The Federal Agency will look at unintended acceleration complaints concerning 500,000 Tesla vehicles

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it would review a petition demanding that the agency officially investigate and recall 500,000 Tesla Inc.

The Federal Agency will look at unintended acceleration complaints concerning 500,000 Tesla vehicles

On Friday, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said that it would review a petition demanding that the agency officially investigate and recall 500,000 Tesla Inc. vehicles following unexpected, unintended reports of acceleration. The petition includes the Tesla Model S model year 2012 through 2019, Tesla Model X year 2016 through 2019, and 2018 through 2019 Tesla Model 3 cars. The petition cites 127 complaints from consumers to NHTSA involving 123 unique vehicles. The records include 110 accidents and 52 casualties.

Late Friday, NHTSA issued a redacted version of the lengthy petition saying that Tesla vehicles experienced unintended acceleration at levels far exceeding other cars on the roads. It urged NHTSA to recall all its Model S, Model X, and Model 3 vehicles manufactured from 2013 to the present. Many complainants reported incidents of sudden acceleration when trying to park cars in a garage or at a curb. Others suggested that the sudden acceleration occurred while in traffic or when driver assistance systems were used and caused crashes.

A driver said in one complaint that a 2015 Tesla Model S 85D in California was shut and locked, and a few moments later, the vehicle began to accelerate toward the street and crashed into a parked car. When a Tesla driver in Avondale, Pennsylvania, was driving into a parking spot at an elementary school, the car accelerated on its own. In Andover, Massachusetts, there was another complaint saying that his car advancing her garage door when the car abruptly lurched forward and went through the garage door, destroying two garage doors. Tesla stopped when it hit the concrete wall of the garage.

In October, as per the investigation agency, it verified whether Tesla had recalled 2,000 of its electric cars instead of providing a software upgrade to rectify a potential defect that could have led to in the 2012-2019 model year battery fires in Model S and Model X vehicles. The investigation is to continue. Last week, NHTSA said it was investigating a Tesla Model 3 accident in December that left a passenger dead after the car collided in Indiana with a parked fire truck.

The crash is the 14th involving Tesla, which has taken up the specialized crash investigation program of NHTSA in which it suspects the so-called Autopilot or other advanced driver assistance system of the company was in use. In February, the National Transportation Safety Board would meet in Mountain View, California, to determine the possible cause of the 2018 fatal crash of a Tesla Model X. At the time of the collision, the driver was using Autopilot.