Man ‘forced to drive electric car into police van’ in Scotland after brakes fail
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
> Around 10.35pm on Sunday 1 October, we received a report of a driver unable to stop his electric car on the A803 heading towards Kirkintilloch. The car was travelling at a low speed and officers carried out a controlled halt with the aid of a police vehicle. There was no damage to either vehicle. The driver arranged for the vehicle to be recovered
There should be.
And an entirely manual brake.
It also says "Police worked with their engineers and tried everything" - even taking the car key out of range by passing it out the window to a police car driving alongside.
[1] https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/motors/11320530/electric-ve...
MG Motor UK Limited (MG Motor) is an automotive company owned by SAIC Motor UK, headquartered in London, owned by the Shanghai-based Chinese state-owned automaker SAIC Motor. [0]
I would love it if I could keep it and turn it electric one day. Once the battery densities are 1kwh/kg it would probably swap nicely by replacing the engine/accessories/gas tank with batteries and replacing the transmission with an electric motor. The electronics in most electric cars are a turn off for me. I want it to be simple.
It will be interesting though to see what went wrong in this case.
Generally, these systems are very reliable, but occasionally things go wrong. So far the analysis has been over an order of magnitude of lives have been saved by using this technology than have been lost due to its going awry. Ultimately, this is the argument that's going to be used for self-driving cars.
There are also friction brakes of course, but it's possible the driver, standing on the pedal to try and slow his runaway car, had caused them to overheat, which renders them completely useless.
Keyless ignition usually has an override for a running car too, in a ford pushing the button three times within a few seconds turns the combustion engine off. Wonder if that's the same in electric cars, otherwise the only way I can think to kill it is isolate the batteries, same as emergency services would do in an accident.
Unless there is shown to be a physical defect or fault that prevented the brakes engaging, I am inclined to believe the driver is at fault.
What about an electronic defect?
That's the interesting part to me - you're relying on the data logs from a system for court which in theory might not match what actually happened and may not leave an observable physical defect. For example but not specific to this case, if there was an error that actuated a brake through the traction control system but it wasn't recorded due to the initiating error.
But in this case, the problem lasted long enough for the driver to call the police, and a convoy of police vehicles to escort him for some 15 minutes.
To me it sounds like the driver's reaction was calm and controlled, with plenty of time to assess the situation. Another report on the same incident [1] says the driver tried the park button, the engine off button, police got advice from engineers, they even tried passing the car key to another car. And that the dash showed "nine warning lights."
Given these facts, it seems very unlikely the driver was, for example, confusing the accelerator and the brake, or failing to press the brake sufficiently hard.
[1] https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/motors/11320530/electric-ve...
https://www.twincities.com/2010/02/23/a-lexus-barreling-out-...
I could imagine someone making a mistake and accidentally pressing the wrong pedal, etc., but it seems very unlikely that after 15 minutes at 15mph in a police convoy, the guy still couldn’t work out how to press the brake pedal properly.
> Police worked with their engineers and tried everything to bring the EV motor to a stop.
Your thoughts?
Newer cars usually have some electronic parking brake that might just refuse to do its thing. And the key is not connected to a relay over the batteries usually nowadays.
ABS vents can lock you out from using the main wheel brakes.
Welcome to the future of drive by wire cars.
Not that it would mean much simply being mechanical, I have a car where the parking brake mechanically enganges at the rear prop shaft. And believe, all that brake does is supporting parking if the road isn't too steep.
If the rear calipers are too hard to move without hydraulics, the parking brake might be a seperate system on the rear axle of a car.
Those seperate systemsnso don't have the power of the main brake system, even just the one on the rear axle.
That's seems to be a pretty weak argument. You're also forgetting the factor that they can charge extra for more automatic features, or that marketing determined that a significant segment may want it. So it could have little to do with better performance and more to do with positioning and money.
Again, what is they interdependence you speak of? The vast majority of cars have the brake systems completely separate - hydraulic with disc/caliper for regular brakes and a cable with shoes/drum for the parking brake. There's really no reason for interdependence, and you really don't see it in the vast majority of new cars.
It is somewhat easier to start in hills if you are bad at matching the torque. I guess that is the marketing benefit. However of the computer messes up the release you are in a bad spot if e.g. half way stuck in a ditch or whatever.
Edit: If you have anti roll back braking the vehicle need to be able to engage the parking brake itself so that the fail state isn't that the car starts to roll again.
The driver might also leave the car while on hill hold, which might end badly if the parking brake can't be engaged by the computer.
In my experience, features like these need to be very well thought out and seamless, otherwise they confuse and you got no idea what and why stuff happens.
I mean, just having a clutch pedal makes the driver intention way more explicit. I don't think the "press the gas thinking it is the brake flipping the car on a wedge in a garage" accidents happen with manual cars at all, since a panicking driver would depress the accelerator and clutch.
Sure, drivers might be stupid.
"The driver might also leave the car while on hill hold,"
Sure, some drivers might be extremely stupid. I think it would be hard for the computer to figure out if the action was intended or not. Just look at ll the BS with automatic braking when trying to hook up a trailer to tow. There has to be a cutoff somewhere. If it's really a problem, then we need better driver testing is someone is really that dumb.
"if the parking brake can't be engaged by the computer."
Do any of them actually do this? All the ones I've seen use the regular brakes.
Yes, the hill assist was started to help people in a manual on a hill and I agree that there is more intention when using a third pedal. That's the tradeoff - a system that make the physical act easier while removing intention. Yeah, not having the system might be better in some ways. This shouldn't be that dangerous because we're dealing with stopped vehicles and slow speeds. The tradeoff is stopping many newbies from rolling back into the car behind them, vs hopefully tiny number of people who are so stupid as to exit the vehicle in the 1-2 seconds that the brake is still applied. Better to get rid of that last group with stricter testing.
Except the surprise rollback. I think it is really hard to notice if you don't expect it, if it starts off slowly.
A Scania truck will engage the parking brake on hill hold if you disengage the seat belt or turn the engine off. The manual variant just allows hill hold for like 5 seconds and then releases the brakes after some warning sounds.
I haven't really tried out how any car with hill hold and electric pbrake behaves when you do strange things, so dunno if any engage the p-brake or locks the transmission.
Also, if I put it in gear and step on the gas, the parking brake automatically releases (you hear the whir of the motor releasing the brake). Something else -- if it is running in drive and stopped, and you open the door and take your foot off the brake and get out of the car, it automatically shifts into park too. Triggered by engine running, while foot on brake, if you take the seat belt off and open the door and take foot off brake it returns to park.
Anyway, the reason they've gone electronic is to add hill assist. Let your foot off the brake and you stay in place until you hit the gas. A lot of people like that.
Emergency brakes won't bring you to an immediate stop, but they do slow you rapidly if properly adjusted. If your engine is running away, shifting to neutral or killing it is more important.
Maybe activating the emergency brake requires using a touch screen?
apparently the car in question was stuck in a mode where there was a constant torque request (throttle setting) that was enough to overpower the brake. or, the car helpfully wouldn't allow engaging of the parking brake while the car was still in "D" mode.
i would also have tried opening the door. many cars will take the car out of gear when a door is opened. (frustratingly to me, as it can in rare occasion be helpful to crack open the door when in reverse, to look down for parking lines etc. a very loud warning chime would be better for me personally than this nanny feature.)
No. Cars usually have parking brakes, which can be more or less useful as emergency brakes, but that is not their primary function and they are not designed or usually very useful for that purpose for a vehicle stuck with more than minimal power being applied.