After a series of accidents, some Tesla drivers are back again claiming the cars are accelerating by themselves.
As usual, the problem appears to be behind the wheel.
As we stated at the time, several claims of sudden unintended acceleration involving Tesla vehicles have been made public over the years. The most publicized one involved a South Korean celebrity claiming his Model X accelerated on its own into his garage.
However, in every case, including that one, Tesla claimed that the car’s log showed that it was a user mistake due to pedal misapplication, meaning that the driver pressed on the accelerator instead of the brakes.
In one case, Electrek was able to have Tesla’s log verified by a third party, and it supported the automaker’s claims that it showed the driver pressed on the accelerator.
Eventually, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it is looking into claims that Tesla vehicles have a defect leading to “sudden unintended acceleration” after receiving a petition citing 127 claimed incidents.
Tesla issued a statement claiming that there are no defects in its vehicles resulting in unintended acceleration and that the petition with NHTSA was started by a TSLA short seller.
In 2021, NHTSA concluded that no problem with Tesla vehicles is leading to those incidents, and instead, it believes that “pedal misapplication,” meaning the driver pressing the wrong pedal, is the cause of the accidents.
We thought that would finally put those claims of “Tesla accelerating by themselves” to death, but there’s been a resurgence over the last week following three publicized accidents coming to light.
First off, a Tesla Model Y taxi crashed in the middle of town in Bergen, Norway, last week:
The driver claimed that there was “something wrong with the car,” but there’s no evidence that there was. He was charged with negligent driving.
The two other incidents happened earlier this year, but they are coming to light now for different reasons. First off, a driver for the New York-based taxi service Revel claimed that the Model Y he was driving accelerated by itself causing a crash in a parking lot. No one was injured. The driver, Akm Shamsuzzaman, is now suing Tesla over the accident.
The plaintiff’s lawyer claimed in the lawsuit:
“He had his foot on the brake. He put the car into drive, took his foot off the brake, and then the car jumped forward.”
As we have previously reported in the past, these pedal misapplication incidents most often happen in parking situations where drivers have to switch between the accelerator and the brake pedals.
Finally, a Tesla crashed on a ferry in Vancouver earlier this year, and the driver claimed the car had “suddenly accelerated.”
After a few months of investigation, the police have now determined that the driver caused the crash:
“Following an analysis of the vehicle data, the investigators determined the collision to be human-caused.”
The police have issued a ticket to the driver for the crash, which they estimate caused about $30,000 worth of damage.