On April 23, 2022, a car owner provided video data showing that Tesla's brakes failed, and the automatic acceleration to 170 kilometers did not fall, after the incident contacted Tesla, Tesla said that she used the throttle as a brake. Later, through multi-party comparison and analysis, and communication and verification with the owner himself, this incident was caused by the driver accidentally stepping on the accelerator pedal, and has now assisted the owner to carry out the vehicle insurance claim process with the approval of the owner.
Coincidentally, in August 2020, a Tesla owner, driving a Model 3, suddenly accelerated the vehicle, hitting more than a dozen cars in a row before stopping. The owner of the car, Mr. Chen's model3, was also seriously damaged, and he was medically identified as a grade 9 disability in the accident. The owner took Tesla to court, and the investigation revealed that the cause of the accident was that the owner used the accelerator pedal as a brake pedal. The Lucheng District Court of Wenzhou City ordered the defendant, Mr. Chen, to apologize to Tesla and pay 50,000 yuan in compensation.
In March 2021, at a Tesla center in Linyi, Shandong Province, a Tesla suddenly lost control and crashed into two other vehicles awaiting delivery. Tesla insiders revealed that the cause of the accident was a woman in the delivery center to test drive a new car, mistakenly using the throttle as a brake, causing the vehicle to accelerate instantaneously, causing multiple vehicles to collide, and then, the test driver admitted that he was an operation error at the time and was willing to compensate for the loss.
What is more interesting is that there are various rumors on the Internet, and I have seen a rumor that after the owner encounters this kind of thing, if the owner insists that it is the problem of the car, it is not his own problem. Then it is necessary for the vehicle to go to a third-party testing agency for testing, which not only costs more money, spends more time, but also delays the repair of the car. Therefore, in order to take insurance as soon as possible, even if the owner feels that it is a problem of the vehicle, he will say that it is his own problem. In this way, the owner can get compensation from the insurance company as soon as possible. In short, there is also something said on the Internet.
We don't explore the truth of things, but using the throttle as a brake is really not once or twice. In several accidents, the owner used the throttle as a brake. This has to make us reflect on why Tesla always encounters such problems. Is there something wrong with the design of the car?
Of course, this has a lot to do with the current sales of Tesla, and the Tesla brand has always attracted much attention. Because it sells well and is not cheap to sell, Tesla has also been using safety, performance, and intelligent assisted driving as a promotional selling point. Therefore, once there is a similar accident, it is often easy to be on the news hot search. If it is an unknown brand, a cheap car, then after the problem occurs, netizens may really ignore it.
In addition to the attention, are there any other reasons, are there any product design problems? I think there are some. In 2021, Zhou Hongyi of 360 Group said in an interview with the media about the single-pedal mode of electric vehicles: "This will bring a huge hidden danger, it is a complete change in user habits, consumers may mistake the throttle as a brake pedal, resulting in danger." "It is highly recommended to be sure to make it optional for the user, not the default mode." In recent years, Tesla has repeatedly fallen into the "brake failure" and "sudden unexpected acceleration" caused by the negative traffic accidents, in the eyes of many people, the "anti-human design" of the single-pedal mode is an important factor.
So why do Tesla owners always use the throttle as a brake? I think Tesla should look for reasons in itself. Instead of blaming car owners every time for not being able to drive.