Recently, a new energy vehicle accident was finally identified as caused by the owner accidentally stepping on the accelerator pedal, let's take a look.
High-speed rear-end four-car, official: the owner mistakenly stepped on the accelerator pedal
According to the driving recorder engaged in Tesla, the vehicle continued to accelerate after changing lanes at high speed, and rear-ended four vehicles in a row, including an unlicensed tank 300, before stopping. According to the owner, when the speed of the car accelerated to 170km/h, it felt like "the brakes were very soft".
However, Tesla's official response afterwards said: on the day of the incident, the owner was contacted for details at the first time, through multi-party comparison and analysis, and communication with the owner himself to verify that the incident was caused by the driver accidentally stepping on the accelerator pedal. Tesla said that it has assisted car owners in the vehicle insurance claim process with the approval of car owners.
Why did I step on the wrong accelerator pedal?
Single pedal, kinetic energy recovery and back to the pot?
According to online accounts, the driver of this incident is not a novice, has a relatively rich driving experience, and is theoretically not easy to make low-level mistakes of accidentally stepping on the accelerator pedal. We don't know exactly how the driver was operating at the time, and there are many reasons why the accelerator pedal can be stepped on by mistake. However, most people, including netizens, suspect that the main reason for the driver's accidental stepping on the accelerator pedal may be the misoperation after getting used to the single pedal mode and kinetic energy recovery.
Single pedal and kinetic energy recovery are not new technologies, but have become popular with the new energy vehicles in recent years. Simply put, the single pedal mode is to only need to control the accelerator pedal, press down is to accelerate, release will brake. The brake pedal next to it only needs to be used in case of full braking or emergency braking.
In the single pedal mode, after releasing the accelerator pedal, the vehicle will use its own inertia to drive the drive motor to charge the battery, which will produce obvious drag effect due to power generation in this process, and also use this feature to brake the vehicle at the same time. Due to the existence of energy recovery effect, new energy can significantly increase the cruising range and save the loss of braking systems such as brake pads. And in most cases of daily use, the driver only needs to operate one pedal to cope.
Breaking the driving habit is both an advantage and a disadvantage
Saving electricity, saving money, simple, single pedals and kinetic energy recovery all look like advantages, but this mode also has its own problems. It changes the basic operating principles of car driving.
When driving a conventional car, the right foot is responsible for the throttle and brake. Accelerate under the accelerator vehicle; release the throttle vehicle to slow down; press the brake vehicle to slow down and stop. The single pedal can also be explained by the above three points, but if you think about it, you can find that in the single pedal mode, the definition of the accelerator and brake has changed.
In conventional cars, slightly raising the throttle slows down the acceleration, while letting go of the throttle is inertial sliding. The accelerator pedal does only one thing: acceleration. In single-pedal mode, raising the throttle slightly or letting go of the throttle becomes a deceleration, where the role of the accelerator pedal becomes: acceleration and deceleration.
Therefore, when a traditional car encounters an emergency, the driver's first reaction should be to lift his right foot and step on the brake. When used to the single pedal mode, it will give the driver two choices, although in theory the driver's operation should be the same as the traditional car, but when the driver is completely accustomed to the single pedal mode, it will indeed cause the subconscious habit of "relying on the accelerator pedal to brake".
At present, most new energy vehicles are equipped with single-pedal mode and kinetic energy recovery function, and there are many vehicles that can turn off single-pedal mode or weaken or even weaken or even kinetic energy recovery. However, there are also a small number of new energy vehicles that cannot completely shut down kinetic energy recovery.
Write at the end
Many car owners will have some worries before using the single pedal mode, but after getting started, they all say that they can adapt quickly without problems. It is difficult to say whether this model will have any impact on the driver, but I think it is related to the safety of the car, whether to use it or not, and let the owner choose it himself.