While sudden unintended acceleration is often scandalous stuff, most of the time it’s simply user error. From getting a floor mat or loose object caught in the accelerator pedal to hitting the gas instead of the brake and turning a local Little Caesars into a drive-thru, human screw-ups are often the biggest factor in these incidents, but they aren’t always to blame. Several reports of the Dodge Charger Daytona EV accelerating on its own are floating around, and they don’t seem to be caused by confused drivers.
The Dodge Charger Daytona hasn’t exactly had the easiest start in life. For nearly 20 years, Dodge made a name on automotive red meat in the form of rear-wheel-drive V8 muscle cars dripping with power and presence. Then, the brand announced it was phasing out the V8 Charger and Challenger for an electric car. Selling a battery-powered vehicle to the sort of crowd enamoured with the old Charger is a risky strategy, so whatever Dodge made, it had to be good.
At first, the Charger Daytona seemed somewhat promising on that front. We’re talking 670 horsepower in Scat Pack trim, zero-to-60 mph in the mid threes, three-door or five-door liftback body styles, and a new STLA Large architecture. Then the warts started appearing. The trims it launched with can’t do a burnout, the hi-po Scat Pack model only achieved 185 miles of range in Motor Trend‘s 70-MPH range test, and the car was discounted pretty much as soon as it hit dealer lots. It quickly started to look like a compromised package, but it didn’t have any allegations of serious safety issues. Not until now, at least.
In May, Edmunds reported that it was driving its Charger Daytona long-term test car when a bevy of error lights flashed on the dashboard, and the car entered a sort of limp mode. Not normal behavior, but also not the worst sort of failure to have on the road. However, when the driver put his foot back on the skinny pedal, things got spooky:
I got the Charger up to the speed of traffic OK, but then I noticed something was very wrong when I slightly lifted off the accelerator. First, the Charger wasn’t using any regenerative braking to slow itself down like it should. (In an EV, you typically lift off the accelerator and the car decelerates without using the regular friction brakes.) It wasn’t coasting, either. It was, in fact, accelerating.
I watched the speedometer and could tell the Charger was gaining speed at approximately 1 mph per second, even though I did not have a foot on the pedal.
My son was with me, so I had him take a video of what was happening. Soon, I was approaching a stop sign. I had to push on the brake pedal harder than usual to get the car to stop, but fortunately, it did stop. (Presumably, the extra effort was required to counteract the constant acceleration.) As soon as I lifted off the brake pedal, the car started accelerating again. It was a bit like the creeping forward effect you get with a regular car with an automatic transmission, but then it just kept going instead of being limited to a 2-3 mph top speed.
How far did it keep going? Well, Edmunds reports its Charger Daytona exceeded 45 MPH on its own before aborting the no-feet unintended acceleration run, and here’s video of the initial incident.
That’s not an especially fast rate of acceleration, but it’s definitely far quicker than it should be. I could see the car creeping forward at less than five MPH being normal, but footage of that Charger Daytona accelerating on its own at a fairly normal in-town pace is cause for concern. Has anyone other than Edmunds reported this same issue?
Why, yes. There’s exactly one NHTSA complaint for the 2024 Dodge Charger Daytona, and it’s for this exact issue. It was filed back in April and it details a similar pattern of limp mode then unintended acceleration as the one Edmunds experienced.
While driving, the car suddenly went into “Turtle Mode” in which the car slowed down by itself and numerous warnings on the dash board suddenly appear including “Service Electrical System”. Since I am in the middle of driving on a fairly busy street I attempt to get the car moving again and step on the accelerator pedal. The car does increase in speed but now will not stop speeding up even when I let off the gas pedal. The speed of the vehicle keeps getting faster ON IT’S OWN. I have to step on the brake and keep braking to get the car to slow down again. Then it starts to “Turtle” again and slows to a crawl. It step on the gas again and again the car starts to accelerate on it’s own even when I let off the gas pedal. I regained control using the brake alone to get the car to a safe place where I could park and turn the car off.
Two near-identical reports of the same failure are quite the coincidence, and it doesn’t stop there. As the late, great Billy Mays famously said, “But wait, there’s more.” A quick perusal of the Daytona Owners forum returns more reports of sudden intended acceleration, one of which allegedly led to a crash.
As the first post in the thread “Accelerator problems” details, user “joe and joyce charger” reports a collision involving sudden unintended acceleration. Here’s the text:
Has any one had a problem with the accelerator engaging by it self.
I had my foot on the brake and the car took off by itself going about between 50 or 70 miles per hour. Shot us through hedges and into on coming traffic causing a three car wreck. We were t-boned, side air bags exploded and appears that the car is totaled.This is the second time our car has accelerated on its own.
While firm pressure on the brake pedal or potentially even a shift to neutral should’ve cut power to the motors, in the event of an actual sudden unintended acceleration incident, not every driver will be able to apply full brake pressure in the heat of the moment.
User “NickelScat”, who reports experiencing the same issue in their Charger Daytona, concurs that sudden unintended acceleration can be a real safety issue based on the driver’s reaction to it. Curiously, this user also claims to have some data that may paint a picture of what’s going on.
My daytona is in the service center right now because of this issue. It has a 12v issue goes into limp mode and then there is some other issue and it reads the tpm at 20% or so. It accelerates on it own with no pedal input. All you can do is hold the brakes. It happened to me 3 times in 24 hours. I called the dealer and said it must be towed. I have had multiple people say the same thing is happening to them.
Is it out of control? No. Is it a death trap? No. Will I ever let my wife who’s response of freaking out the car is driving it self and that will make it dangerous… yeah she will never drive it with this issue. Neither will my kids. That is just called being smart and playing it safe. If didge can’t fix it will I lemon law it? Yes absolutely.
The thread goes on with more posts alleging sudden unintended acceleration, including one from user “Moparnocar” that sums up the experience quickly. “My car has done this twice and almost caused an accident the first time. It’s definitely a real issue.”
Now, six or seven reports of sudden unintended acceleration that seem to be caused by electronic issues wouldn’t be a huge number of complaints on a Camry, but Dodge only sold 1,947 electric Chargers in the first quarter of 2025, so by volume, it doesn’t seem like an incredibly rare problem. Also, these are just a few reports we know about because they’re public. It’s entirely possible that more owners have experienced this glitch and haven’t gone public with their stories.
Needless to say, we’ve reached out to Stellantis about this issue and will update you when we hear back. Until then, it certainly seems like Dodge Charger Daytona EVs can, under the right circumstances, accelerate on their own when they really shouldn’t, and that could be a real safety hazard. Knowing that public reports of this problem exist, it’s likely an internal investigation is underway, and we’ll be keeping an eye on this story as it develops.
Update: Stellantis has commented on the situation stating that if pedal communication is lost, the car accelerating on its own is an intentional feature.
In the rare event of an accelerator pedal fault, Stellantis has implemented a ‘drive-by-brake’ safety feature, which allows the driver to control speed through the brake pedal. In this instance, the feature worked as intended, and the driver was able to safely maneuver the vehicle off the road. This feature has been in Stellantis internal combustion engine vehicles for many years and has been carried over to battery electric vehicles.
Top graphic image: Stellantis
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My spouse’s luxury hybrid cruise control bothers me in a similar manner. You press one button to both turn on and set your speed. Sometimes that button will also let you set your speed to a new value. Occasionally, it will act as a resume button. (Why?)
The button below it will “+” your set speed, or it might “resume” depending upon what the situation is. Sometimes I’ll press the top “set” button and it will shut everything off and I’ll start slowing down. Most of the time, it will work as expected, setting my cruise to the indicated speed.
The variable “Resume” button has me getting off the highway and trying to set to 35-45mph and it will try to zoom up to 70. WTF! This is something that was resolved with cruise control decades ago!
I should not have to think about this! Let me instinctually choose a new set speed with one, predictable button!
Of course, this isn’t great for Charger Daytona owners, or for Stellantis but it’s not the end of the world (thus far) either. Gas cars suffer from unintended acceleration occasionally, just as they catch fire and even explode from time to time. The same things happen once in a while to EVs… we just hear about every bad thing that happens now almost immediately, since everyone’s got a video camera in their pocket all the time these days, and they’re all quick on the draw in a never ending quest for social media clicks/likes/cred. I’ve personally witnessed incidents where instead of helping, bystanders just transformed into paparazzi. As our Great Pumpkin often says, it’s just sad. 🙁
This electronic/software snafu is probably good for people who might want to pick up a base Charger Daytona at some point in the future, since it will further accelerate depreciation, which already seems rapid. I do NOT wish to see that happen… Stellantis has enough trouble on their plate as it is, and I for one would like to see them prosper since some of their brands make very interesting and appealing cars, and since so many people work for them.
Cars are complex (well, most cars made after the 1960s anyway) and no matter what propels them, they store concentrated energy in order to function. Inevitably, that’s going to lead to issues from time to time. Most minor, but sometimes, these will be severe enough to be potentially fatal.
Walking is less dangerous, though the chance of getting hurt doing that is never actually zero.
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PS: with a little luck, 24 hours from now I will have purchased my third (and oldest) Volvo. Fingers crossed. 🙂
Given all the screens and how everything is pointlessly now interconnected, it’s annoying that they can’t just pop up a message saying something like “Lost communication with throttle sensor, entering 20% limp home mode” to both make fixing the issue far easier and to calm down the driver as to why the car’s behaving unexpectedly.
I had this issue on an old Jaguar XK8. If the throttle position sensor stops working, the car does a slow acceleration so that you can limp it to a shop. The jag topped it’s speed out at 25mph, so it’s odd the charger would go up to 45mph, but brakes still work normally.
Im guessing there’s going to be a recall to make sure the TPS was properly installed on these
That update is crazy and just shows why I love throttle cables. This electronic crap scares me.
There’s no reason to fear it. I had the same problem on the old jag. Its a feature, not a bug. The computer accelerates slowly so you can limp it to a shop. The brakes function normally and stop the acceleration. Its a good solution to a throttle position sensor breaking
Fair. I still don’t like it. But I acknowledge that slow acceleration should not be an issue for people.
There’s every reason to fear it. You would too if your throttle body unexpectly slammed shut in the center lane of a 3-lane interstate in Texas that was bumper-to-bumper at 80mph (happened in my 2009 Mustang GT/CS). I don’t trust throttle by wire one damned bit. I work on them too much at the shop, and have that experience in my back pocket as well.
Your throttle body doesn’t slam shut. It’s a very gentle acceleration, 1mph per second usually. Its just enough to limp you to a shop.
I’ve had a throttle cable break on me once giving me no ability to accelerate, and two throttle cables get stuck full throttle where the only recourse is to turn off the car while you’re driving, both of those seem far more scary than it defaulting to 20% throttle, especially if it’s smart enough to cut throttle to 0% immediately after you touch the brakes which I’m not sure this one is.
“ This feature has been in Stellantis internal combustion engine vehicles for many years”
Well all internal combustion engine vehicles with automatic transmissions do that. It’s one of the reasons I hate torque converters so much. Sure it’s not so bad now with computers controlling everything, but in the days of carbs it really sucked if you had to keep the idle speed up to not stall the engine and had to put the brake on to not drive away. Well maybe if you drove automatics all the time you got used to it, but switching back and forth sucked. Especially coming to a stop and muscle memory for stomping on the clutch kicks in.
Seems sort of like designing early cars to accelerate and loose steering and brakes when there was a sudden loud noise because that was something horses did.
To be fair, I witnessed an accident caused by this feature of automatic transmissions. We had just walked out of the station in Bern, when a city flatbed truck stopped at a light. Behind them stopped a shiny-new A8 with Geneva plates with what looked like a couple of 18-year-olds up front.
The Audi starts rolling, slowly. The kid took his foot off the brake. We watch as it rolls right into the back of the City’s finest.
It is the solemn duty of every witness in Switzerland to point and laugh, while the city employees in their Hi-Viz dismount to see who managed to rear-end them while parked.
To be fair to the poor teenagers who trashed their rich uncle’s ride, my partner can’t drive an automatic either. And I’ve terrified my mother in a US rental by trying to clutch in while stopping.
It doesn’t really have much to do with the torque converter though. When you lose comminication with the TPS, the computer is essentially accelerating for you and doing the throttle inputs on its own. That’s why it accelerates so slowly and stops at a set speed
I was talking about torque converters in carburetor era cars where the stall speed of the torque converter would be below the idle speed of the engine. Especially at a stoplight where you would tip into the throttle to fast, the engine would go too rich and the car would get to the middle of the intersection with the engine stalled out.
The alternatives were to adjust the carb to idle faster and the torque converter engaged, or replace the converter with a high stall speed converter. Neither solutions are practical in borrowed or rented cars.
Supposedly designing the converter with a higher stall speed and a little bit of a clunk when it engages was deemed th be worse than the car just driving off when your foot wasn’t in the brake.
In drive by wire systems it’s crazy to program the car to creep from a stop with your foot off of the gas.
I have twice seen people in hybrids come to a stop with their foot on the brake for a minute or so, get out of the car, and after a minute or so the car slowly drives into a whatever stops it. Fortunately it was a ditch and a parked car in the two incidents I saw, not a person or traffic.
Wasn’t some tv actor killed by his own car pinning him to a wall in an incident like that? I believe that was a modern ICE car with an automatic, but can’t remember what the failure mode was.
My EV puts it in park when I open the door, so I suspect past accidents led to a solution
Sounds like the idle screw vibrated out of adjustment.
Sounds like a Boeing system..l
2,000 bonus points for the driver’s eyes in the first photo.