JagFire
 

Wow. According to online news feeds a Jaguar Ipace was brought to a halt by police cars on the M25 on Wesnesday.

It was out of control, with the terrified driver calling the police for help. Speeding at 90 mph and the driver unable to stop it or reduce speed. The police driver overtook and got in front, allowed the distance between them to gradually reduce until touching, and another police car got behind it. They forced it to stop without crashing.

In the same article there was a report that some 6000 EV’s in the USA have been withdrawn due to batteries catching fire. It’s most odd not to see any UK news progs featuring that. Oh, and it won’t do the massive sales publicity any good either.

What the heck has one of ‘our’ best manufacturers been thinking of to risk their hard earned reputation with this ridiculous ‘Zero’ fallacy.

Also on-line today is a ressurected article about the same problem a couple of years ago;
except this Jag driver experienced the problem twice.

First time; car back to dealer, 24 hrs later returned with AOK.
2 or 3 months later, it happened again.

All went very quiet about the MG ZS that experienced something similar last year and the police had to do a 'controlled collision'.
I'm not against the move away from fossil fuel powered vehicles, I just don't think that chucking all our eggs in the 'electric' basket is necessarily the way forward - especially if there's no fail safe.

Yes, it’s most odd that serious flaws appear in newish technology and receive precious little condemnation from any source. Not that it is life threatening, of course. I don’t suppose it’s a case of all the eggs being scrambled on the back of a fag packet either? Especially when non-EV classics are surprisingly achieving so much gain in general popularity. It’s probably nothing more than an anomaly. On the other hand....

I wonder if this is actually true, and not a story that "went viral". I've heard the very same story two or three times over the years but in those cases they were internal combustion cars. I think one story was about one or more Ford models that ran away, and the other affected Toyota.

My very strong suspicion is that those Ford and Toyota events never actually happened, but several people claim it did, either for their 15 minutes of Internet fame, or hoping for lots of lovely money in compensation.

Take this current report. The police car used its brakes to stop the car, yes? So the brakes were sufficient to overcome the Ipace motor, agreed? In that case, surely the driver could have used his own brakes to the same effect.

Also, why was it travelling at 90mph? I can just about imagine a fault condition that put the motor up to full power, but 90mph is a suspicious number to me. It's too convenient - not fast enough to be truly dangerous (as it would be if it were stuck at its maximum speed), but it's fast enough to make a dramatic story. It's also slow enough to make the police car rescue feasible. I don't think it would have been feasible at the Ipace's maximum speed.

The problem I have is that several things have to fail at the same time to make this event feasible, and simultaneous failures like this are very rare.

1/ Something would need to be wrong with the sensing of the throttle pedal position.

2/ At the same time, something would need to stop the main on/off switch from working.

3/ And also at the same time the brakes would have to fail.

Jaguar aren't idiots - there will be extensive fail-safe measures built in to the car. I smell the reek of b u l l s h i t here. Some guy wants his moment in the spotlight, or maybe wants some money from Jaguar.

I MIGHT BE WRONG! But I want to express my doubts all the same.

Of course reportage is, after all, just one version and subjective at that.
However, given the possible reaction to guesswork and phoney fairy tales by a vested interest to the tune of $billions, they must have a reasonable assumption of accuracy!

The point about the brakes not operating might be moot. Apparently the supposed lack of friction is invalid – there was a major electric circuit failure, presumably causing circuit total failure through fire. If anyone knows better we can be sure it will emerge given the world wide commercial interest.

How can another vehicle stop the car by the method reported? I understand that EVs are very powerful? So even if the police car could slow it down/stop it, surely the motor is going to keep on turning and so too the drive chain and therefore the wheels. I would expect to see plumes of tyre smoke.

Not sure how this all works out? No doubt Jaguar will have the car in and on the factory diagnostics to dispel the story.

But why? When those petrol-powered cars were doing the same thing years ago (allegedly) there would still need to be an unfeasible set of simultaneous failures:

1/ Throttle (or cruise control) stuck wide open, PLUS

2/ Failure of the ignition switch to switch off, PLUS

3/ Failure of the brakes, PLUS

4/ Failure of the transmission to change into neutral

All simultaneous failures. OK, maybe I'm missing something, but it looks vanishingly unlikely to me. Compare it with this:

1/ Vehicle is fine but driver wants his 15 minutes of fame plus damages, so pretends the vehicle is running away and makes a frantic phone call.

I know which I think is most likely.

I'm not sure what your point is about the $billions; the media will publish a story like this without hesitation, so long as the incident actually happened.

If I recall correctly, the Toyota incident just sort of faded away with no resolution. I recall some theory about the carpet mat coming loose and jamming the throttle pedal, but to the best of my recollection that was never proved and remained a "could have been".

Engineers are very, very aware of the potential risk of cruise control failing in such a way as to hold the throttle wide open. Extensive failure analysis and modelling is performed, and layers of fail-safe are built in. Of course, it is impossible to guarantee that no failure will ever happen, but it is beyond extremely unlikely.

To be fair, @wraymond, I don't know enough about the failure modes of modern electric or hybrid cars, so I am less than 100% certain that this is not a real runaway event.

If convincing evidence comes along I will gladly change my mind and declare my scepticism to be misplaced.