— Alleged Tesla unintended acceleration incidents have occurred to 123 Tesla vehicles, allegedly causing 110 crashes and 52 injuries.
According to a petition filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), about 500,000 Tesla vehicles may be at risk of sudden unintended acceleration events.
The petitioner says NHTSA should oversee a recall of 2012-2019 Tesla Model S, 2016-2019 Tesla Model X and 2018-2019 Tesla Model 3 vehicles. However, the safety agency will evaluate his petition only to determine if a formal investigation should be opened.
Brian Sparks of Berkeley, California, filed the petition after checking complaints submitted to NHTSA about unintended acceleration, or what he defines as, “the occurrence of any degree of acceleration that the driver did not purposely cause to occur.”
In addition to the known complaints, the petitioner claims many reports he found in the media don't appear on NHTSA's list of complaints.
The owners of a Tesla Model X wrote to CarComplaints.com about an alleged unintended acceleration incident that could have killed people. (Photo above)
The owners say they took their one-year-old granddaughter to a museum with a small parking lot.
"While I was trying to figure where to park, our car accelerated at unbelievable speed, went and hit a parked Chevy van. This van went upside down over a fence and fell in parking lot next to it. Then our Model X went and hit an electrical pole, went over an electrical box of 5 ft x 5 ft."
Both vehicles were totaled in the crash and the Tesla's airbags deployed, but no injuries were reported.
"We can not comprehend how such an accident can happen? Why did the car accelerate like that? Secondly what happened to all those emergency systems? 8 cameras, sensors? Are they not supposed to sense and stop?"
The automaker has been accused of selling vehicles that can suffer from unintended acceleration, but Tesla often responds by claiming the driver pushed the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal.
Federal safety regulators will evaluate the petitioner's allegations to determine if the petition should be granted or denied.
CarComplaints.com will update our website with NHTSA's decision.