Interesting/worrying story from Scotland - ZS with no brakes.

[johnb80]

I was just making the point that IF the electric motor failed or it suffered a total lost of power, the drivers initial press of the footbrake would act almost as normal.
But any further subsequent pressure applied would result in huge decline in the stopping ability of the car, as the vacuum reservoir has now become pretty much depleted.

It usually takes 5 or more presses of the brake pedal for any vacuum to be depleted (assuming they are vacuum assisted brakes on this MG).

Bringing the car to a stop with no assistance from the brake servo, is very similar to trying to steer a car when the power assisted steering is not in operation.
The human effort required in order to make an impact, would require the arm and leg strength of superman, in order to make some impact.

It's true it does increase but IMHO not quite as dramatic as you make it out to be. Both feet on the pedal should do it

We all have become very use to having the great features of power assisted systems now.

Aye, wouldn't be without them

Having recovered a number of cars that has no assistance systems working, even getting a car onto a trailer is a bit of a challenge .

The worst one I did was a 4.2 LSE Range Rover with a dead engine. Even the winch was smoking pulling it up onto the trailer. At the other end, unloading on a slope required a huge amount of pedal pressure and good leverage to turn the wheel. In the end, I fitted the new fuel pump at the roadside where it was.

 

[dspencer12345]

I would not read too much into that little factoid.

Edit: However, I'll admit that the 15 years old image (if true) is weird. It does suggest wanting to garner sympathy.

Agreed. All very odd. The truth is we all want it to be made up or human error, as we don't want it to happen to us at 70mph down the motorway.
What he says happened seems extremely unlikely, with all the reasons given by other users being totally valid, but I'm sure I'm not the only one now feeling a little uneasy about my vehicle.
So, it would be good if he could come back and answer a few polite questions, so that we can understand what really happened, given the way the story is hyped up in the media.

 

[Tim Green]

If some person from the press asked you for a picture to go in an article, which would you pick? Probably the first decent picture that came to hand.
dspencer is right that no-one wants to have to worry that their (v.expensive) vehicle can have a serious risk of running amok, but this is the second case discussed on this forum, both being dissed by many people.

 

[SteveRW]

what did the policeman do that deactivated the vehicle?

Paid the ransom?

 

[Bodgerx]

If some person from the press asked you for a picture to go in an article, which would you pick? Probably the first decent picture that came to hand.
dspencer is right that no-one wants to have to worry that their (v.expensive) vehicle can have a serious risk of running amok, but this is the second case discussed on this forum, both being dissed by many people.

The question you have to ask is why all the press and photos anyway?

We've all seen these type of outrage articles, usually with an "outraged consumer" bent to them "my brand new X that cost me X left me without X!!!", with pictures of the consumer/customer, arms folded, and a face of disappointment - there's often more under the surface going on.

This could be 100% genuine, but given this person's apparent occupation, and the lack of follow up here, I think a bit of scepticism is warranted.

It's also worth noting that there is a high, high percentage of these uncontrolled acceleration incidents being driver error. Stats available if you look. Might not be the case here, but the stats tell a story.

 

[Ruislip Resident]

Paid the ransom?

Removed the drivers foot from the accelerator.

 

[Robf]

Its fantastic news, I have exactly this colour and model. Musky charges a fortune for full auto driving features, and he hasnt even released it yet. MG appear to be well ahead in this department, just wish they had told us first.

 

[jassper]

"Around 10.35 pm on Sunday, 1 October, we received a report of a driver unable to stop his electric car on the A803 heading towards Kirkintilloch," a Police Scotland spokesperson said.

"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".

ACC/Jam Assist failed to disangage? Very bizarre. But it is a computer on wheels after all.

 

[Roldorf]

There are lots of incidents of accelerator's getting stuck on cars over the last 10 years, all you have to do is type in 'accelerator stuck' and it will bring up hundreds. Ford had a case in the last few years where there was a fault on the electronic system that caused this and which they denied for a long time was a problem with the car. Eventually they admitted it and did a recall for a modification (these were not EV's).

 

[Stuart Wright]

I am late to this discussion and want to state some things.

First, there are good reasons why people will not want Brian's report to be true.
First, MG owners will likely have an inherent bias for their car and won't want to experience any negativity.
Second, the same owners won't want a bad news story to hit the residual value of their car.
Third, no EV advocates (which is generally everyone who owns an EV) will want the alarmist, exaggerated, bullshit news articles which will inevitably come from the story and which we're so sick and tired of.
Fourth, no owner will want to have the possibility of the same thing happening to them in the back of their mind. We need to trust our cars not to kill us.

On the other hand, Brian's experience could well be genuine because, well, and speaking as someone who has been a coder for decades in my career, software can contain bugs. And EVs are mobile computers.
Here is one example of a software bug resulting in a spectacularly expensive loss


So it's not impossible that Brian's report is 100% genuine and if that's the case, the man deserves sympathy for the ordeal he has experienced.

So I will invite him personally to expand on his story here in the hope that he will do so and I expect you members to be respectful as per the rules.

 

[johnb80]

First, there are good reasons why people will not want Brian's report to be true.
First, MG owners will likely have an inherent bias for their car and won't want to experience any negativity.
Second, the same owners won't want a bad news story to hit the residual value of their car.
Third, no EV advocates (which is generally everyone who owns an EV) will want the alarmist, exaggerated, bullshit news articles which will inevitably come from the story and which we're so sick and tired of.
Fourth, no owner will want to have the possibility of the same thing happening to them in the back of their mind. We need to trust our cars not to kill us.

Agreed

On the other hand, Brian's experience could well be genuine because, well, and speaking as someone who has been a coder for decades in my career, software can contain bugs.

I spent 23 years of my working life writing assembler Z80 code for high speed packaging machines, it did have it's moments for sure but when safety was concerned there was always a backup / independent / override system in place that did not rely on software. I firmly believe that all cars are no exception to this.
I always implemented watchdog hardware in my system designs (I did hardware and software), if the computer crashed for any reason it was rebooted and operational in 1 Millisecond, the user was completely unaware of it rebooting, our only clue generally was in the logs.

And EVs are mobile computers.

Not just EV's, all cars are mobile computers.

Here is one example of a software bug resulting in a spectacularly expensive loss

I always used flowcharts when programming and it's amazing how many bugs were found at this level when adapting existing code to new applications.

So it's not impossible that Brian's report is 100% genuine and if that's the case, the man deserves sympathy for the ordeal he has experienced.

It's very hard to believe some of the things reported.
The police suggesting he throw the key out of the car, that would never work because once the car is active it would dangerous if it stopped due to loss of key connection. I' sure police 'engineers' would know that.
The brakes not working, how can you possibly lose dual circuit hydraulic brakes?
Why did he not put the parking brake on?
If it was doing 15 mph as in some reports why not stay on a large roundabout and keep going round until the battery was flat (this would have been easier for the police to manage) or just drive into something solid.
Why risk calling his wife to try and get other vehicles out of the way, much better to call the police.
And a police inspector no less driving a van for him to crash into?
Why not drive into the back of his wifes car to remove danger to other road users?

So I will invite him personally to expand on his story here in the hope that he will do so and I expect you members to be respectful as per the rules.

Of course, I doubt that he will attend but you never know.
Just out of interest, if you were a juror in a court case with the evidence presented as above, how would you vote? There are three sides to every story, one, the other and the truth.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Here is one example of a software bug resulting in a spectacularly expensive loss

Let's not forget the 2 Boeing 737 Max crashes which killed 346 people. Both crashes were due to errors in the flight control systems software.

 

[Rolfe]

Saw your post, which was very interesting. I still wonder if the thread post is fake though. You've posted 45 times and I've posted 28, yet neither of us feel the need to create an avatar. Yet this user comes on and creates one straight away with his first post?

It may be he always uses that picture on forums. I created my avatar when I joined because I always use this picture and it makes my posts easier to pick out. But if it isn't his Facebook picture and it's 15 years old, that's odd.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Just out of interest, if you were a juror in a court case with the evidence presented as above, how would you vote? There are three sides to every story, one, the other and the truth.

I couldn't make a decision based on so little evidence.
And I haven't and won't trawl through all the posts in this thread.

 

[Stuart Wright]

Saw your post, which was very interesting. I still wonder if the thread post is fake though. You've posted 45 times and I've posted 28, yet neither of us feel the need to create an avatar. Yet this user comes on and creates one straight away with his first post?

Some people sign up to Gravatar which shares their avatar with all sites that support it, which this side does. So all you need to do is sign up to a site and your avatar is immediately used in your account.
Alternatively, he might be familiar with forums.
Either way, it's irrelevant to whether or not his account of the events are true.

 

[Gadget Geek]

I don't think there is much more to be said about this incident. We've all read the various accounts, we've all formed our own opinions based on the available information, and until/if MG publishes the results of their investigation, it's all speculation.

P.S. I think it would be in MG's best interest to publish an explanation for the sake of their reputation.

 

[RobinH]

Let's not forget the 2 Boeing 737 Max crashes which killed 346 people. Both crashes were due to errors in the flight control systems software.

Not strictly true.....
The root cause was failure of a sensor which had no redundant back-up. The software worked as designed, it was the input that was faulty.
The problem was compounded by Boeing not making pilots aware of the system, so the pilots had very little time to override a system that they didn't know existed.

 

[Martinonline]

It is vitally important that developers of any sort have a red team whose job is to test, and, break if necessary, the system. It is true of any system, whether hardware, software, personnel or economical - as exampled by a recent economical case and the OBR and the banks whose compliance teams were ignored/sidelined.

As to the case in question, I have my concerns and doubts. Social media offers too easy an opportunity for 5 minutes of celebrity and can be quickly picked up by other media outlets to increase their clickbait and thus advertising revenue, expanding beyond trying to report an incidence. Only Police Scotland and MG can answer the key questions which all of us require. And they are quiet on those questions.

 

[johnb80]

I don't think there is much more to be said about this incident. We've all read the various accounts, we've all formed our own opinions based on the available information, and until/if MG publishes the results of their investigation, it's all speculation.

P.S. I think it would be in MG's best interest to publish an explanation for the sake of their reputation.

Assuming MG has been involved?

 

[Gadget Geek]

Assuming MG has been involved?

RAC recovered the vehicle to a garage, presumably that would be the MG dealership, and MG have been approached for a comment apparently. I should imagine bad publicity like that would get them involved.