Need help getting answers! Possible Unintentional Acceleration issue.

[jkovacs]

Hello fellow Mach E owners,

I’ve got an interesting (and potentially very concerning) issue here and I feel like I’m banging my head against a wall of indifference dealing with my insurance company.

On Dec 22nd, my wife was driving our ‘22 Premium Mach E. She decided to pick up a snack at our local A&W. When she went to pay, the car suddenly accelerated out of her control. She tried to stop but apparently it wouldn’t respond. She careened around the parking lot until she eventually ended up hitting a Ford Edge. Fortunately no one was seriously injured. (Just bruises from the airbags/seatbelt)

It is my understanding that most modern vehicles (including the Mach E) are equipped with an Event Data Recorder (EDR) that records data about the car and in the event (including which pedals were pressed, speed, etc) of a crash stores that data for a few seconds before/after the event. This data can be pulled by law enforcement/insurance to help in the case of an investigation.

Unfortunately, our insurance company has no interest in investigating and has told us they cannot pull the data. We called our dealership’s collision center and they told us they can’t do it either. I’m wondering where we should go next.

My wife and I have discussed this at length. We both love the Mach E but need to know if the accident was her fault or a software glitch. We got off relatively light, but if this is a more widespread issue, it could cause fatalities and we would like some peace of mind before we look into a replacement.

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[Maquis]

I’d suggest filing an incident report with NHTSA.

Go to https://www.nhtsa.gov/ and click “Report a safety problem.”

I‘m glad no one was seriously injured.

 

[corradoborg]

The only thing I've heard of regarding unexpected acceleration is if you have "speed limit detection" on, the car will adjust its speed when in cruise control (either standard cc or BlueCruise) to whatever speed it detects. This system is not perfect, and sometimes gets incorrect data, such as reading a route sign as a speed sign and accelerating to an undesirable speed.

What I have NOT heard of is not having control to override this issue. She should've been able to hit the brakes and completely disengage the cc altogether.

 

[jay1122]

Eh, 99% of the time it was the driver error. Heard endless times of Tesla fail to brake accusation. First time seeing it from a Mach E though. I don't think Ford will bother to pull the data unless a lawyer is involved.

Is she using one pedal drive? That was the most common cause of such problem In EV. Mistaking the gas pedal for brake pedal in a panic situation.

If you were engaged in bluecruise and it fails to exit and locks you in the set speed I may believe it. If a car suddenly out of no where starts accelerating from stand still and locks braking. I just don't see it.

 

[Jimrpa]

I really don’t think Ford is going to be eager to assist you because it sounds like “gold-digging”. The insurance company probably won’t want to assist since fault has been determined, and I don’t think Law Enforcement would want to get involved since there were no serious injuries. You could report it to NHTSA, but it would just be a data point they would track. My recommendation: if you and/or your wife have any misgivings or concerns about the vehicle, just get something else. Don’t go through life with the internal fear (founded or not) that the car could unexpectedly fail on you.

 

[VindictivePantz]

Try a non-dealer collision center. Assuming the unit that would read the data is portable, offer to pay for their time and show-up with a "friend" to get something out of the vehicle.

Also, note that I'm from the Chicago area, so maybe that's not how you're supposed to do things ?.

In all seriousness, I'm surprised the insurance company or the bank (assuming it's been financed) would not want to know. Juice must not be worth the squeeze.

 

[VindictivePantz]

Also, emergency brake assist should've kicked in if she was pressing the pedal and it was not doing anything. My understanding (and I could be wrong,) is that it kicks in when it is not sensing intervention by the driver.

I'm probably giving it too much credit.

Generic/dumb question - are the brakes by-wire or hydraulic? Assuming the former.

 

[jkovacs]

Eh, 99% of the time it was the driver error. Heard endless times of Tesla fail to brake accusation. First time seeing it from a Mach E though. I don't think Ford will bother to pull the data unless a lawyer is involved.

Is she using one pedal drive? That was the most common cause of such problem In EV. Mistaking the gas pedal for brake pedal in a panic situation.

If you were engaged in bluecruise and it fails to exit and locks you in the set speed I may believe it. If a car suddenly out of no where starts accelerating from stand still and locks braking. I just don't see it.

That’s why we want to pull the data from the recorder to understand if it actually was the car or driver error. Personally, I’d prefer if it was a mistake my wife made!

Anyway, neither of us use one-pedal drive and she was stopped so CC and BC were definitely not engaged at the time.

My concern is that we had just received a slew of OTA updates and it’s possible there was an issue with one of them.

 

[axelheimer24]

I get unexpected acceleration occasionally, but in all cases it’s been driver error (me). The BC button is right where I put my left hand while driving and sometimes I engage by accident. It’s never happened while stopped, but has happened while driving slowly in a parking lot. The quick acceleration is alarming when unexpected, but the brake or another click of the BC button disengage. While I admit this has been my mistake, it’s the first car that I’ve had that issue, despite many cars with cruise control buttons on the wheel.

 

[Tomatoboy]

Had she used BlueCruise or cruise control during the driving session that ended with the collision?

 

[jkovacs]

Had she used BlueCruise or cruise control during the driving session that ended with the collision?

Nope. She was just on her way home from an appointment about 10 mins up the road.

 

[Logal727]

I get unexpected acceleration occasionally, but in all cases it’s been driver error (me). The BC button is right where I put my left hand while driving and sometimes I engage by accident. It’s never happened while stopped, but has happened while driving slowly in a parking lot. The quick acceleration is alarming when unexpected, but the brake or another click of the BC button disengage. While I admit this has been my mistake, it’s the first car that I’ve had that issue, despite many cars with cruise control buttons on the wheel.

This is a likely scenario

 

[Blue highway]

Sorry about the incident... sounds really stressful.

One of the reasons this and other claims of unintended acceleration don't get any traction (sorry couldn't help that )is that if you mash the brake, and the go pedal at the same time, the brakes will hold the car.

 

[Mach-Lee]

You’ll have to hire a forensic service company to download the data for a fee. You’ll need the airbag module out of the car.

http://forensicdynamics.com/edr-black-box-downloads

Personally I think it’s extremely unlikely there was an uncommanded acceleration. Brake pedal always overrides acceleration.

 

[PicoR]

Since you are in Canada, I'm not sure filing with NHTSA would apply.

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