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Tesla vehicles may accelerate unexpectedly, US petition alleges

A petition in the US claims Tesla’s Model S, Model X and Model 3 may suffer from sudden unintended acceleration.


A US government agency is reviewing a petition that claims Tesla vehicles may unexpectedly accelerate.

Reuters reports the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will review the petition, which cites 127 consumer complaints to the agency involving 123 separate vehicles.

These complaints include 110 crashes and 52 injuries.

The petition covers the 2012-19 Tesla Model S, 2016-19 Model X and 2018-19 Model 3, asking the NHTSA to issue a recall for a total of 500,000 vehicles.

The petition alleges Tesla vehicles “experience unintended acceleration at rates far exceeding other cars on the roads”.

If the NHTSA agrees with the substance of the petition, it'll launch a formal defect investigation.

The complaints allege affected some owners found their Teslas accelerating suddenly while parking, while others' cars lurched forward unexpectedly in traffic.

For example, Reuters reports one owner reported their Tesla went over a kerb and into a chain-link fence.

Another owner’s complaint said they had closed and locked their 2015 Tesla Model S 85D when it started accelerating towards the street and collided with a parked car.

None of the complaints appear to involve any fatalities.

The NHTSA is, however, currently probing a crash that occurred on December 29, 2019 that left a passenger dead.

Jenna Monet, 23, was killed when her Tesla Model 3, driven by her husband Derrick, collided with the back of a fire truck that had stopped in a lane on an Indiana highway.

The agency hasn’t confirmed yet whether Autopilot had been engaged at the time of the crash.

Tesla vehicles aren’t the first to be alleged to suffer from sudden unintended acceleration – Audi and Toyota were the subject of high-profile recalls in the 1980s and 2000s, for example.

However, this petition follows a series of well-publicised crashes involving Tesla vehicles, including a total of 14 suspected Autopilot failures investigated by the NHTSA.

The NHTSA is also still reviewing a petition that alleges 2,000 Tesla Model S and Model Xs may have a potential defect that could result in battery fires.

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