Tesla Crash At Ferry Terminal Was Due To Driver Error, Not Unintended Acceleration

A Model 3 was totaled in January after the car reportedly “suddenly accelerated.”

May 22, 2023 at 4:08am ET

A Tesla Model 3 was totaled in January after crashing into one of the ramps at the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in West Vancouver, Canada with the police saying at the time that the EV was trying to board a ferry and “suddenly accelerated” into a gate.

Now, the investigation has been completed and the cause of the accident was attributed to driver error and not a mechanical problem, according to the West Vancouver Police Department.

“Following an analysis of the vehicle data, the investigators determined the collision to be human-caused,” said West Vancouver Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Mark McLean, quoted by North Shore News.

The driver of the Tesla, a 68-year-old man from Vancouver, was issued a ticket for driving without care and attention under the Canadian Motor Vehicle Act, the spokesperson said, adding that at the time of the collision, the estimated damage to the ferry structure was over $30,000 (Canadian), but now the ferry company has changed its wording, saying that the damage was “in the thousands.”

Back in January, the Tesla Model 3 crashed into a closed gate at one of the berths, according to BC Ferries spokesperson Deborah Marshall, with police describing the car as having “suddenly accelerated” into the terminal.

In 2020, the American EV brand wrote a blog post titled “There is no ‘sudden unintended acceleration’ in Tesla vehicles,” where it explains how in every case where one of its cars was accused of causing a crash because of unintentional acceleration, the data showed that the vehicles worked as designed:

While accidents caused by a mistaken press of the accelerator pedal have been alleged for nearly every make/model of vehicle on the road, the accelerator pedals in Model S, X, and 3 vehicles have two independent position sensors, and if there is any error, the system defaults to cut off motor torque. Likewise, applying the brake pedal simultaneously with the accelerator pedal will override the accelerator pedal input and cut off motor torque, and regardless of the torque, sustained braking will stop the car.

Additionally, well-known “Tesla hacker” Jason Hughes went on to say in 2020 that “in this case, Tesla did their homework on the hardware and software side very well to make sure this would never be an issue.”

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