Editor’s Note: This article is from Tencent Technology, published by wu bin and 36Kr with authorization.

No one may have expected that a vertical category exhibition at the Shanghai Auto Show has become a well-known livelihood event because of the rights protection action of Tesla female car owners in Anyang, Henan Province. After three days of fermentation, at the request of Zhengzhou Zhengdong New District Market Supervision Administration, the "arrogant" Tesla finally promised to provide the driving data of female car owners in Anyang half an hour before the incident, and also demanded in its official statement that "the truth should be restored as soon as possible".

In the past two years, Tesla’s spontaneous combustion, out of control, brake failure and other issues have repeatedly exposed the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturing company from the United States to the spotlight.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past two years, there were more than 20 serious accidents of Tesla vehicles exposed, among which "sudden acceleration, vehicle out of control and brake failure" became the biggest cause of accidents.

In response to these accidents, Tesla often denies the existence of vehicle design defects and throws the problem back to the driver, thinking that the driver’s human error is the biggest cause of the accident. At this point, a Rashomon-style discussion on responsibility identification has become a catalyst to intensify the contradiction between consumers and Tesla, and it has not been concluded yet.

In the past year, many Tesla lost control, and the car owners and manufacturers held their own words.

The source of the rights protection incident of the female car owner of this Shanghai Auto Show comes from a traffic accident of the car owner and his family during the Spring Festival this year. According to the description of the female car owner, at that time, because of the "brake failure" of Model 3 driven by her father, after two cars were continuously rear-ended, they finally hit the cement fence on the roadside and stopped. The accident caused the female car owner’s parents to be injured and hospitalized.

According to the test results given by Tesla, the speed of the crashed Model 3 was as high as 118.5 km/h, but no vehicle abnormality was found during braking. In the end, this hasty conclusion became the last straw to crush the camel, which attracted media attention and pointed the finger at Tesla’s official reply.

This time, the owner of Anyang, Little White Car Girl, published a response to Tesla’s official statement in Tencent News, expressing dissatisfaction with the so-called appraisal results given by Tesla, including "whether the vehicle is speeding", "the qualification of the appraisal agency" and "the brakes are slammed but the braking effect is not obvious", which have become the intensification points of contradictions between the two sides.

After the Anyang incident in Henan Province was exposed, on March 11th and 12th, the media exposed two safety accidents of Tesla respectively. The Tesla owners in Haikou, Hainan and Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province all suffered traffic accidents because their vehicles were out of control.

According to incomplete statistics, from May 2020 to March 2021, there were more than 21 reported Tesla vehicle accidents, among which there were even "major traffic accidents" with 2 deaths and 6 injuries. Among the vehicles with accidents, it is not limited to Model 3, including imported Model X and S..

At present, for Tesla cars that have accidents due to active collision of vehicles, most of the reasons reported by the owners point to the situation that "the vehicle will suddenly accelerate, resulting in out of control and the brake pedal will fail", but so far, no accident vehicle has been identified as a vehicle problem by relevant departments or testing institutions, which has also led to an online rashomon debate.

Careful analysis of the time of these Tesla accidents in the past year is not difficult to find that in the past four months, the exposed Tesla accidents accounted for 67% of all incidents in the past year.

The outbreak of excessive concentration has also made Tesla’s public opinion reach an unprecedented height in the last year, which is why Tesla was asked to board the CCTV 3.15 party before 3.15.

Especially in 2021, the frequency of accidents in Tesla has increased significantly. In the first three months of this year, the number of car accidents in Tesla accounted for almost half of all the events in the past year.

On the one hand, this is related to the accidental traffic accidents, on the other hand, it also reflects Tesla’s vehicle business, especially the sales of domestic Model 3 have indeed reached a certain order of magnitude in the China market.

In the ranking of mid-size car sales in March this year given by the Federation, Tesla Model 3 rode the dust, leading the second BMW 3 Series by as much as 45%, and many traditional car manufacturers were pushed behind it. Model Y, which was officially launched in January this year, was once reported to have scheduled orders for June.

The user’s purchase of Model 3, coupled with the driving experience of electric vehicles different from traditional gasoline vehicles (fast acceleration and single pedal mode), may be one of the main reasons for Tesla’s recent frequent vehicle accidents.

Judging from the geographical distribution of accidents, as the sales of Model 3 continue to rise, Tesla’s penetration rate is quite amazing. Eleven provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions were involved in all the 21 accidents exposed, including not only new first-tier cities like Hangzhou, but also prefecture-level cities like Nanchong in Sichuan and Linyi in Shandong.

It is not difficult to find out on Tesla’s official website that Tesla has service centers in 28 provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and special administrative regions in China, except Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Tibet, Gansu and Inner Mongolia. You can buy Tesla in any province and city.

The huge market expansion speed allows Tesla to enjoy the market benefits brought by the government’s vigorous promotion of electric vehicles, but it also puts forward stricter requirements for Tesla’s vehicle production and after-sales service quality.

On February 8 this year, Tesla was interviewed by the State Administration of Markets, the Central Network Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Transport and the Fire and Rescue Bureau of the Emergency Management Department due to abnormal acceleration, battery fire and OTA.

Obviously, the scale and investment of Tesla Company in production and after-sales are difficult to match the rapidly growing China market.

In all the accidents exposed in the past year, except for the damage or spontaneous combustion of the vehicle itself, 80% of all the accidents were caused by the "out-of-control" impact, which caused damage to other vehicles or public facilities, and the electric vehicle accelerated quickly.

When the so-called "out-of-control" situation happens, it is often difficult for car owners to have good control over the collision consequences of vehicles, so more news we see is quite incredible, such as "Tesla rushed into the toilet and rushed into the hotel lobby" and so on. In all the accidents, there were 2 reported deaths, and more than 12 people were injured to varying degrees.

Tesla, a pure electric vehicle, can quickly improve the speed of the vehicle in a short time. According to the official data given by Tesla, the domestic Model 3 standard endurance version can accelerate the car to 100km/h in 5.6 seconds. If it is a high-performance version, this time will be shortened to 3.3 seconds.

This kind of extreme speed performance is enough to cause a greater impact on the surrounding environment than that of a traditional car in a relatively short distance, so when the vehicle "accelerates out of control", Tesla is likely to cause more serious traffic accidents.

In all the incidents, there were 13 cases in which the owner explained the accident. Among them, the words most frequently mentioned by accident owners include "the vehicle is out of control", "the brake (brake) is out of order" and "the speed is too fast".

In the 11 cases that Tesla answered specifically, Tesla often appeared in the form of "throwing a pot", and the official basic wording was similar, including "not stepping on the brake pedal", "there is no quality problem", "stepping on the accelerator pedal" and so on.

This contradictory dialogue has become the focus of controversy between the owner and Tesla. The owner thinks that Tesla’s vehicle is out of control because of the quality of the car or design defects, while Tesla will tell you through "various data" that it is the owner’s driving mistakes that lead to the final incident.

Rashomon discussions have never stopped in the past year.

The initiator of Tesla’s rights protection incident at the Shanghai Auto Show, which angered netizens, was Tesla’s vice president Tao Lin’s reply to this incident in an interview with the media.

"She contributed to the recent negative", "We can’t compromise, which is a necessary process for the development of a new product" and "Our own research shows that 90% of our customers are willing to choose Tesla again", etc., making onlookers stunned.

On the one hand, the owner fiercely defended his rights, and on the other hand, it was the official answer of Tesla’s shabu-shabu style.

Almost every time a vehicle has an out-of-control acceleration failure, Tesla’s official investigation gives a rhetoric similar to "the driver stepped on the wrong pedal and the vehicle did not break down." This made the owner of the accident unacceptable, and also made netizens express dissatisfaction with Tesla’s "irresponsible" official reply again and again. Tesla was therefore named "master of shabu-shabu" by netizens.

Behind the "shabu-shabu" again and again, it seems that Tesla’s attitude is arrogant, but in fact, the "black box" data that Tesla uses as an official explanation every time is the original sin that pushes them to the forefront.

The so-called "black box" is a chip installed by every automobile manufacturer to store the accompanying data, which can record all the states experienced by the driver in the process of driving the vehicle.

Especially in the process of collision, whether the driver has improper driving operation or the vehicle itself has made a major mistake depends on the data recorded in the black box as an important judgment basis.

In the runaway accident of Tesla in the past year, Tesla officials have repeatedly proved that the vehicle itself is safe and reliable according to the data provided by the black box. But the problem is that the data in this black box is confidential and Tesla has never made it public.

When there is a major traffic accident in Tesla’s vehicle, Tesla will often contact the owner to get the vehicle back or get the accident vehicle at the scene at the first time, and read the data of the black box to determine whether the accident is caused by the failure of the vehicle itself.

What data did Tesla take from the black box?

Are these data as real as the published results?

Did Tesla tamper with the data twice?

……

These problems are unknown to consumers, especially accident owners, which has become one of the main contradictions.

In addition to Anyang female car owners’ accusation that the vehicle is out of control for Tesla’s appraisal results, Haikou brake failure car owners released their "Seven Questions about Tesla, won’t your conscience hurt?" "wrote:

"As we all know, Tesla’s background data has never been made public, and only the owners of limited out-of-control events have been informed by oral communication. This way of being both a referee and an athlete cannot convince people of the authenticity of its data. "

Although this black box model is widely used by automobile manufacturers around the world, it is naturally difficult to convince Tesla that it can only provide such non-public data every time it determines its responsibility.

After Tesla announced the latest response last night and confirmed that it would provide the driving data of female car owners in Anyang half an hour before the incident, many netizens also expressed concern about the authenticity of the data.

Rashomon-style discussion can’t reach a conclusion, but for out-of-control Tesla cars, a reasonable explanation must always be given. Perhaps the investigation report of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) can give us a conclusion.

On January 13, 2020, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into the allegation that Tesla was out of control and accelerated, requiring it to recall vehicles with design defects. Finally, after a year-long investigation period, NHTSA announced the relevant investigation results on January 8 this year.

NHTSA investigated 246 cases of runaway acceleration of Tesla in one year. The final report shows that all 246 cases were caused by the driver’s wrong pedal.

According to the description in the NHTSA report, they made a detailed analysis of 217 accidents included in the investigation, including 118 Tesla vehicles for which they obtained vehicle trip data.

According to the trip data, 85% or even 97% of the 118 vehicles accidentally accelerated and caused accidents when the accelerator pedal of the vehicle was stepped on. In 97% of the accidents evaluated, the pressure exerted on the accelerator pedal reached its peak within 2 seconds of the collision. In 90% of the accidents evaluated, the brakes were not pressed, and the remaining 10% were pressed less than 1 second before the collision, that is, the brakes were pressed late. About 51% of the evaluated accidents occurred within 6 months of the owner driving Tesla.

These 246 cases and the nearly 20 cases in China mentioned above have a common feature, that is, the so-called "runaway acceleration of vehicles". In these case reports received by NHTSA, most drivers claimed that "Tesla vehicles suddenly accelerated without warning" caused the accident.

This report of NHTSA is also the only report in the world that has been published by the relevant functional departments of a national government and has legal effect on "Tesla is out of control".

Here, it is not simply to attribute all the nearly 20 Tesla accidents in China in the last year to the driver’s operational errors. The Rashomon discussion is still going on. NHTSA also said that the current investigation is only the end of the stage, and it is possible to launch a new investigation on Tesla in the future.

But this report is not without reference value. Maybe it can tell us what’s wrong with it.

Read this report of NHTSA carefully, and you will find that one word is repeatedly mentioned-pedal. In NHTSA’s targeted data analysis and scene re-inspection, the final conclusion of the problem is closely related to Tesla’s pedal.

Stepping on the wrong pedal is not a common problem for traditional cars, but for Tesla, this problem is infinitely magnified because of its unique "single pedal mode". Although this model is not original by Tesla, Tesla is a strong advocate of single pedal.

The so-called single pedal mode, that is, the start, acceleration, deceleration and stop of the vehicle can be controlled only by the pedal of the electric switch, and its principle is controlled by the forward current and reverse current of the motor.

In this mode, kinetic energy is recovered by reverse current, which can not only save electricity and improve the cruising range of electric vehicles, but also reduce the use of brakes, so that brake discs and brake pads have a longer service life.

The appearance of this mode has created a brand-new driving experience, and many skilled Tesla drivers can control the whole journey of the vehicle through the switch pedal.

Nowadays, this model is used in the products of major electric vehicle manufacturers, but the names are different. For example, in Xpeng Motors, this model is called X-Pedal model.

In practical use, this mode can completely replace the traditional braking mode as long as the driver keeps a good distance and a predetermined space. However, this mode cannot completely replace the brake pedal. Tesla clearly wrote this point in the user manual of Model 3, which is about kinetic energy recovery braking.

Single pedal mode creates a brand-new driving mode for electric vehicles, but it also embeds huge safety hazards. For skilled drivers, braking is not a stress reaction but a long-term muscle memory process, but the single pedal mode makes this muscle memory gradually disappear.

In single pedal mode, when the driver releases the switch pedal, the braking force brought by the reverse current is far less powerful than that provided by the brake disc and brake pad when the brake is slammed, which is why Tesla can’t cancel the brake pedal when designing the single pedal driving mode.

When users get used to the driving mode of single pedal, the muscle memory of the action of "braking" slowly changes from stepping on the brake pedal to lifting the electric pedal. After this habit becomes natural, when many drivers suddenly have an emergency in front of the vehicle, their first reaction is to release the pedal. When they find that the braking force is insufficient and realize that they have not taken compulsory braking measures, it is already too late to step on the brake pedal.

What’s more, when he realized that he should step on the brake pedal in a state of high mental tension, his muscle memory made him step on the accelerator pedal.

This may cause many Tesla owners to recall their own operations after the accident, thinking that they stepped on the brake pedal, but in fact they stepped on the electric pedal, causing the vehicle to "accelerate out of control for no reason" and eventually leading to traffic accidents.

Of course, the "whipping corpse" in the single pedal mode can’t perfectly explain the reasons for the 19 out-of-control cases of Tesla in China in the past year. We still hope that there will be official intervention to exonerate consumers or Tesla.