that the brake pedal is pressed first.

Regardless, this feature is obviously for those of us who are used to using left foot braking in certain situations (which I do in my old car and glad the Tesla supports also).

Except that, per the NHTSA investigation there is no required amount of brake pedal pressure for the car to limit motor power to 50 kW when both pedals are pressed. The NHTSA just stipulated the amount of brake pedal pressure required to be stronger than the 50 kW of motor power.

Could the numbers be different with dual motor vs single motor?

But as relevant to the unintended acceleration incidents, as long as the full override comes if brake is applied after accelerator, that probably is the main use case that NHTSA is concerned about, as that is really what someone would be doing if their accelerator pedal was stuck for whatever reason.

If you do the accelerator a long while after the brakes, that usually is a sign you intend to accelerate (an exception to allow for left foot brakers), just limited to less in magnitude by the brakes.

I guess another test that can be done is if you release the brake and press it again will it override the accelerator that was never released (this is to simulate a situation where someone was left foot braking and their accelerator pedal gets stuck afterwards).

 

[xyxx]

I had this happen to me last week.


Condition: sunny dry day. Ever slight slope upward of road toward center lane (standard for drainage proposed, flat road,not hilly)
.

its the slightly upward sloping angle that does it for me. We have a drain ditch in the middle of the road which i drive over when preparing to back into my garage. Regen doesnt come to a hold but feathers the accelerator - This has happened to me 3x

 

[15Peter20]

Kind of related...I had an instance where my model 3 failed to engage regenerative breaking multiple times.

I had just got my tires changed at a tire store and my car had been sitting out in about 45 degree temperature for a few hours.
My car was around 50% charged.

I got on the feeder road and when I got to a stoplight, i lifted my foot off the accelerator and the car did not start slowing down/regenerating like it would normally do.
I came to a stop using the brake...and then when the light turned green i started driving and the next time I tried to start slowing down and lifted my foot off the accelerator....the car did not start slowing down or regenerating like it normally does either.

Later on in the drive, it started acting normal for most of my drive back home.

However, when I got back in my neighborhood I messed around with it some more and noticed it was not working again and took some pictures of my touchscreen with my foot being on the completely off accelerator and the regeneration not engaging.

There were no messages or warnings on my screen telling me regeneration was limited...and even when regeneration is limited I've always had the car slow down/regenerate at least some when my foot is completely off the pedal.

Tesla told me that they pulled my logs and that when it the battery is cold regeneration doesn't always work....but on the phone they couldn't give me any actual details and they are having their techs look back at it again. I've driven my car in much colder temperatures with the battery being much colder and there was always some regeneration.

My theory is that my accelerator pedal is sticking sometimes....

I had this a few weeks ago. I went for a long drive to investigate it. Air temps were cold, but I’d driven in much colder temps without this issue. In any case, by cold I mean about 8 C or so from memory.

The regen bar would grow towards max if I drove gently but would rapidly disappear if I gave the car a blast of full throttle and the lack of motor braking really felt scary. If I hadn’t been aware of the problem I could have diagnosed SUA.

This persisted for a couple of day after I logged a service request. I then called my local SC telling them I felt the car was dangerous. They told me they were remotely investigating and, by that evening it was back to normal. Been fine since.

 

[noobla3]

its the slightly upward sloping angle that does it for me. We have a drain ditch in the middle of the road which i drive over when preparing to back into my garage. Regen doesnt come to a hold but feathers the accelerator - This has happened to me 3x

I think this is it. The ever slight slope causes HOLD mode to prevent roll back by accelerating a bit the split second while I'm slowly releasing the pedal. That split second state might be translated differently / wrongly by Tesla's computer? Hard to explain in words.

Just my guess based on this experience. I know nothing about how Tesla's regen and hold mode all work programmatically.

 

[fiveten]

I had this a few weeks ago. I went for a long drive to investigate it. Air temps were cold, but I’d driven in much colder temps without this issue. In any case, by cold I mean about 8 C or so from memory.

The regen bar would grow towards max if I drove gently but would rapidly disappear if I gave the car a blast of full throttle and the lack of motor braking really felt scary. If I hadn’t been aware of the problem I could have diagnosed SUA.

This persisted for a couple of day after I logged a service request. I then called my local SC telling them I felt the car was dangerous. They told me they were remotely investigating and, by that evening it was back to normal. Been fine since.

Service came by yesterday to look at it and a few other issues. The guys answer was that the battery was cold and so regen was limited...I told him I didn't buy that, and in any case there is some type of error if regen is limited and the car doesn't tell me that it is limited. I asked if maybe the new tires I had put on the car right before that drive might have affected it, but he said no.

It was just a one time thing...so hopefully it never happens again. I still kind of suspect that somehow the accelerator pedal was a bit stuck so it wasn't fully disengaging sometimes when I would lift my foot completely off of it.

 

[fiveten]

Today was the first time I accidentally put my car on auto speed and didn’t realize it. I had just pulled out of a parking spot in a lot and had to sneeze...so I was moving my hand off the steering wheel while turning and my hand brushed against the gear shifter stick and moved it enough to put it into auto speed. I noticed it happened pretty quickly becuase the car displayed the message that it displays when approaching a stop sign, but I didn’t recall hearing the noise that auto speed was engaged.

If there hadn’t been a stop sign, the car would have accelerated to the set speed by itself and (if i didn’t know better) I might have claimed it accelerated all by itself and the autopilot wasn’t on.

 

[DopeGhoti]

I didn’t recall hearing the noise that auto speed was engaged

You only hear the bong-bing when Autopilot is activated, not the Cruise Control, which is why you did not hear anything. The chimes are associated with autosteer and not auto-acceleration-and-braking.

 

[Ralbright]

Your at odds getting anything figured out. It’s a random blip in the computer if you ask me. ( has happened to me too once)

Problem is the car is drive by wire, so even if you didn’t depress the accelerator the logs will show you did ( because that is what the computer interpreted for some reason). So Tesla will just say, “yep, logs showed you pressed the accelerator, sorry”

 

[Knightshade]

Your at odds getting anything figured out. It’s a random blip in the computer if you ask me. ( has happened to me too once)

Problem is the car is drive by wire, so even if you didn’t depress the accelerator the logs will show you did ( because that is what the computer interpreted for some reason). So Tesla will just say, “yep, logs showed you pressed the accelerator, sorry”

That is not correct.

The physical accelerator pedal has 2 different sensors on it, they must both read you pressed the pedal, and both agree with each other how much you pressed it (and they're calibrated differently for even more redundancy), or the car ignores the input.

Further, it has two independent systems monitoring and logging the pedal sensors, isolated from one another. They both log the read position from both sensors. If anything doesn't exactly agree, the car doesn't move and gives an error.

Jason Hughes has written more on this in greater detail if interested when debunking previous acceleration claims.

 

[TestPilot]

That is not correct.

The physical accelerator pedal has 2 different sensors on it, they must both read you pressed the pedal, and both agree with each other how much you pressed it (and they're calibrated differently for even more redundancy), or the car ignores the input.

Further, it has two independent systems monitoring and logging the pedal sensors, isolated from one another. They both log the read position from both sensors. If anything doesn't exactly agree, the car doesn't move and gives an error.

Jason Hughes has written more on this in greater detail if interested when debunking previous acceleration claims.

While this is true, the car doesn't necessarily only apply power to the motor when told to. Example is when you reverse down hill slowly and come to a stop by releasing the pedal, the car applies momentary forward power before applying the brakes.

Anywho, I haven't had a repeat incident of this since I posted the thread, I doubt there's going to be any getting to the bottom of it and most people will never have it happen and doubt those that do.

 

[Knightshade]

While this is true, the car doesn't necessarily only apply power to the motor when told to.

Did anyone claim otherwise?

I know my own post certainly didn't- it was simply debunking the idea the logs would show an accelerator press when none had happened.

Example is when you reverse down hill slowly and come to a stop by releasing the pedal, the car applies momentary forward power before applying the brakes.

But that would not show in the logs as the accelerator having been applied, so it'd be obvious what happened there too.

 

[TestPilot]

Did anyone claim otherwise?

I know my own post certainly didn't- it was simply debunking the idea the logs would show an accelerator press when none had happened.





But that would not show in the logs as the accelerator having been applied, so it'd be obvious what happened there too.

Fair enough

 

[TestPilot]

Did anyone claim otherwise?

I know my own post certainly didn't- it was simply debunking the idea the logs would show an accelerator press when none had happened.





But that would not show in the logs as the accelerator having been applied, so it'd be obvious what happened there too.

What's clear to me, is that whatever is happening here isn't clear in the logs. But I'm not going to argue with anyone about it.