Tesla’s ‘self-accelerating’ incidents were due to driver using wrong pedal, NHTSA says

Sudden acceleration incidents involving Tesla vehicles where drivers said the vehicles “accelerated on their own” were due to user errors, according to an NHTSA investigation.

Sudden acceleration of Tesla

Last year, we reported that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was looking into allegations that Tesla vehicles had a defect resulting in “sudden and unintentional acceleration” after receiving a petition citing 127 incidents declared.

As we stated at the time, several allegations of unintentional sudden acceleration involving Tesla vehicles have been made public over the years. The most publicized involved a South Korean celebrity claiming that his Model X had accelerated by itself in his garage.

However, in all cases, including this one, Tesla claimed that the car’s log showed it was a user error due to improper application of the pedal, meaning that the driver applied the accelerator instead of the brakes.

In one case, Electrek was able to have Tesla’s log verified by a third party, and he backed the automaker’s claims that it showed the driver was pressing the accelerator.

As a result of the NHTSA investigation, Tesla released a statement claiming that there were no defects in its vehicles causing unintentional acceleration and that the petition with NHTSA was started by a short seller of the TSLA.

Tesla is also facing a similar investigation in China.

NHTSA survey

NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) today released the results of its investigation confirming that it concluded that the incidents were due to “pedal misapplication” – in other words: drivers pressing the wrong pedal.

They wrote in the report:

“After reviewing the available data, the ODI did not identify any evidence that would allow an investigation into the SUA defects in the affected vehicles. In all cases where event data was available for review by the ODI, the evidence shows that the SUA crashes in the complaints cited by the petitioner were caused by improper pedal application. There is no evidence of failure of the accelerator pedal assemblies, engine control systems, or brake systems that contributed to any of the cited incidents. There is no evidence of a design factor contributing to an increased likelihood of pedal misapplication. The theory provided about a potential electronic cause of SUA in the vehicles in question is based on inaccurate assumptions regarding the system design and log data. “

Here is the new report in its entirety:

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