Spontaneous acceleration in my Taycan 2022 (following software update)

[Archimedes]

Appears OP set the hooks in the water, turned the boat on autopilot, and jumped overboard.

Sponsored

 

[whan]

While you are absolutely correct that the vast majority of reported unintended accelerations are user error, you picked a really bad manufacturer to use as an example. Toyota is the only manufacturer I have ever heard of which actually had genuine unintended acceleration proven in court due to horribly designed software and major safety process oversights.
https://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyo...dly-unintended-acceleration/story?id=22972214
As a side note, Toyota software engineers are most safety process driven engineers I've ever worked with (all my experiences with them were after 2014).

To be clear, all other incidents of all other brands I've ever read about (including plenty of Teslas), have always turned out user error where the user pressed the wring pedal. With newer tech cars like Tesla, they have logs clearly showing which pedal was activated, but not just Tesla, I know my 2006 Lexus had similar logs available to the techs at the dealer because one of them showed me - in that particular case the customer brought in a Lexus claiming it stalls, but they pulled out a log showing both accelerator and brake were mashed together in the middle of a highway, meaning customer wanted hit the accelerator to pass, but fat-footed both pedals, and car computer prioritized brake over gas, so customer thought the car stalled.

Hmm TIL, thanks!

 

[Mila_kirs]

My car didn’t come with a gas pedal.

?

you're right you're right it's accelerator , not gas pedal but it's exactly there

 

[Fsudoles]

If this happened as described, a trip to the dealership on a flatbed would be my suggestion. Just my two cents…document, document, document everything, you will be asked…rrrr…grilled.

 

[Mila_kirs]

Howdy and welcome to the forum, OP! I see you're getting a robust initiation from fellow denizens. Don't worry - we all mean well although some are more smart alecky than others

This issue could be disastrous, so we'd better get you an answer. We need a little more clarity though. Did the acceleration happen when your foot was on the brake pedal, when your foot was off the brake pedal but you were using brake HOLD, when you were coasting, or when you were using adaptive cruise control (ACC)? Like @Chris8536 , I'm thinking ACC is the culprit. If my ACC slows the car down for a vehicle in front of me and that vehicle changes lanes, the ACC will initate acceleration without my stomping on the gas pedal accelerator.

Thank you? I didn't use ACC. What should I do when this happens, how can it be checked?

Howdy and welcome to the forum, OP! I see you're getting a robust initiation from fellow denizens. Don't worry - we all mean well although some are more smart alecky than others

This issue could be disastrous, so we'd better get you an answer. We need a little more clarity though. Did the acceleration happen when your foot was on the brake pedal, when your foot was off the brake pedal but you were using brake HOLD, when you were coasting, or when you were using adaptive cruise control (ACC)? Like @Chris8536 , I'm thinking ACC is the culprit. If my ACC slows the car down for a vehicle in front of me and that vehicle changes lanes, the ACC will initate acceleration without my stomping on the gas pedal accelerator.

Was it on hold and somehow that got released ?

It’s almost 100% some form of operator error. They did a study on the supposed Toyota unintended acceleration and it was split into either people getting floor mats jammed on top of the accelerator pedal, or just people confusing the pedals

How can it be checked? I didnt use ACC, didnt push accelerator, of course not a floor mat, it just flew forward on its own.

 

[Mila_kirs]

Technically should, that too when manual braking was engaged.

Multiple reads of OPs post, may be OP was on ACC and was resting the foot on the pedal (I found no separate foot resting in Taycan's is a inconvenience especially during long driving with ACC) which accidentally got pressed ?

Which could give little time to stop the car , giving the impression barely able to stop ?

Unless OP gives more info, it's hard to know exactly what happened .

But OP gives hope for some lawyers ?!

I didn't use ACC. Could it be malfucntion of the vehicle?

 

[Windpower]

You said your foot wasn't on the accelerator pedal, but you didn't say if it was on the brake pedal. I'd like to hear more about what you were doing when this happened:

- were you stopped at a light when the lurch happened?
- were you slowing down slowly as you approached a stop when the lurch happened?
- was your foot on the brake?
- if you were traveling, was it on a straight road or were you on a curve?

More information is needed before we can speculate.

 

[whitex]

Don't want to derail the original topic but like to point out few discrepancies.

Toyota's unintended acceleration on certain models were linked to low clearance on gas pedal manufacturing. Rest all reported incidents were related to user error.

And even the article that was shared, it points to 'sticky' gas pedal than the software . If we recall, initially Toyota was battling the misinformation of the cause as electro-magnetic interference with software. Then it got shifted to just software! .

It was then Toyota had to import a certain scanner from Japan and to trained 9 (nine) in US to read logs, performance parameters from the engine to identify if those indeed were interference / software related or not.

This is when I became wary of qualified resources who can handle foreign made modern cars in US .

Now onto sticky pedal, not all Lexus models and not all vehicles within those models were affected by this . It was finally linked to a supplier and to one particular plant which used those parts. And that wasn't in Japan.

I have driven only Lexus cars for past 24 years . Since 2005, have had 3 different models at any in point. All Lexus I owned were manufactured in Japan and knowing affected plant/supplier info, not a single moment feared driving those.

That all being said, the way Toyota handled the saga is not acceptable. They should've replaced the supplier or at least stopped the assembly until suitable one is found . Corporate greed and mass production expansion over powered their core DNA, quality !

Here is an article which talks about the investigation in to the software (and related hardware) issues with Toyota back then:
https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/
Some of the issues found could result in unintended acceleration, such as this one:

So while "technically" the operator could stop this unintended acceleration, to do this they'd have remove their foot off the brake pedal, which is not what most drivers would instinctually do when they want to stop the car from accelerating.

 

[Satiger]

Here is an article which talks about the investigation in to the software (and related hardware) issues with Toyota back then:
https://www.edn.com/toyotas-killer-firmware-bad-design-and-its-consequences/
Some of the issues found could result in unintended acceleration, such as this one:

So while "technically" the operator could stop this unintended acceleration, to do this they'd have remove their foot off the brake pedal, which is not what most drivers would instinctually do when they want to stop the car from accelerating.

Of many lawsuits against Toyata , jurries in this case found Toyota's sw was the cause of single fatal accident.

The question remains is , same sw (or fw) runs on other Camry's as well. Why not all Camrys or ES didn't exhibit similar behavior? What's common across those cars had unintended acceleration issue, manufactured place ? Did Japan , Europe , China experience this?

At that time ES was being manufactured at two different countries. And sold in US. Did Japan manufactured ES had this issue ? Or are we saying Japan produced ES (in this example) runs on a different sw/fw???

 

[Archimedes]

OP, was the car in drive or in park, and was your foot on the brake?

 

[whitex]

Of many lawsuits against Toyata , jurries in this case found Toyota's sw was the cause of single fatal accident.

The question remains is , same sw (or fw) runs on other Camry's as well. Why not all Camrys or ES didn't exhibit similar behavior? What's common across those cars had unintended acceleration issue, manufactured place ? Did Japan , Europe , China experience this?

At that time ES was being manufactured at two different countries. And sold in US. Did Japan manufactured ES had this issue ? Or are we saying Japan produced ES (in this example) runs on a different sw/fw???

What the software investigation revealed is lack of safety practices which deal with hardware failures such as random bit-flips. Those failures are more likely to happen in some environments (e.g. extreme heat or cold, vibration, RF interference, or even exposure to cosmic radiation), or in parts closer to the lower end of specs, etc. So that may make the failures more likely in some designs (say ECU is in an engine bay in one model and somewhere cooler in others), in specific climates, older cars, or even in some production batches of the hardware.

Properly designed safety systems are designed to handle failures in a safe way, so for example a faulty accelerator pedal should not fail to "full throttle" but rather to "no throttle". Same goes for ECU memory failures, broken wiring, etc (e.g. if the wire connecting your accelerator to the ECU is cut by wear or perhaps a rodent, that should not create a dangerous situation where the car suddenly accelerates). Just because some models may be less susceptible to accelerator pedal wiring wear (say due to running farther from a hot engine), doesn't mean the system doesn't have to be designed to safely handle such a failure.

 

[Satiger]

I didn't use ACC. Could it be malfucntion of the vehicle?

Does your's equiped with inno drive ?

Any recollection of using the bottom most lever on the left side of steering wheel? Especially moving it upwards?

I at times confuse that with turn signal lever. If inno drive is set and by moving that lever up, it would turn on ACC and will try to catch up to the posted speed if car speed is lowers than posted speed

Sponsored