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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has ended a year-long review of allegations that some Tesla vehicles accelerated without warning, saying there was not enough evidence to open a full investigation. While NHTSA has received 246 complaints about this phenomenon of “sudden and unintentional acceleration”, the agency says “improper pedal application” was the cause of the problem in all cases for which it had data to examine. – user error, in other words.
“There is no evidence of any defect in the accelerator pedal assemblies, engine control systems or brake systems which contributed to any of the cited incidents,” the agency wrote. in a summary released on Friday. “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. “
Allegations of so-called “sudden unintentional acceleration” plagued Tesla for years. The company settled most of an alleged class action lawsuit in 2018 over the matter. NHTSA claims to have collected crash data and video from the “black box” event data recorders of cars and Tesla itself. While 246 cases have been reported, the agency did not specify the number of cases for which it has collected data. The problem was thought to affect some 662,000 vehicles in the Tesla lineup.
The review was opened in January 2020 in response to a “default petition” from Brian Sparks, an investor who was selling Tesla stock (or betting the price would drop). He gathered more than 100 complaints about the issue that had previously been submitted to NHTSA, along with similar events that had been covered in the press, and asked the agency to investigate.
“I think Tesla vehicles have a structural flaw that puts their drivers and the public at risk. I further think Tesla needs to know about this flaw and not respond to it, ”he wrote in December 2019. Sparks also took issue with Tesla’s reluctance to provide data on these acceleration events to owners. “This petition will show that, based on publicly available information, it appears Tesla vehicles have a problem with sudden and unintentional acceleration and Tesla must be aware of this problem.”
Tesla responded to the review with a blog post claiming the idea was unfounded. “We are investigating every incident where the driver tells us that his vehicle accelerated contrary to what he had indicated, and in each case where we had the vehicle data, we have confirmed that the car was performing as expected,” wrote the society.
In a message to The edge On Friday, Sparks said: “The rate of unintentional acceleration reports remains particularly high in vehicles manufactured by Tesla compared to other vehicles, but I trust government institutions. If NHTSA says there is no fault, I believe them. I thank NHTSA for evaluating the SUA claims. “
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