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Tesla Cybertruck Unexpectedly Accelerates into Home with Rear Wheels Locked
- DonHopkins 2y ago[flagged]
- chris_wot 2y agoThis brings new meaning to "Move fast and break things".
- mdorazio 2y agoIt's unclear to me from the tweets if anyone confirmed the driver removed his foot from the accelerator. I'd absolutely love to dump on Tesla, but people often do stupid things in panic situations.
- XenophileJKO 2y agoThe other thing I also think about in these cases is that unlike an automatic transmission car, the regenerative breaking slows the car the same as light break application, so in regular driving you don't use it as much. Having driven a many different cars, I suspect without as much experience with manual transmissions or regenerative brakes, it is much more likely for a driver to panic stomp the gas.
- CobaltFire 2y agoThe rear wheels locked. The rear brakes are far smaller than the front. I believe the rear motors are more powerful than the front. Therefore the smaller rear brakes were able to lock up the more powerful rear motor driven axle (there were ~50 foot skid marks from the rear tires). Why were the more powerful front brakes not able to overpower the weaker front motor? This is unacceptable engineering. Stop blaming the driver and apologizing for Tesla.
- firecall 2y agoThe article is really not very clear is it! Did the driver have their foot hard down on the brake pedal? Were they using both feet and applying brake and accelerator at the same time? These seem like obvious basic questions that this motoring journalist has failed to ask. We will have to wait for keen YouTubers to answer these questions for us I guess LOL Such is the modern world!
- romwell 2y agoOh, the article is plenty clear. >Did the driver have their foot hard down on the brake pedal? Yes, this is how you get the skid marks 50 ft long. You can also hear it in the video. >Were they using both feet and applying brake and accelerator at the same time? No. The vehicle accelerated on its own, and wasn't responding to the steering controls as well while the unintended acceleration. Tesla's response was that "due to the terrain the accelerator may or may not disengage when the brake is depressed". >These seem like obvious basic questions that this motoring journalist has failed to ask. Because they have very obvious basic answers unless one is hell-bent on blaming the victim (who, by the way, has a driver license). >We will have to wait for keen YouTubers to answer these questions for us I guess LOL Indeed. Because Tesla has dissolved its PR department years ago, and won't answer to inquiries from the press. I'll wait for NHTSA to answer these questions, but you do you.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoStop accepting Jalopnik as truthful. It's part of Gawker media empire and spews crack on EVs (esp. Tesla) every day.
- ajross 2y agoIndeed "Pedal Misapplication" is in fact a routine term of art[1]. Drivers hit the wrong pedal all the time when they get surprised. But of course this accident must be because it's a Tesla. [1] Went to Wikipedia to get a link; and indeed, it seems like the NHTA estimated in 2015 that it's responsible for 16k collisions per year: https://web.archive.org/web/20161226060428/https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/nhtsa-safety-advisory-reducing-crashes-caused-pedal-error https://web.archive.org/web/20161226060428/https://www.nhtsa...
- shkkmo 2y agoHow does accidentally stomping the gas instead of the brake lock up the rear brakes to leave a 50ft skid?
- ajross 2y agoBecause you then deliberately stomp the brakes to stop the car you forgot you commanded to accelerate. Again, this happens all the time, and no one cares when it's a grandpa in a F-150.
- rasz 2y agoStomp on both, car breaks hard by locking all tires. Blame "Tesla bug" because it didnt stop in 50 feet ... after you sped up by max accelerating for 8 seconds flat to ~80mph.
- stefan_ 2y agoWhat makes the rear wheels lock except the brakes? Do Teslas have separate front rear brakes like a bicycle?
- pdpi 2y ago"due to the terrain the accelerator may or may not disengage when the brake is depressed" There might've been some amount of driver error involved, sure, but that statement sends shivers down my spine. Either of "the accelerator always/never disengages when the brake is depressed" is sane. The idea that it may or may not, depending on external factors outside the driver's control, is just plain terrifying.
- dmix 2y agoYou’re taking lawyer weasel words at face value We should probably wait for some fact checking before getting outraged
- theteapot 2y agoMy car's accelerator doesn't disengage when the breaks are pressed. I've never owned a vehicle that behaves like that. If my car was smart enough to sometimes disengage the throttle when I have then break also engaged I can't see a case where this would be less safe than never doing it. If I was intentionally trying to wreak my car or do some weird stunt by simultaneously engaging the break and throttle and the car sometimes tried to stop me I guess it would be annoying.
- jordanb 2y agoICE cars are designed such that the brakes can always overpower the engine. If you put both pedals on the wall the car will not move. Because electric cars have phenomenal torque, it's not possible to make brakes big enough to stop the car against full application of the accelerator. So they have to have disconnects.
- KennyBlanken 2y ago[flagged]
- theteapot 2y agoIs there a regulation that states breaks must be able to overpower engine when both are fully engaged - Genuinely asking?
- firecall 2y agoExactly. That’s what is not clear. Traditional ICE cars with auto transmissions allow you to do this, by design. But you’d have to have a front wheel drive car and engage the parking brake / handbrake to lock the rear wheels like that. Which is not possible in a Tesla. For a Tesla to have locked the rear wheels whilst the front wheels continue to drag the car forward, does, on the surface seem like a failure in software or electronics somewhere. I should test what happens in my Tesla :-) (Side note: I wish Musk would just leave Tesla so we can all feel less shitty about owning them :-/ )
- arh68 2y agoIt's unclear to me which axle even locked up. How would the driver even know? The witness marks would be flat spots, but no photo evidence is given. For all I know, the skid marks are from rear tires burning out. The article claims the driver mentioned "unresponsive steering", but that doesn't make much sense as the vehicle pretty clearly follows the road (to the right). It's not like one would turn at the bottom of the dip (into the ditch). I can't blame anyone with such little information.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- int0x29 2y agoNot sure how regenerative braking works if it doesn't disengage the accelerator when the brakes are pressed. Yes in this case the brakepads would be used, but I'd also expect the motor to be off.
- guidedlight 2y agoImagine telling the homeowner to recover damage from their insurance company. How is the insurance company liable for a faulty product? The insurance company should recover their costs from Tesla.
- Civitello 2y ago> Imagine telling the homeowner to recover damage from their insurance company. That is exactly how these things work in the US. > The insurance company should recover their costs from Tesla. These two things are not mutually exclusive.
- jojobas 2y agoRedress is a thing. The homeowner gets his costs now, the insurance company recovers what it can from whoever caused the trouble.
- asynchronous 2y ago“The truck’s brake didn’t disengage the accelerator pedal.” So the driver did indeed stomp the gas. Why is this even a headline.
- jojobas 2y agoCybertruck had a problem with the gas pedal faceplate sliding up and locking the pedal in the full throttle position.
- kevingadd 2y agoAre you saying the car should go if you press the accelerator while you're holding the brake? No car I've ever driven worked that way, if I'm holding on the brake and I apply pressure to the accelerator the car stays still.
- FireBeyond 2y agoRight - it's how Audi's "pseudo" launch control works. Push the brake pedal to the floor. Push the accelerator to the floor, and then push it past a last detente while the ECU holds it at 3500rpm and builds up the turbo boost, and then you can release the brake. You can feel that the brakes are what's holding you, but never do you feel that they're about to fail and you're about to floor ~520hp unexpectedly.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y agoThen how are burnouts accomplished?
- inferiorhuman 2y agoThey're accomplished by having the more powerful front brakes hold the car while the less powerful rear brakes allow the rear wheels to spin. Sometimes water is used to reduce traction. Sometimes the brakes are modified so that the front axle can be controlled by a hand lever without applying the rear brakes. In this case the Tesla was able to overpower its more powerful brakes and drag the car forward. That should never happen.
- CobaltFire 2y agoIt's quite obvious no-one is reading the article. The rear brakes locked and were dragged ~50 feet. The front axle CONTINUED pulling the Cybertruck for those 50 feet, with the brakes applied. There is absolutely no engineering case in which this should be expected behavior.
- shkkmo 2y agoThe people who read the article tend to filter into the comments a bit slower because of, well, reading the article.
- ow3p945j4293 2y ago[flagged]
- drawkward 2y agoFirst they came for the burnouts, but I was not a burnout so I didn't care...
- bottlepalm 2y agoWhere's the video? He said he'd release it a month ago https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1793996219317891282 https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1793996219317891282
- CobaltFire 2y agoThere is security camera footage from his house embedded in the linked article... In case that is still too difficult, here's a link: https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1803823968547217903 https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1803823968547217903
- KennyBlanken 2y agoPeople should archive that, because even before he bought Twitter he'd DMCA videos that were bad PR for Tesla. Edit: speaking of suppression of bad PR, HN mods nerfed this submission into the ground https://hnrankings.info/40782552/ https://hnrankings.info/40782552/
- madamelic 2y agoIf you click through to the article about the slippery pedals, this poorly aged sentence appears: > Thankfully the truck cuts acceleration when you press the brake pedal, so hopefully there weren’t any injuries caused as a result of the issue. Oopsie!
- romwell 2y agoAn oopsie indeed. For those who missed it, the issue, according to Tesla, is that: >due to the terrain the accelerator may or may not disengage when the brake is depressed
- bottlepalm 2y agoJalopnik is a pretty well known Tesla FUD website. Not sure how I'm the first one to point this out. Take everything on that site with a grain of salt. The driver is a big time tweeter and 'teasing' the video release, but after a month, nothing: https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1793996219317891282 https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1793996219317891282
- drawkward 2y agoAlternative take: Tesla has gone into the shitter.
- Civitello 2y agoIt is hard to cover Tesla in good faith without frequently reporting on things likely to cause FUD, reality has a well known anti-tesla bias.
- WheatMillington 2y agoStop with the Tesla victim complex.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jjav 2y agoJalopnik is a well-known automotive news site. They might not take all Tesla press releases as gospel, that does not make it a FUD site.
- HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
- userbinator 2y agoAFAIK the brakes on most if not all vehicles are more powerful than the engine, and the front ones more so than the rear. To have the rear brakes locked up while the front gets presumably overpowered by the motor is a very odd situation, perhaps best described as a "reverse burnout".
- mrgoldenbrown 2y agoElectric cars can have absurd torque , so much that they overpower any reasonable brakes. (ICE cars are usually designed as you describe.)
- chaostheory 2y agoWhile Apple is spiritually a Japanese company, Tesla is no doubt spiritually a Chinese company. There are pros and cons to both.
- Aeolun 2y agoI think, if someone is holding down both the accellerator and brakes, there is only one safe resolution of that dillemma. And it’s the one that doesn’t involve the car turning into a ballistic projectile. People will be people, so any other option seems like the height of arrogance.
- romwell 2y ago>I think, if someone is holding down both the accelerator and brakes ...which is not something that happened in this case in any way, as far as we know. According to Tesla, "due to the terrain the accelerator may or may not disengage when the brake is depressed". Not "due to the driver holding down both pedals", but "due to the terrain". (The driver clearly says that he was not holding down both pedals, too).
- mattrick 2y agoI could be misremembering, but I think I remember Teslas having a feature that would apply slight torque to the motors when braking on hills to prevent the car from rolling backwards when switching from brakes to the accelerator. I wonder if this was a malfunction of the system that detects the car being on a slope which caused it to accelerate forward despite the brake being pressed?
- dzhiurgis 2y agoThere might be some conditions where it didn't work exactly like it should, i.e. when I enter mine and press brake before car booted up and try shift into drive it says press brake first, even when it's pressed already.
- Doxin 2y agoThat's honestly probably intentional. The car wants to see the brake in both states before it'll boot. If it wasn't quite paying attention (because e.g. it takes a second to start the controller in charge of this stuff) it might've only seen it in the pressed state.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoUpdate: hijacking my own comment to say that the HN mods have nerfed this story submission into the ground: https://hnrankings.info/40782552/ https://hnrankings.info/40782552/ I had a 1980's car in which the ECU had a sense line to the brake light circuit, and if the brakes were applied, engine power was instantly, and dramatically, cut. Every drive-by-wire-throttle car I've ever driven - and DBWT cars have been around since the late nineties, do the same thing - press the brake, the ECU goes to idle immediately - sometimes in sports cars it's after a few seconds. There is zero reason for this pavement queen to be set up to permit left-foot-braking under throttle, especially when it is so heavy and powerful. The federal government and EU regulators need to find some balls, fast, and reign in Musk. Every single idea he's had to "revolutionize" cars - beyond going electric, not really his 'idea' - has been asinine. In some cases he's pioneered Stupid and the auto industry shrugged and followed right along because regulators let him: * going backwards at least twenty years in pedestrian crash safety by making a flat-nosed vehicle whose body panels can deflect a sledgehammer blow, instead of crumpling when hit by a person's body * self-driving and lane-keeping cruise control with no radar has caused numerous crashes (thanks to "phantom braking" when the car freaks out and thinks something is in the road) and when the car doesn't see something because of dirt, sunlight, or water on the cameras - has killed dozens (by low estimate) of people...both occupants, law enforcement, and the public and that's just the well-publicized cases. I'm betting the actual numbers are more like thousands. Dual camera systems simply are not sufficient because even the very best pro photo digital cameras are still worse than the human eye in resolution and dynamic range. * yolk steering wheels, though at least they kinda sorta addressed that with the variable ratio steering in the CT. There is an astounding lack of hubris to look at a fucking steering wheel and say "I can do better!" - especially when "better" has been tried before at various times and was a miserable failures. Musk looked at F1/Indy and said to himself "SEE? BETTER!" and forgot that those are being used by people who are at the absolute pinnacle of driving skill and rarely have to do anything approaching a sharp turn. * no indicator stalks...putting the most commonly used control on the car is now a moving target and can have any rotation * vehicle controls on a screen that depending on the Tesla model, anything on the road is impossible to see while you're looking at the control, which you have to do because there are no physical controls or even haptics. Did I leave anything out? In short: - No self/autonomous vehicle tech without radar and some sort of LIDAR to supplement cameras - No steering yolks - Sheet metal must crumple appropriately in a collision with another car or a pedestrian - Indicator stalks required - Speed and basic indicators must be in front of the driver. Want to do it via a HUD? Fine.
- chidli1234 2y ago[flagged]
- tamimio 2y agoThe more electronics and software involved, the more errors like that will occur. I expect it to worsen as the car gets older, with fewer updates and available parts. The only exception is strict testing, similar to what is done with commercial airplanes.
- KennyBlanken 2y agoDrive by wire throttle is in the vast majority of cars made in the last twenty years because emissions and fuel efficiency require it. One of the few times time there was a problem (Toyota), it was discovered that engineers were grossly incompetent with their ECU code. This is basically a "solved problem" and we now have brake by wire and steer by wire. Mercedes has been doing both for what, ten years or more?
- tamimio 2y agoI agree, but none of them has autopilot, and the article lacks a technical assessment of why it happened, but I reckon it was due to that. ECUs, on the other hand, don't decide their own actions; they are essentially microcontrollers. All modern cars have plenty of ECUs, each for specific functions, like terrain ECU, brakes ECU, etc. They are extensively tested for FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis), so the margin of error is slim compared to modern electric cars with all these autopilot technologies.
- jjav 2y ago> Drive by wire throttle is in the vast majority of cars made in the last twenty years because emissions and fuel efficiency require it. Electronic throttle controls is still safe because if the code hits a bug and the throttle becomes uncontrollable you can still use the brakes to stop the car. But if you also have drive by wire braking system, you can have a big problem.
- th4o2i343434 2y agoMore evidence about the failure of engineering standards at Tesla. It's actually very sad - they genuinely seemed to be doing great stuff before (regardless of manufacturing issues). As an aside - it's hard enough being a bicyclist in the US with all these absurd-ly large trucks prowling the streets whose drivers can't see bicyclists either in front of their hoods or in their side mirrors. Now we have this moronic vehicle which adds in faulty controls and sharp pointy body panels that'll slice through you when you hit them. On a psychological level, I fear there's something deeply wrong in the US as they lose their global hegemony. I respect the second-amendment and all that, but what civilized country markets a vehicle as being "civil war" ready and "bullet proof" ? Sheer insanity.
- th4o2i343434 2y ago[flagged]
- eurleif 2y agoTesla in 2020[0]: >Likewise, applying the brake pedal simultaneously with the accelerator pedal will override the accelerator pedal input and cut off motor torque, and regardless of the torque, sustained braking will stop the car. This is quite a stronger statement than: "the accelerator may or may not disengage when the brake is depressed". The former statement is true in my experience with my Model 3: if you press the brake and the accelerator at once, you get a notice on the screen saying that it's not going to let you be an idiot. I wonder why the Cybertruck (seemingly) doesn't behave the same way. [0] https://www.tesla.com/blog/no-unintended-acceleration-tesla-vehicles https://www.tesla.com/blog/no-unintended-acceleration-tesla-...
- userbinator 2y agoIt's all done in software, and software is very unlikely to be free of bugs.
- rasz 2y agoTLDR after watching Video clip: "I accelerated my 3 ton 4 seconds to 60 EV tank downhill for 8 seconds and was shocked it didnt stop in the 2 seconds I was actually applying brakes" It was easily doing 60 at the bottom, but kept accelerating uphill for couple more seconds, probably to 80 before he started braking. No car would stop in those 50 feet. It wouldnt make it even if he started braking just after crossing the bottom. https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g29674610/best-stopping-distances-braking-tested/ https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g29674610/best-stoppin...