Worst Tesla Crash Raises Torture: Is Phantom Accident Owner's Problem or Software Flaw?

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Every time a Tesla has an accident -- no matter what kind -- it generates more attention than expected. This time, though, it's impossible not to pay attention.

At about 16:16 on September 5, 2020, on Fumin Street in Shunqing District, Nanchong, Sichuan Province, the owner of the car, Liu Mou (female, 51 years old, a native of Shunqing District), driving a Tesla Model?X with the license plate Chuan ADA***3, crashed into a number of vehicles and pedestrians on the side of the road, resulting in two deaths, six injuries and damage to a number of vehicles.

This would be the most deadly Tesla traffic collision worldwide to date.

The "9-5 Nanchong Tesla runaway accident" has been included in Baidu's encyclopedia.

Video circulating online shows that Liu, the owner of the car, was wearing a pair of black high-heeled shoes when he got out of the car at the scene of the accident, but when he was taken to the police station to make a statement, Liu changed into a pair of flat heels.

At present, the perpetrator Liu has been controlled by the police, but has ruled out the suspicion of drunk driving and drug driving, the specific cause of the accident police are still under investigation. Tesla officials also said that it has sent staff to the scene at the first time to understand the case, according to the analysis of the vehicle data, showing that the vehicle did not fail. But an eyewitness said the vehicle was suddenly accelerated in a narrow street.

It is not easy to judge whether the accident and the female owner's high heels have a direct relationship, but the accident, but another suspected and brake failure related to the suspected sudden acceleration of the Tesla "ghost accident".

"Ghost accidents" are nothing new for Tesla. That is, last month, August 12, 22:55 or so, Wenzhou owner Mr. Chen driving the Tesla Model?3 suddenly lost control of the speed of the car, rushed into the parking lot of the district, causing damage to a number of vehicles in the parking lot. Driving the Tesla Model?3, the front end of the car is completely damaged, Mr. Chen himself was seriously injured, after more than seven hours of resuscitation, blood transfusion of nearly 5 liters to regain a life.

Mr. Chen said the cause of the accident was a brake failure, and that he did not have autopilot assistance on at the time of the accident. The case is also still under investigation, and no final investigation report has been given.

What Mr. Chen didn't know was that just three days before he was involved in the accident, at 9 p.m. on Aug. 9, a Model?3 suddenly lost control of its vehicle without warning and plowed into a gas station on Yangsi Road in Shanghai, injuring two people and destroying the crash barrier in front of the pumps, and affecting three sedans preparing to fill up... ...

After the two accidents, Tesla officials immediately said they would only communicate with the owners themselves and would not promise to disclose the cause of the accidents to the community. Tesla's customer service personnel even said that if you exclude the possibility that the driver does not step on the wrong acceleration and braking pedals, this phenomenon does not usually occur. This kind of statement in simple human terms means: the root cause of the two accidents is still a misuse by the owners, and it has nothing to do with us.

Turn the clock back two months. In June of this year, a Tesla Model?3 had a similar accident in Jiangxi. At that time, the vehicle in the normal driving process suddenly automatically speed up to 127km / h, and can not control the speed, brake failure, the vehicle finally collided, rushed down the roadbed and fire, good in the owner was saved a life ......

Afterwards, the official unilaterally given the results of the investigation shows that the collision occurs, there is step on the accelerator pedal signal, no step on the brake pedal signal, no signal to step on the brake pedal - that is to say, the cause of the phantom accident is still the owner's misuse.

So, is this a domestic-only situation? What about abroad?

In June 2016, the Tesla Model?X, which hadn't even been on the market for long, made its world debut with a phantom accident in the U.S.-according to the owner, Puzant?Ozbag, whose wife was trying to park the Model?X near a shopping mall to get into a parking space The vehicle suddenly accelerated out of the green zone and crashed into a nearby building. As a rule, it's impossible to go too fast when you're about to enter a parking space.

Fortunately, Puzant?Ozbag's wife was preparing to make a left turn into the parking space, and if she hadn't, she would have crashed into the store on the first floor of the building. In this case, the "world's worst Tesla crash" will have to be brought forward to 2016 in the United States.

Three months later, another U.S. owner was preparing to park his Model X in his garage when the vehicle suddenly accelerated at full speed, crashing through the interior wall of the garage and directly into the living room, injuring the owner and his passenger.

On December 31, 2016, the owner filed a lawsuit against Tesla in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California over the Model?X's safety hazards - the first lawsuit Tesla has ever taken on a phantom accident.

The owner found seven other complaints about incidents in which Tesla's electric cars suddenly accelerated on their own in the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) complaint database. Despite this, the court was unable to find that the Tesla Model?X was indeed a safety hazard, and the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

In NHTSA's complaint log, you can even find phantom accidents in which the Model?3 suddenly accelerated and leapt out of the exit of an automated carwash after washing the car while it was in park. The complainant said that his wife's foot was completely on the brake pedal during the entire process, and that the "Hold" light was on the screen, meaning that the vehicle was in park at the time. ...... Some American netizens have commented, "Maybe it's your car that doesn't want to take a shower. Your car doesn't want to take a shower ......"

Back in the day, an investor named Brian Sparks filed a petition with the NHTSA asking for an investigation into Tesla's ride-control software. The petition claimed that Tesla EVs*** caused 110 phantom accidents with unintended acceleration, resulting in 52 injuries, and that the suspected ride-control software flaw has the potential to ripple through the 500,000 Tesla EVs produced between 2013-2019

So in January of this year, the NHTSA formally stated that it would investigate three of Tesla's models for potential unintended acceleration hazards. But Tesla then issued an announcement denying the veracity of the petition, claiming that Brian?Sparks intended to smear and short Tesla.

Officially, Tesla took the position that they had analyzed the driving data from each of the phantom accidents, and concluded that Tesla cars had operated normally as designed in all practice - a statement that actually pales in comparison, because when there is an error in the software design, it is of course logical that the vehicle continues to operate "normally" in accordance with the error "operate normally".

Just this July, Tesla was sued by a class of more than two dozen owners over sudden acceleration problems with the Model?3. The lawsuit claimed that, in addition to the Model?3, similar phantom accident problems had occurred with the Model?X and Model?S -- and before that, there were Model?S that suddenly accelerated to dislike a police car parked on the side of the road. Some netizens jokingly said, "The police were terrified," and "This even saves the police from calling the police."......

By contrast, the most solid case of a phantom accident, by far, is still in China.

At about 7:50 a.m. on March 6, 2019, the owner, Mr. Yang, drove his Model?S to charge it at the Tesla Supercharger station in Miguel Tiandi, located in Shanghai's Qingpu district, when the vehicle, which was originally moving slowly, suddenly accelerated, instantly crashed through the fence, and rushed into the river across the street.

Mr. Yang said after the incident that he put his right foot on the brake pedal to keep the vehicle in a creeping state, and definitely "didn't step on the gas". The car suddenly out of control accelerated after their own rush to step on the brakes, but there is no effect.

Mr. Yang viewed the surveillance video found in the vehicle out of control and accelerated into the river, the vehicle's high brake lights are always on, which is Mr. Yang did not step on the wrong brakes of the most powerful evidence. Surprisingly, however, the property owner has refused to release this surveillance video. Instead, after Tesla officials stepped in, they told the owner to send the car to a qualified third-party vehicle testing organization for testing, and requested that the car's background data be analyzed and processed before they could come up with a final result.

Is it the car owner, Mr. Yang, who stepped on the wrong brake in a hurry? Or was there a real problem with the Model?S's control software? It is not known. But personally, if it was the former, Tesla officials would never hide it. Now a year and a half has passed, the Model 3 has been made in China, and Tesla still hasn't publicized any investigation results of this accident.

So far, there is still no authoritative department that can determine the safety of Tesla's control software, which may involve a lot of specialized aspects, and it's not surprising. But the following one belongs to the Tesla App bug, without any department to come forward to determine the determination, the discerning person can understand at a glance.

A domestic Tesla owner reported that when using the Tesla App, he found that his vehicle information suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by five Tesla models located in Europe, with the owner's information visible, and he could remotely implement the control. Despite the "1 to 5" change, the owner is not happy - both personal privacy and vehicle security issues, in this incident is like a windowpaper, a stab will break.

It's been reported that the owner has videotaped the incident and asked Tesla to make a statement, but so far Tesla has not responded. This time if Tesla still dare to say that their control software is not a problem, I am afraid that Musk himself do not believe it!

In the end, the control software is designed by people, just like the exterior and interior. It's just that it's the software engineers who design the software, and it's the designers who design the exterior and interior.

Previously, some Tesla Model?3 owners have complained that the water guide above the luggage compartment is a completely unintelligent design - once the tailgate is opened when it rains, the rainwater on the tailgate will flow to the rear windshield, and then, under the effect of flowing inertia, it will flow directly into the luggage compartment through the water guide. The water guides flow into the luggage compartment.

And when driving in the rain, rainwater also flows into the trunk. However, it is interesting to note that the Model?3 has a deep storage space under the floor of the trunk, and all the rainwater that normally leaks down will flow into this place for "storage", which has been jokingly referred to by some users as "who says there is no water tank in an electric car", and by some users as "the car's water tank". Netizens will be called "car fish tank".

When the water in the "car fishbowl" is too much and too heavy, there may be the following problem - over the speed bumps, the buckle a loose, the luggage compartment floor under the "fishbowl The "fishbowl" under the floor of the luggage compartment will be upside down along with the entire bottom of the car and the rear bumper.

Sound a bit magical? But there's more brainlessness to come.

One owner complained that the headrest on a Tesla Model?3 cracked a vanity mirror when the seat was moved -- and honestly, if you hadn't seen the picture, you wouldn't have been able to figure out why your teeth accidentally bit your ear off.

The reason is that when the front seats were raised too high, the safety space redundancy between the seat headrests and the vanity mirrors was not taken into account. The engineering verification of safety space redundancy is a regular program of every car company, not considered a core technology or trade secret, to put it bluntly, it is to see whether the farthest movement stops of moving parts in all directions will interfere with each other.

To put it more crudely, to your home to decorate the bathroom of the little brother, will also think of your home to open the toilet door inward, will not hit you usually sit and shit the toilet ......

In the final analysis, the reason why the emergence of such a "teeth biting into the ear! After all, the reason for this strange "teeth to the ear" incident is that the Tesla Model?3's front seats in the cushion front stop, cushion up stop, backrest front stop three dimensions of space redundancy verification problems. If the owner accidentally raises the cushion to the highest level, moves the cushion to the front, and then tilts the backrest 100% forward, the above "spectacle of the ages" will occur.

For a car, the focus of safe-space redundancy verification in the interior is the seat -- after all, it's the largest movable part of the car. So it's tempting to ask Musk if Tesla does safe space redundancy verification when developing new cars or not?

This is still the Model?3, Tesla's newest model on sale -- and it stands to reason that, with the Model?S and Model?X stepping in front of it, the Model?3's design should be more seamless than its predecessors', but that's not the case.

Well, here comes the core conclusion -- how can Tesla guarantee that its ride control software is 100% flawless when it doesn't even have a way to get around the obvious design flaws in the vehicle's exterior and interior? Saying that Tesla software engineers have a higher IQ than designers? I don't believe it.

A design flaw in the exterior or interior is a joke; a 1% flaw in the ride control software is a death sentence.

Don't explain anything. First of all, open the March 6, 2019 Shanghai Qingpu "Tesla jumped into the river case" investigation report and surveillance video and then say.

In fact, this is also a wake-up call for the relevant departments, that is, the software design defects, is often the most difficult to detect, unlike the rear suspension rod or oil seals and other such things, there is a problem with a single accurate investigation. Software code are pinched in the hands of Tesla, Tesla does not disclose, even if the State Administration for Market Supervision and Administration of the State Council to step in, but also can not find a reason.

And with every OTA upgrade, the vehicle in question overwrites the previous software flaws, which is equivalent to eliminating evidence in disguise. So far, no EV has been recalled because of defective control software, and forensics and evidence retention for EV software defects is actually one of the toughest parts of the process.

So how to solve it? The relevant departments need to legislate that every OTA source code must be uploaded to the relevant organizations' databases for retention. But whenever a car company releases a new version of OTA, compare it to the old version to see what has been upgraded, so you can know whether the previous control software is flawed or not.

In many of the sudden acceleration accidents involving Tesla electric cars, the official Tesla report will have the words "no malfunction" - which is actually a very sneaky way of putting it! --Whether there is a malfunction or not, and whether the ride control software is defective or not, are actually two different concepts.

But even if all the phantom accidents were caused by driver error, shouldn't Tesla have come up with a decent solution to the possible misuse of the software? Why is Tesla, the poster child for the "software-driven automobile," still so clueless about this issue after several years?

Tesla would never dare to put in black and white on an accident report that its software (especially its ride control software) is "not defective" -- you get the idea.

This article was written by the author of Automotive Home, and does not represent the views of Automotive Home.