Business Case: Tesla With "No Brake"

For many days, Tesla's name appeared in the hot search list of microblogs. Female car owners' rights protection and brake failure once again pushed the car company to the forefront of the storm on the eve of March 15.

Since the mass production of Tesla in China in 2020, it has been popular, but the frequency of accidents such as door failure, spontaneous combustion and abnormal acceleration of Tesla is also increasing. The 21st century economic reporter collates public reports and materials and finds that since last year, more than ten serious traffic accidents have occurred in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanchang and other places caused by "abnormal acceleration" or "brake failure".

For example, in an accident in Wenzhou last August, when a model 3 stopped, more than a dozen cars collided to stop; last September, an accident in Nanchong, Sichuan, killed two pedestrians and injured six people.

In view of these accidents, Tesla officials usually provide data, pointing out that most of them are "caused by the driver's misoperation", and the vehicle itself has no defects. However, many car owners reported that the car suddenly lost control, "did not mistakenly use the accelerator as the brake.". Both sides hold their own opinions.

It is worth noting that Tesla responded to the two recent accidents in Henan and Hainan in a relatively short period of time. However, after Tesla's response, car owners quickly refuted Tesla's statement, and the two accidents are still in the fermentation.

Although there have been more than ten accidents, there are still no answers as to whether Tesla's vehicle is out of control, abnormal acceleration or brake failure, whether it is the owner's misoperation, accidental case or Tesla's own defects.

For many days, Tesla's name appeared in the hot search list of microblogs. -Visual China

Did the owner recall something wrong?

One of the important reasons why several accidents happened in the past has caused disputes is that Tesla has a deviation from the owner's recollection of the case when making time explanation.

On March 9, a video of Henan Tesla car advocating that women hold horns and sit on the roof of the car to defend their rights was circulated on the Internet.

Ms. Zhang bought an imported version of the Tesla Model 3 in January last year. According to Ms. Zhang, during the Spring Festival in February this year, when she was driving the car with her family, the car brake failed and hit two cars in succession, causing two people in the car to be injured. Subsequently, the negotiation with Tesla store failed.

Later, the woman sat in an accident car with the words "Tesla brake failure" sprayed with black paint at the door of the 4S store, holding a loudspeaker repeatedly playing "Tesla Model 3 brake failure during the Spring Festival, causing a serious traffic accident, nearly killing four of her family."

On March 10, the official microblog of Tesla customer support released a description of the owner's rights protection incident in Anyang, Henan Province, and announced the specific process of the incident.

At about 18:00 on February 21, Mr. Zhang, the owner's father, collided with other vehicles while driving along the 341 national highway. That night, the traffic police issued a letter of responsibility for the accident, confirming that Mr. Zhang had violated the provisions of relevant laws on safe driving and keeping a safe distance from the vehicle in front of him, and he should bear full responsibility for the accident.

As for the brake failure claimed by the car owner, Tesla said that after checking and analyzing the vehicle data and field photos, it was found that the vehicle's speed before stepping on the brake pedal was 118.5km/h. During the braking period, ABS worked normally. The front collision warning and automatic emergency braking functions were activated and played a role. No abnormal braking system was found.

However, one day after Tesla issued the accident statement, Ms. Zhang, the party involved in the incident, made a long response on her micro blog, refuting Tesla's statement, claiming that the data in Tesla's statement was incorrect.

Ms. Zhang said Tesla's statement distorted facts, misled public opinion and considered legal means to protect rights. She said that Tesla claimed that the speed of 118.5km/h at the time of the accident was fabricated, which was about 60-70km/h; the police never judged that the speed was too fast; her father had repeatedly slammed on the brake, but the pedal was stiff and the brake was not obvious; Tesla had told the background data that there were many loopholes to prove that the brake was invalid.

After that, Ms. Zhang also tweeted that she hoped Tesla could provide complete data at the time of the accident. However, Tesla said it could not share the data half an hour before the incident.

The views of both sides are completely opposite, and the truth of the incident is still unknown. At present, the event is still in continuous fermentation.

Because every Tesla vehicle is connected to the Internet, Tesla can keep the data of vehicle operation completely. When there is a vehicle accident, Tesla can also know through data analysis at the first time.

According to Tesla, Tesla's vehicle data is read by the vehicle gateway and stored in encryption. The stored data is recorded by encryption technology, and the relevant data cannot be directly read, modified or deleted. In case of investigation by law enforcement and regulatory agencies, vehicle related data will be provided completely and truly.

There is a view that machine data should be more reliable than the personal memories of the subject. However, there are also doubts that the data is in the hands of car companies, and Tesla's background data has never been made public, which is not fully convincing.

Wrong braking mode or design defect?

Another recent Tesla collision that caused concern occurred in Hainan.

On March 11, a Tesla Model 3 was about to stop when its owner said he couldn't step on the brake pedal, causing the vehicle to hit the guardrail.

On March 14, in response to the accident, Tesla officials said that the initial judgment of the accident was mainly due to the wet ground and the light amplitude when the car owner initially stepped on the brake pedal, resulting in the longer braking distance.

Tesla said that according to the vehicle data, the vehicle's brake system and ABS work normally after the car owner steps on the brake pedal, but the initial brake pressure is low when the car owner presses the brake pedal, and the brake pressure increases greatly only 0.5 seconds before the collision.

Tesla officials drove another Tesla vehicle to restore the specific state of the collision.

For the first time, the driver stepped on the brake quickly and the vehicle stopped within a safe distance. The second time, similar to the operation mode of the owner when the accident happened, the driver first stepped on the two foot brake slightly, and then stepped heavily. The vehicle did not stop within a safe distance and hit the protective fence.

According to the owner's interview with local media, when the accident happened, the third brake could not be stepped down after the first two foot brakes were stepped on.

Tesla said that in the two subsequent tests, ABS was activated and the braking distance was longer than that on dry roads.

To explain in more popular terms is that the ABS anti lock system in order to prevent the occurrence of more serious collision accidents when braking, the brake is not "trampled to death".

Tesla also said in a statement that there is no difference between the mechanical working principle of Tesla's brake system and the fuel vehicle. As long as you step on the brake pedal, its working principle is the same as that of the fuel vehicle.

However, Tesla did not explain in the statement why the "light foot + heavy step" failed to stop at a safe distance.

On the evening of March 14, Tesla released a test report of the accident vehicle, and the test results showed that the vehicle brake system was qualified.

It is worth noting that on March 15, Ms. Yu, the owner of the case, posted a long article "seven questions to Tesla, won't your conscience hurt?"? 》, indicating that they do not approve Tesla's description of the out of control accident, let alone the test report made by Tesla.

The owner said that Tesla refused to give the data when the accident happened. The depth of the water in the place where the accident happened was only 3mm, which could not go beyond the sole of the shoe, instead of "a lot of water" as Tesla said. She also said that the dash CAM data about the minute of the incident disappeared, and Tesla sales staff said that "the memory space is circular, when the brake is full, it is automatically covered.".

In addition, Tesla sent the vehicle to be tested without her consent, and the test report had wrong model information.

Although according to Tesla, the cause of the accident was mainly due to the wrong way the car owner stepped on the brake.

However, such a view is still controversial on the Internet. Many senior car reviewers have said that on vehicles equipped with ABS system, the braking distance will be lengthened if the brake is stepped on lightly and then heavily. When driving a vehicle equipped with ABS system, you only need to step on the brake again in case of emergency. However, some netizens said, "no matter how you brake, stepping on the brake should have the function of deceleration. I don't know if there is a defect in Tesla's brake design. "

Hidden danger of "single pedal mode"

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has investigated 246 cases of Tesla runaway acceleration. According to the investigation report, 246 cases were all caused by stepping on the wrong pedal.

"There is no evidence that the accelerator pedal assembly, motor control system or brake system has any fault that caused the accident, and there is no evidence that design factors increase the possibility of pedal misuse." NHTSA said.

Tao Lin, vice president of Tesla China's foreign affairs, said in a personal transmission of the report that the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that the manufacture of Tesla cars did not increase the possibility of drivers stepping on the wrong pedal. This basically means that the acceleration of any accident is caused by the driver's misoperation.

No matter whether it is due to the owner's operation error or not, Tesla's frequent accidents such as abnormal acceleration are still worthy of vigilance. In fact, the "single pedal" mode (high kinetic energy recovery mode) adopted by some electric vehicles represented by Tesla has always been controversial.

The so-called single pedal mode, in short, only need to control the switch pedal, you can start, accelerate, decelerate (brake) and other operations. In this mode, kinetic energy recovery can not only save electricity, but also reduce the use of brakes, which can improve the range of electric vehicles.

Although the single pedal mode is not only equipped with one pedal, it is still equipped with brake pedal. However, in this mode, users will put their feet on the accelerator pedal instead of the brake pedal for a long time while driving in this mode, which changes the way users drive traditional fuel vehicles. However, there may be potential safety hazards in emergency situations.

If consumers mistakenly regard "accelerator" as brake according to inertia, and electric vehicles generally have better acceleration performance, accidents may occur.

A Tesla Model 3 owner told 21st century economic news that he had stepped on the wrong pedal several times while driving. "The reason why I stepped on the wrong pedal is mainly because I used to drive an oil car and my foot was placed near the brake most of the time. Now it will be placed near the accelerator. Sometimes when I am ready to brake, I will step down subconsciously. It is very likely that I stepped on the accelerator

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