Californian Man sues Tesla after his car suddenly accelerated into his home

A Californian man in the U.S. has filed a lawsuit against Tesla after his Model X SUV vehicle allegedly accelerated on its own, crashing into his garage, through the walls, and into his living room!

The claimant, as the driver, and his passenger, both suffered injuries in the crash. The lawsuit was brought to court with an application to make it a group class action as another seven (7) cases were cited to have similar allegations against Tesla as well.

Tesla have responded by saying they have “conducted a thorough investigation” following the claim, and the result of their investigation was that it “conclusively shows that the crash was the result of Mr. Son pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%”. Although this could be true, no evidence has reportedly been given to back these statements; so, maybe Tesla has something to hide?

It seems that whenever complaints have been put forward that one of their vehicles acted on their own by ‘suddenly accelerating’, Tesla has always responded by looking into the logs and concluded that it was the driver’s fault as only the accelerator was reportedly activated and the brakes were never used.

If only these logs and reports were made public…

No strangers to adverse headlines

The premium vehicle manufacturers are no strangers to adverse headlines. Not long ago, news broke out that a driver of their Model S vehicle was reportedly killed by their auto pilot technology when it plunged into the back of a tractor trailer.

Tesla has previously claimed that it makes the safest SUV in history.

A pride on transparency

Tesla has always said that it prides itself on transparency, but none of these logs that disprove claimant Son’s allegations have been produced for public analysis so far. But, then again, Tesla apparently wasn’t very transparent in its actions when it sold $2 billion worth of shares in a public offering without first telling its shareholders or the public…

However, there is not enough information to make a proper judgement yet. Perhaps it was human error and Son just mistook the accelerator for the brake – it can be easy to do. The U.S.’ National Health and Traffic Safety Authorities said that approximately 16,000 crashes caused every year are due to pedal error as drivers often mistake the accelerator for the brake pedal.

In this incident…

In this incident, the driver claims he was slowly pulling in, waiting for his garage door to open, when the incident happened. But surely if he was slowly pulling in, his foot would already be on the brake, steadily applying pressure on the pedal? Would Son really wreak a part of his own house by driving into his garage wall – “destroying several wooden support beams in the wall and a steel sewer pipe, among other things” and stopping only when his car was inside his living room? Perhaps he wanted an insurance claim, or maybe the technology in his car was faulty, like Joshua Brown’s allegedly was.

It remains to be seen.

Other incidents

Apparently Son is not alone in this technology glitch, so maybe we’ll hear more about the other drivers who no longer trust their high-tech cars. We don’t know yet if any Tesla cars in the U.K. have been affected by this alleged defect, but hopefully the ones here are truly road worthy. When cars are defective or faulty and cause injury, victims are entitled to recover financial compensation.