Tesla claims its ‘unintended acceleration’ issues are complete bullshit

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Last week, we had reports that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was going to start investigating Tesla for multiple complaints about “unintended acceleration.”

Tesla had the weekend to work on a response, and a new blog post that went up yesterday has a different explanation: the unfounded petition was started by a “short-seller” who bet against Tesla’s stock market performance.

Tesla claims that the latest government probe was initiated by a “short-seller”

Tesla’s claim that the latest NHTSA petition was started by someone trying to influence the stock market is a bold one, but it seems that they have data on their side. According to Tesla’s blog post, “in every case where we had the vehicle’s data,” everything functioned as designed.

That means no “unintended acceleration,” at least, not on the part of Tesla’s Autopilot program. The cars only went forward when the pedal was pressed, and then stopped when the brake was pressed. To me, that reads as “user error,” with drivers not used to the blistering acceleration of electric vehicles.

Tesla also points to the safeguards that are engineered into every single one of its vehicles. Those include two sensors that cut torque from the electric motors completely if an issue is discovered. It also includes a failsafe if both pedals are pressed, where the brake pedal will override the accelerator. Even the Autopilot has additional safeguards, such as using its sensors to “help distinguish potential pedal misapplications … when we’re confident the driver’s input was unintentional.”

I guess we’ll see once the NHTSA finishes its probing. Tesla says that most of the cases in the petition were already discussed with the NHTSA, and all found the vehicles in question were working as intended.

What do you think? Is this Tesla covering things up or do you believe their story? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.