Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, Legislation and Policy
The words “unintended acceleration” have, in the last few years, been closely connected to Toyota. While today’s news is just one case, it does attach the phrase to a new car, the Tesla Model S. Here’s the situation.
One Model S owner complained to NHTSA yesterday that his wife took the car for a drive over the weekend and, as she was leaving the driveway, “the car suddenly accelerated. It hit a curb and the middle portion of the car landed on a 4.5-foot high vertical retaining wall.” The question is why, and the complaint alleges that even though a Tesla engineer told the owner that the accelerator has a built-in safeguard to stop it from going above 92 percent, the records show that the pedal was depressed and the car, “accelerated from 18 percent to 100 percent in split second.” The owner denies that his wife stepped all the way down on the pedal.
We have contacted Tesla for comment but have not yet heard back. We will update this post if we do. Until then, you can read the entire complaint (#10545230) below.
*UPDATE: Tesla would not give any specific comment on this complaint, but did tell AutoblogGreen that, “Tesla takes vehicle safety very seriously and are looking into this.”
Continue reading Tesla Model S involved in ‘unintended acceleration’ incident [UPDATE]
Tesla Model S involved in ‘unintended acceleration’ incident [UPDATE] originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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