All eyes remain on the Tesla Cybertruck. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the silvery wedge since finally making its long-overdue debut on the market, with glitches including videos depicting difficulty in dealing with snow, corrosion worries despite its stainless-steel skin, and sidewall-eating wheel covers marring its positive press.
The latest Cyber-bug, however, could be a showstopper – and literally a sales-stopper, as Tesla has allegedly halted deliveries of the pickup as customer complaints about scary stuck-throttle incidents have begun to appear.
News of halted deliveries hit the Cybertruck Owners Forum this past weekend. Reservation holders have reported being told their deliveries had been canceled due to an “unexpected delay.” Affected customers weren’t directly notified as to the reason for the cancellations.
At this time, it’s widely believed that an accelerator-pedal issue is behind Tesla’s decision to temporarily halt deliveries. Supporting this is a TikTok video from Cybertruck owner @el.chepito1985. He describes what happened when his truck’s accelerator pedal came apart in a way that prevented the pedal from lifting and disengaging the throttle. Thankfully the driver’s quick reactions allowed him to avoid a crash.
@el.chepito1985 serious problem with my Cybertruck and potential all Cybertrucks #tesla #cyberbeast #cybertruck #stopsale #recall
The cause of the issue appears to be the accelerator pedal’s cover. As seen in the video, the metal-trimmed plastic cover separated from the plastic pedal underneath. The cover slid up the pedal and caught in the edge of the lower dash panel, jamming the accelerator pedal in its maximum-throttle position. The driver was able to stop the Cybetruck by hitting the brake, which overrode the signal from the accelerator pedal. The vehicle was safely brought to a stop and put in park, at which point the issue became obvious.
It’s a simple problem, but one that could absolutely explain why Tesla has stopped delivering Cybertrucks. In the video, we can see the cover appears to merely clip onto the actual pedal. There’s no obvious adhesives or other fasteners helping to hold it in place.
As we’ve seen in previous cases of unintended acceleration, all it takes is a poorly designed floor mat or piece of trim to jam the throttle wide open. In such a situation, a driver can easily lose control of the vehicle. Outcomes are typically worse if the driver panics due to sudden acceleration. Thus, rectifying the issue before more trucks ship out to customers makes perfect sense. Failure to do so could lead to dangerous crashes, injuries, or worse.
This could be an easy fix for Tesla. The company could arrange for manual rework of existing trucks by riveting or gluing the accelerator pedal covers in place if they are, indeed, not already glued or riveted together. A good epoxy would do the job well, though Tesla may elect to install a fastener for additional peace of mind.
At this stage, we can’t be 100% certain that the accelerator pedal cover is the root cause behind the delivery halt or even if deliveries are halted. In part, this is because Tesla does not provide a press contact to advise us on these issues. The Autopian has contacted the NHTSA for comment on whether a stop-sale order is in place, and we will update this story as more information becomes available.
Since we’re talking about it, this is also a great time to educate yourself on what to do in a stuck-throttle situation. It’s good to remember that modern vehicles have powerful brakes which are often capable of stopping the vehicle even under such conditions. Some modern drive-by-wire vehicles will also cancel the throttle command when the brake is applied. You can also shift into neutral to disconnect the engine from the transmission in an ICE-powered vehicle. In vehicles with a pushbutton starter, holding the engine start button down will kill the engine or cut drive power. In a key-start vehicle, you can use the key to turn the engine off, but you may lose power steering and power braking, and you may lock the steering wheel if you’re not careful.
Fundamentally, though, the video above is a bad look for Tesla. A vehicle’s basic controls should be stout and properly manufactured. It’s poor form to see pedals falling apart on a brand-new vehicle. Here’s hoping the problem can be sorted quickly and no injuries or crashes result from this flaw.
Image credits: Tesla, el.chepito1985 via TikTok screenshot
Time to run some self tappers in to the base of that pedal I suppose
That’s not too bad. The front could have fallen off instead.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
always worth a post.
There are also a lot of videos of warning regarding steering. The steering did not fail but it wanted people to pull over immediately. May be software, may be a controller or some sort. Either way its a pretty terrifying warning as is this pedal problem. Hope they get it worked out because regardless of how we feel about the truck if people like it then I want them to be able to drive it.
I’ve heard of one guy on x, losing all power while driving, including steer by wire.
This is the gold standard of auto design fail.
Also known as “pique design”.
Fkn genius.
This and the wheel covers were particularly shocking stuff. The fact they make mistakes like this is very odd to me.
Is it though? It seems pretty on-brand.
I’m sorry I can’t trust a influencer with a poor connection. I had this issue with an Isuzu Amigo. My floor mats slid forward pushed the throttle cable and kept it reving. Check cybertruck for Matt’s with no grip or cheap aftermarket. Funny the awrite software that has been around for decades can’t accept mats without changing to a proper name. It is computer programmers ignoring their weaknesses and pushing for we have the solutions for everything. I wager inside of 10 years computer involvement in cars will control a lot less functions. It’s idiots writing code for performance they know nothing about.
Can we get an article about all the promises made by geeks that were to solve issues but never did but accusations and blame why they haven’t done anything promised?
um wat.png
What is um wat.png?
An accomplice to linguicide.
What does killing linguine have to do with it?
Pretty sure the teams that designed and manufactured the physical thing you press on with a body part to make the car go were *not* the software engineering team.
Tesla does so many stupid things, so often that I have run out of snark.
Sounds to me like the Cybertruck got the “move fast and break things” memo.
Seems like the article is unfairly stacked against the Cybertruck. Is Autopian just tying to get clicks by jumping on the spaceman-bad bandwagon? Some of the other problems mentioned here are non issues like getting stuck in snow without winter tires, which nearly every truck will do, and the corrosion issue was suspected to be metal dust debris on top of the stainless steel, not the stainless steel itself corroding. That being said I would not want to be one of the pple that paid 20k extra to get the first ones. Like every car on the market the later ones are often better as kinks get worked out. But then again the people that paid 20k extra are enjoying a truck that has more celebrity appeal than a Lambo or a Bugatti and their investment has appreciated considerably despite some publications trying to paint the values of Cybertrucks as falling, even though resale value is still more than sticker price…oh yeah. that was Autopian as well! What was that catch phrase that the orange guy used to use??? Fake news?
A. You did not address the issue of the pedal falling apart. That is what the article is mainly about.
B. The article you are referencing discussed that CTs aren’t selling for *as much* above sticker as they had been. They provided some auction results to support their argument. So prices are falling as compared to where they had been. They did not say CTs were immediately depreciating.
Yeah, idiots with Priuses and loose floor mats crashed into shit, but a 7k lbs POS with sharp corners and ridiculous power running away from someone isn’t a problem? Is that you, Elon? I hope it is because someone without a financial stake in this defending the indefensible is even more sad. It’s a f’n throttle pedal cover—something almost every other car has had for years—that they couldn’t figure out how to secure properly or did they just reject everyone else’s effective solution because it wasn’t disruptive enough? I could leave that task to a middle schooler and get better results, which is ironic in that Elon’s emotional level is that of an immature middle schooler and, well, here they are.
Easy fix. Just get a spray can of air grade marine epoxy. Strong stuff.
https://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4280079687_9841636e8d_o.jpg
So that’s it? The throttle pedal cover came off? Clearly Tesla does have to take this seriously and come up with a fix.
But if I had one of these, I would just take the cover off and keep driving it until a fix was in place.
What do you mean that’s it? Do you not understand what could very likely happen if this were to happen while actually driving?
you push the brakes, the ecu cuts power and you stop. This isn’t a cable driven throttle body. That actually gets stuck.
Yeah, because humans always act reasonably when in panicky situations.
Not only that, his “solution” still involves a decent amount of time. What happens in tons of scenarios where you don’t have time like when you’ve got someone right in front/behind you like at a stop light, parking lot, crosswalk, etc. “Well, I did only mount the car in front of me, at least I didn’t completely run it over”.
So you’re saying it’s *not* reasonable to expect someone to stand on the brakes in a panic situation?
That’s stupid.
I’m saying that’s far from a perfect solution.
The little kid you just ran over in the extra second it took you to react and slam on the brakes because your car accelerated when you didn’t expect it to, will be oh so glad that you were able to stop and not hit the kid in the next crosswalk.
“you push the brakes, the ecu cuts power and you stop”
+ 1
Exactly what I was about to say.
I’d be less worried about it if the car wasn’t a 3 ton metal brick that did 0-60 in 2.6 seconds – that’s a very short time for someone to figure out what’s happening to their very heavy metal object.
On a related note I was cut off by a Cyberturd for the first time last week. I was on the freeway heading to work and glanced up at the overpass since the state patrol likes to station a motor cycle cop up there with 4-5 cars on the on ramp when doing their revenue enhancement actions. While the railing obscures most of a vehicles body the speed square of trucks stood out and I immediately knew what it was. Get down the road a bit and what do I see in my rear view mirror but presumably the same truck. He was barely past me when he put on his turn signal (shocking, I know) and proceeded to pull in front of me leaving ~2 car lengths between us. Yes for the record I think it looks as bad in person as it does in pictures.
2 car lengths counts as being cut off?
2 car lengths is way too short a distance at highway speeds. Call it around 40 feet, whereas the minimum 2 second following distance is somewhere north of 165 feet, depending on the exact speed. If autopilot decides to slam on the brakes because it saw a crack in the road it didn’t like there’s no way you’re stopping in time to avoid hitting them if they pull in that close.
I find that a lot of people forget this when passing on the highway. If you’re going similar speeds you should be waiting until you’re around 2 seconds ahead before pulling back in (if possible, there are exceptions of course). Otherwise you’ve just created a spacing problem for no reason.
In even moderate traffic times it’s not realistic to expect there to be gaps between cars of 165 feet. If there’s more than 2 cars on the highway at any time and you want to overtake one but not the other, does there need to be a gap of 330 feet between them so that once you merge in there’s 165 feet between each car?
That’s why I said “there are exceptions of course”. But in general, yes, you should try not to squeeze into gaps between cars that are going to cause everyone to have a problem if something unexpected happens.
Well it might have been a bit dramatic, but the fact is I had been leading the pack with no vehicles in front of me for at least 1/4mi, and the vehicle behind him was well behind him so no reason to make such a quick lane change in front of me at freeway speeds.
You weren’t driving slowly in the passing lane without passing anyone… were you?
Because I have to say that I have deliberately cut people off exactly like that for driving slowly in the passing lane.
But on a related note… it’s fucking bullshit that police put 90% of their traffic enforcement effort into issuing speeding tickets and practically no time on all the other traffic laws… such as those related to lane discipline.
No I was in the right of two lanes, doing 65 in a 60 with no cars in front of either of us for at least a 1/4mi.
They that’s my video and my truck!
Hey Jose, thanks for sharing the video!
How’s the Cybertruck treating you? I’d love to hear more about it.
No way!
… Jose
Sorry, I had to :p
Did you get this sorted out?
Home Depot to the rescue again! A little sanding followed by construction adhesive and it’ll be right as rain! That goop sticks to everything.
Yeah I was working on a house where they had glued their windows in with PL9000
Appropriate since the CT looks like it was built with materials from Home Depot.
a comment of pure ignorance. I for one have seen one in person and nothing about it seems cheap or looks like its from a hardware store. In fact I would say that I’m impressed with how well it is built.
Elon’s not gonna be your friend, you can stop with the bootlicking.
There was a poster on the cybertruck forum two weeks or so ago claiming that his truck did not decelerate after he released the accelerator pedal, causing him to hit a pole. The forums tore him a new one for either operator error or some sort of anti-Tesla actor. I looked at the forums again after this and they’re talking about owing him an apology!
Nothing a little JB Weld can’t fix.