Car lunged forward when pulling into a parking lot (cruise control got engaged)

[stealthytolkien]

This happened to me yesterday.

The car was in the unbridled mode. I was driving it fully manually. When I got into the parking lot for a store, I found a spot and I was about to turn the steering wheel left and park.

Suddenly, likely due to my thick winter jacket sleeves combined with the wheel turning gesture, I think I mistakenly pressed the cruise control button.

The car literally went like a rocket as I was turning into the spot. Thankfully I was able to slam the brakes and no harm was done.

I then looked at the screen and saw 75 mph set speed icon on the screen top right corner. Now struck through and grayed out because I “cancelled” it by braking.

Question: I was under the impression that when we press the cruise control button, the set speed starts with the car’s current speed (meaning if I press the button when I’m going at 40 mph, it’ll set at 40 mph and then I can go more or less with the joy stick.). Why did the cruise control get set at 75 mph? I rarely use cruise control on this car so I don’t remember the last time I drove 75 mph with a cruise on. Did the car remember that?

Question: if I didn’t brake in time, would the car have braked (by design) detecting the “curb side pick up” sign on a pole that was at the center line divider of the parking lot? There was a car on the other side of the pole, and I literally missed two heart beats because it would have resulted very badly.

One thing is for sure, the cruise control did get engaged by me by mistake. But my confidence is a bit shaken now. The car SHOULD have said that the speed is too low for me to engage cruise control (I was at 4-5 mph when trying to park) instead of engaging it at 75 mph and launching itself!

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[Murse-In-Airy]

I have mistakenly hit that button a couple times. Once when pulling out of a parking lot. Turning to the right and as I spin the wheel, the heel of my hand hit the cruise button. The car started accelerating as I was turning into traffic. It’s very surprising when it happens.

 

[stealthytolkien]

I have mistakenly hit that button a couple times. Once when pulling out of a parking lot. Turning to the right and as I spin the wheel, the heel of my hand hit the cruise button. The car started accelerating as I was turning into traffic. It’s very surprising when it happens.

It is scary how what you’re saying is EXACTLY what happened in my case. That’s 2 for 2.

Almost makes me wonder if at least that button which is so close to the 9/3 driving position should be made to either double click or press and hold for preventing accidental presses when turning.

 

[flapjake314]

did you set for 75 during that drive earlier? if not does seem kind of weird

i have never accidentally hit the cruise control button on this car or another one, touching wood... sounds very frightening glad everyone is ok

 

[superdave80]

I thought cruise control wouldn't engage below 15 MPH? Also, my experience has been that cruise control (even if on) won't actively accelerate if you have the steering wheel turned a certain amount.

 

[kennelh]

I thought cruise control wouldn't engage below 15 MPH? Also, my experience has been that cruise control (even if on) won't actively accelerate if you have the steering wheel turned a certain amount.

It won't start at a low speed (I though it was 25 MPH), but it will resume once cancelled at any speed. In you are in bumper-to-bumper traffic and the car comes to a complete stop for ~10 seconds, it will disengage but you can make it resume by pressing the center button.

 

[stealthytolkien]

1. As I wrote in the first post, no, I didn’t engage cruise control on my way to the store nor did I drive at 75 mph at any time as it was rush hour.

2. When the cruise control button was accidentally hit, I am 100% sure that after I slammed the brakes, the screen showed 75 mph crossed out like I said in my post. It definitely says two things. A) it engaged cruise control when it should not have because I was literally driving at near 0 speeds when trying to park into a spot and B) it lunged forward ignoring the surroundings and engaged cruise control to get to 75 mph. Both of these things are major dealbreakers. I don’t really wanna test that again for obvious reasons of safety but yesterday was the first day in my one year of MME GTPE ownership that I thought - no, this never happened when I owned a Tesla.

The MME has rear cross traffic alert feature so I praise that over Tesla almost every day. But it wasn’t MME’s day yesterday.

 

[stealthytolkien]

It won't start at a low speed (I though it was 25 MPH), but it will resume once cancelled at any speed. In you are in bumper-to-bumper traffic and the car comes to a complete stop for ~10 seconds, it will disengage but you can make it resume by pressing the center button.

I get the “resume” feature. But “resume” should not work after the car has been powered off once. I rarely if ever use cruise control because most of my driving is in town, so I am not really sure where the car got that 75 mph number to speed towards when that entire drive from my house to the store was in heavy traffic.

 

[kennelh]

I get the “resume” feature. But “resume” should not work after the car has been powered off once. I rarely if ever use cruise control because most of my driving is in town, so I am not really sure where the car got that 75 mph number to speed towards when that entire drive from my house to the store was in heavy traffic.

Just to be clear, my response was not aimed at you.

 

[Hammered]

I think those claiming such things should try to duplicate it. When you turn on cruise, it defaults to the speed you're currently at. It won't engage below 15mph.

What will happen when you're driving fast and one of the wheels come off the ground the 1 pedal braking ends. On another note, ford has mirrored the left steering wheel controls on the new explorer. Following distance and auto steer has been moved to the outside.

 

[Ladj1985]

I did this exact same thing while pulling into a grocery store parking lot. I had been in Bluecruise earlier and it disengaged when I got off the interstate. I was making a left turn into the parking lot and I accidentally pushed in the resume button. The car started taking off like a rocket in the middle of my turn. I immediately slammed the brakes. So it definitely does engage while actively making a turn. I wish that they would do a software update to stop that from happening.

 

[Maquis]

I’ll relate something similar that happened in my Lightning:
I was parked at a store, truck off and locked. I came out, got in, started the truck and backed out of my spot using 1PD. Once I was perpendicular to the parking spaces, I shifted to “D” and as soon as I slightly pressed the pedal, the truck took off. I looked down and the cruise was engaged at 15 MPH. I hit the brake pedal to disengage it. Fortunately, there were no cars in front of me.

I tried 4 times to make it happen again but couldn’t. I even tried pressing the cruise button on the steering wheel, but always got the message “Speed too low to activate adaptive cruise control.” Maybe not the exact words.

I honestly don’t believe I hit any buttons, but even if I did, it shouldn’t have happened. I believe there is some kind of software glitch that causes this.

 

[Hammered]

Anyone that truly believes something occurred abnormally should file a report w/ NHTSA here
https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem#index

Somewhere around 10-20 reports they begin to apply pressure and take a look at it.

 

[stealthytolkien]

Just to be clear, my response was not aimed at you.

Oh I know, I was simply adding more information for the readers! Thank you very much for the collaboration!

 

[stealthytolkien]

I think those claiming such things should try to duplicate it. When you turn on cruise, it defaults to the speed you're currently at. It won't engage below 15mph.

What will happen when you're driving fast and one of the wheels come off the ground the 1 pedal braking ends. On another note, ford has mirrored the left steering wheel controls on the new explorer. Following distance and auto steer has been moved to the outside.

While I agree with you in principle, I respectfully disagree with your suggestion in practical sense.

I boldly claim that we are already beta testing these EV through early adoption, and most of us have been driving cars for decades now.

So, no, if EV are the future, Ford should keep an event logger running in the car that records everything to then root cause analyze such events.

Reproducing or even trying to reproduce is downright dangerous especially what I experienced. Can Ford guarantee that while I’m trying to reproduce an abnormal behavior, the automatic brakes will work every time in case I’m not fast enough to take control of the situation? Will Ford guarantee me a replacement car because I’m trying to reproduce something that shouldn’t have happened to begin with and the car got into an accident? Things can get pretty serious when we start talking about drivers reproducing driving related software issues in a car.

Yes, general software glitches when the car is stationary are fine to do trial and error reproduction. Not in a moving vehicle.

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