RUNAWAY JAGUAR I-PACE - ARE ELECTRIC CARS DANGEROUS? 

Check the Liverpool echo today. Man arrested over this.

It would be an inherent ipace design flaw that only seems to happen on that particular car to that particular driver

My gut feeling is that this and similar examples of "run away" vehicles is driver error. Either engaging cruise control or panicking and flooring the accelerator or a mix of both. Or maybe floor mats, water bottles etc fouling the pedals. The brakes would still work even if everything has failed. I've experienced this in Nissan & Renault EVs as a dead 12V battery can cause what feels like brake failure and the pedal feels like it sinks to the floor, but they are still working and the vehicle does stop, but just not so quickly and of course it scares the sh*t out of you. You still have a handbrake too and in my two cases I've experienced this, I did have to also use the handbrake to assist the braking. Whether that's a manual or electric park brake, they would (or should) still work if other systems are faulty. I'd bet driver error and cruise control accidentally engaged, then complete panic. But as you say, nothing to do with this (and others) being EVs. Probably more a case of the driver not used to a modern vehicle with all the new tech!

My father just before he stopped driving had a couple of incidents of hitting the wrong pedal. He was persuaded to give up which seeing as he was in his early nineties was the right decision. Many drivers in their eighties change to automatics (a big red flag) before stuffing their car into the back wall of their garage or into parked cars etc. The ipace and police car combo looks like a meeting of a couple of miles per hour.

This sounds like the owner is using "electrical gremlins" to explain away speeding as he mentions it happened before but just kept accelerating to 125mph, right you are son!

He pressed the brake and the car accelerated.. pretty obvious he was pressing the accelerator. Several people tried to accuse Tesla of the same thing but they were able to produce data logging that showed the driver was pressing the wrong pedal. My daughter did this learning to drive approaching a roundabout on the A1, fortunately she got to the real brake pedal at the last moment.

Imagine if you had your kids in the car traveling at 120 mph.

So, in order for this to have happened as the driver claimed, the following all needed to occur at the same time. Taking his foot off the accelerator did not cut power to the motors. The physical connection to the brakes did not work. Regenerative braking failed. A short circuit between the brake light wiring and the accelerator happened and made the car go faster. And a police car was able to stop a 2 tonne car with almost 700Nm of torque driving all for wheels with no braking without any damage to either car. Seems legit.

I live less than 500 mtrs from junction 11-12where this happened, I saw all the emergency vehicles and traffic jams relating to this incident and it was a complete gridlock! Top marks to the police who brought this incident to a happy ending. If it. Was it a car mat or electrical fault no one was harmed and other ice cars have gone through faults like this. Full marks to GMP for their excellent work👍

Sounds a bit strange to me. I hope the truth comes out soon

I have had piles of junk in my time, many failed to start ,but none ever failed to stop.

The car's short-term telemetry record will show all when its analysed

Interesting developments. Wednesday, 13th of March, a 31 year old from Bolton has been taken into custody on suspicion of dangerous driving and causing a public nuisance. Let's see how much air time that gets from the usual subjects.

Maybe it happened with the same car previously, because it had the same floor mats in it.

Something very similar happened to a lorry on the M1 in 1989. Pretty sure that was not an electric vehicle.

In driving incidents such as this. The fault is usually traced to 'The Nut behind the wheel'. 🤣

The Toyota issue you mentioned is an interesting one. Whilst software, mats etc were blamed when the data from the cars was examined in a large number of cases the brakes had never been pressed. My gut feeling is the guy did his overtake, eased off and the cruise control took over, he panicked, pressed the brake and hit the throttle instead. There's simply no way for both a throttle problem and a brake fail to occur at exactly the same time, it simply doesn't happen. Can I believe a throttle can jam - yeah, why not (I've even had it back in the 70's when a frayed throttle cable prevented the throttle returning) but brake failure at the same time? Nah. If there was a problem and he tried controlling the speed with the brakes then sure they'd fail eventually but the overheating will be obvious when examined but for a short time at least even whilst fighting the cars motor the brakes should work well enough to stop the car. Hopefully Jaguar will report their findings - not that the EV doubters will listen. Folk still tell me the car fire in Luton was an EV or at the very least an hybrid, that diesel doesn't burn and pointing them to actual information is usually met with "well they would say that wouldn't they?".

Rat and smell spring to mind , especially when the Daily Mail is mentioned.

I’ll remember this when I get flashed when speeding in an electric car.

About 650 accidents happen each year in the UK due to brake failures. Modern cars, all modern cars have complicated electronic control systems and yet this is apparently the first reported failure on an EV. In other words, nothing to see here but of course the MacNutters will be all over it like dogs hit on your she's.

It happened to the driver before ! Maybe operator error or after market floor mats not fitting the security mounts to stop then entangling with the foot controls.

I did once, in an EV, accidentally put the car in neutral whilst trying to deactivate cruise control. I was on a downhill gradient and was momentarily alarmed that the car was ‘accelerating' when I was not touching any pedals. Thinking I was still in cruise control I tried lowering the speed with steering wheel buttons but kept accelerating. Regen was doing nothing as I was in neutral. However, after a few panicked seconds of analysis I realised my error and put it back in gear - normal service was resumed.

Cheers brilliant video providing a voice of reason as per usual 👍👍

I had listen to the story of this runaway ev eccellerating to 120 mph I didn't believe it then and now it's supposedly has happened again now when you listen to the story he says he came off the motorway down towards some red lights but could not stop and says he needed to get to the other side of the motorway. Now there's no way he could have gone round at 120mph. There was some pictures showing the jaguar I pace and police car there was no way they kept bumping the police to try and slow them down. I think this is just bullshit myself what load of malarky😂

Sounds much like pedal misapplication, meaning the driver pressed the accelerator rather than the brake pedal and then panicked

thanks for doing this video. I’d have thought the police would have heard this reason for speeding before. Did the driver put the drive sector into neutral so that it coasted? Imagine if the Ami went into an uncontrolled acceleration….

This was found to be 100% driver error and the driver was arrested later for dangerous driving.

Probably a 'bit flip' error, Toyota also had issues with that happening and it was such a concern that the US government asked NASA to help them resolve it. Basically what happens is that a high speed subatomic particle hits a transistor in the cars ECU , modern transistor are so miniscule that the transistor can become stuck on. This can result in issues like sudden unexplained braking or permanent acceleration if the system doesn't have enough error checking to spot the problem. It's why NASA and Aerospace industries install multiple computers checking each others results so they can avoid exactly this kind of problem.

When it approached the rear of the police car would it have a collision warning system to slow the car down which may account for lack of damage? I don't know if they have this on the I-pace.

Been watching your videos for a while but only recently subscribed Wonderful, honest content and you come across really great If you’re ever in Kent (and you like a pint) first 3 beers are on me! Top lovely fella !!!

Does the I-PACE use brake regenerative charging to recover the kinetic energy of the moving car in order to partially recharge the battery thus improving the miles per charge? In a crude version of this, the electric motor that drives the wheels becomes a generator which then recharges the battery: the energy transfer causes the braking effect. Is it possible that the Jag system that controlled the direction of flow from and to the battery became "confused"? Also, how does regenerative braking work if the car also has a standard dual circuit hydraulic braking system? Any thoughts please?

There seem to be a lot of people in here that think this was driver error. Comments saying that there should have been smoke from spinning wheels, no dents on the car etc. If you listen to the drivers account of both incidents, in the first instance, after much pressing of the gear button, he was able to get the car into neutral, and the car therefore slowed down in a controlled manner. On the second instance (after JLR had told him there was no issue with the car) he was unable to put the car into neutral, but the GOM said he had 20 miles left when the police arrived, so they drove with him for the few miles that were really left (was a lot less than 20 in reality, when your doing 100mph with the brakes on) and then as soon as the battery ran out the car slowed down in a controlled manner. Interesting that it didn’t go into LIMP mode when the battery reached under 5%, but full power continued to be delivered. There is something seriously wrong with his car. Other issues he had reported to Jaguar before these events occurred were that the GOM showed highest range when he was in sports mode, and lowest when he was in ECO mode. He also mentioned that the police had taken the vehicle on the second occasion - are they doing their own tests on it first before handing over to JLR this time ?

The driver has been arrested now on nuisance charges

So if the car was speeding up & the police stopped it via the tpac method. Why is there no smoke from the tyres, as they would still be spinning like mad. Given the description of the error.. Motor is in runaway mode. Or is it just a case that the issues simply disappeared when stopped? Mmm Convenient that the reason is car run out of charge.

As this is now awaiting a posible court case. I was wondering if this had happened would putting the key in a Faraday pouch stop the car. On my Hybrid to put the E brake on you have to go into neutral.

As a PCV instructor dealing with buses with a range of power trains my first instinct is pedal confusion. Most drivers get lazy with their feet and leave them hanging over the throttle pedal, and then when they want to brake their foot automatically falls on to the throttle and shoots the vehicle forward. They then stamp on the throttle even more in a panic causing an even greater acceleration into the situation they’re trying to avoid. As the driver said this has happened before I would suggest he gets some serious retraining in where to put their feet and what to do if it happens again. What I teach my trainee bus drivers is, firstly, always cover the brake when you’re not actually using the throttle. Secondly, if you do have, either, a runaway engine, or pedal confusion, then immediately put the gear selector into neutral, put your right leg up to the steering column and press the brake until the bus comes to halt. Then apply the hand brake and breath! If the Jaguar driver had done that then we wouldn't be talking about it now.

I do wonder if he had been speeding and developed this problem to claim it was not his fault. More than likely he pushed the accelerator as I do not see any way it would accelerate, unless he was using crusie control and not turning up the steroe but increasing the speed. Other fact that the car had little front end damage seems very odd if the car was still trying to accelerate.

An excellent video response and explanation of the points raised in the ipace story. Personally it would seem strange to have come to the conclusion so quickly to phone the police, in both instances, straightaway rather than try everything to stop yourself first. Also noted from the photo alone that as the police car in front brought it to a stop the car seems to have stopped driving itself forward, because from other instances of this in other countries the vehicle is still trying to drive but there are no marks on the road surface to suggest it was still trying to drive forward at that time. The only thing that concerns me on ours is the electric handbrake, I'd much rather have the old manual one as you do. All the best from a driver of all types of on and off road vehicles for 40+ years.

Similar happened last year with an MG ZS driver in Scotland and that also had lurid headlines in the gutter press. Strange we have never heard anything more about that incident so could it have been the old rubber footwell mat in the wrong place or not of a type approved by the car maker as well?

Hopefully there will be a multi-party investigation into this and the outcome made known to the public. Something not quite right about this story.

Electric drive system, can use the electric motors for braking. I had a very well known German vehicle with a petrol engine. When you put your indicator on, the suspension would go down. The electrics were called fly by wire, at some stage whilst driving the wiring loom had an interruption in the circuit. (Sterring joint opened cable connection for a second) There after 1+1 could = 9. It's all in 0000, the longer the 00 the high priority. Breaking had the highest rating, so if 0 = 9 breaking would not have a priority.

I had runaway petrol car through an electrical fault but just switched off the ignition it was possible to drive it another 30miles in a fairly safe manner except the odd steering lock moment's so why can these ev not be stopped by a long push of the start button.

I read the brake booster on the I-pace is electrically operated and runs off the 12v system.

I agree with you. Something doesn’t add up to me especially when he claims the car sped up to 100 mph. There is no way could you stop a car at or anywhere near that speed without substantial damage to the car and the police car at the front. And as you say the brakes are pretty much the same as any car hydronic fluid based. Plus the I pace has regenerative braking and if it is capable of 1 pedal driving that could bring it to a stop because that doesn’t use the brake pedal. I have seen on more than one occasion we’re people mean to go for the brake pedal and press the throttle pedal by accident but panic and instead of going for the brake press the throttle even harder. I would like to know the outcome of this so if there is any way you can find out please do another video on it.

Apparently it wasn’t his first rodeo in this but it can only be mats or driver error and pressed the wrong pedal. I should swop it to my Mokka e as top speed is (eventually) 95!

Hi Gary, do you know what is happening with the Gridserve Chargers at dobbies Garden Centre in Hardwicke Gloucester ? They are still covered and being used for customer parking 😂

You are right , any car with fly by wire control ie most if not all modern cars . As to the brakes not working, again any motor either electric or ice at full power the brakes will be next to useless. I was told this many years ago on my first day as an apprentice mechanic, when I was raving the first car I was told to start .

Must remember this if I'm stopped for speeding Look at the Mail on line, there's a picture of the front of the car, not a blemish, follow the link in the story text to the runaway MG ZS, there's a video interview with the driver sat in his MG car that he had to crash into a police van to stop, not a blemish on the front either. Where's the calendar, is it April the first already? Love the Mail

Thanks, it was the Daily Mail. If the investigation exonerates the car and blames driver/car mats etc, you will never hear about it again as it does not fit the anti EV agenda, but yes it does need investigating.

I've worked in the motor industry for long enough to be pretty confident I know what was at fault. The nut behind the wheel (the driver for those who didn't get that)! Operator error 'faults' increased around the time cars got 'smart' and decided for themselves to do certain functions. There's no way two independ faults causing the brakes to completely fail, and the car to accelerate to 100mph to happened simultaneously.

The same thing was happening 30+ years ago in ICE vehicles. As usual, certain groups are jumping on it as an inherent issue with EVs, when they haven't bothered with even minimal research. Not like them...

Wasn't there a similar issue with an MG ZS not long back? What was the outcome of that?

Police are not selected for smarts. First red flag. Daily Mail involved in any way. Second red flag. Direct quote from Kent Police approved speed awareness course: "Adaptive Cruise Control is dangerous, especially in rain because it might suddenly break hard and lose control of your car so don't use it unless there's no traffic" . Totally unbiased, MENSA level extremely well informed advice from plod as usual 🙌😂

Pressing a pedal and the car gets faster. Suggests to me he was pressing the accelerator. If he wasn’t used to electric or automatic cars. As it sounds like Jaguar have since declared the car hasn’t got a problem, and the driver has been arrested, that does seem to be the logical conclusion. If it is happening to EVs, then that is because EVs are being driven by people who have not previously driven an automatic transmission vehicle.

I’ve seen an article that tells the Ipacecstory and then reminds us of the mysterious Scottish runaway MG ZS EV. That event does not seem to have been explained fully with a report on the outcome of the MG UK investigation.

Ngl on first glance it's easy to build a case against the I Pace in general. The fire at the rapid charging point and this, along with the awkward depreciation (thought this is great for most buyers). I'm more principally concerned about the build quality, but what's new with Jaguar/Land Rover products? Opens up another bias to check lol

As you mentioned, the fact the car was going as fast as it was reported and there to be no damage is a little strange, especially as the brake allegedly wasn't working. One would expect the rear of the police vehicle to be damaged significantly if a high speed car that wasn't able to stop was going into the back of it? Sounds more like an easy excuse once potentially being caught speeding or, like you say, maybe the floor mats impeding the pedals?

He's been arrested for dangerous driving so it was a bullshit story to get away with speeding

Give up you can carry on as want,just be safe and don't think everything is perfect!!

The relevant law seems to be The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986. Under section 16.4.4 (wheeled vehicles first used on or after 1st January 1968), the following apply: Schedule 3.1, there has to be "one efficient braking system having two means of operation, one efficient split braking system having one means of operation, or two efficient braking systems, each having a separate means of operation" Schedule 3.4 - The braking system shall be so designed that in the event of failure of any part … there shall still be available for application by the driver brakes sufficient under the most adverse conditions to bring the vehicle to rest within a reasonable distance. Schedules 3.8 & 3.9 also apply but don't seem relevant to this case. The implication is that the iPace's split hydraulic system should not cause complete brake failure. And, just in case it did, there should also be a separate braking system having a separate means of operation. Whether either or both could stop an iPace which was stuck on full power is a different matter … Maybe the real problem was with the speed control systems.

I once had steering wheel seize up in a VW Polo as I was driving (slowly) around a sharp corner. Not the car's fault, nor the nut behind the wheel, but a rectangular plastic VW logo on the ignition key ring caught the back of the steering wheel and stopped it turning. A complete fluke.

I see they have found a rare electric car breakdown to have a wank about .

Error between steering wheel and chair.

Many years ago I went to a crashed car in which the driver claimed that it just accelerated away and would not stop. He had braked hard and stopped the car, which had then emmitted loads of smoke, he then panicked and took his foot off of the brake pedal, as the car was accelerating away he decided that the only thing to do was crash into the roadside fencing. That stopped it! The car was a Volvo 360, a petrol variomatic . The cause was a broken wire in the bowden cable control between the accelerator pedal and the Carburettor, which prevented the cable from retracting as it should. In his panic the driver had forgotten that he could have turned off the engine with the ignition switch. Not an EV in sight! It will be interesting to get the truth from the Jaguar Incident investigators, rather than the Daily Mail.

It wouldn't surprise me if the accelerating instead of braking was a result of being in adaptive cruise for quite a while, and hitting the wrong pedal when coming back to the pedals in a hurry. If you take your foot away from the accelerator to rest it on the carpet, and your leg and foot have been in a non standard position, which they often are in that situation, as you normally have to move it to the left slightly so it has room, then catching the accelerator pedal when trying to brake suddenly is certainly a possibility. It happened to me when I first got my EV with adaptive cruise and a car pulled out straight into the middle lane from a slip road. Even with auto collision braking, everyone's instinct is to go for the brakes. Muscle memory is from accelerator pedal to brake, not from more centrally on the carpet. Since then, I've always made sure my foot is resting on the accelerator, even with ACC on.

It still should have regen barking by the electric motor ?.

At 0:33 seconds in you have a picture of 3 police cars boxing in an i-Pace... Isn't that the manoeuvre they use to pin in suspected flight risks? I suspect the people "helping" him stop didn't believe his explanation either.

The very opposite happened to my neighbours, whose 14 month old Tesla Y suddenly lost all power and locked them in their car at a retail shopping centre car park. The doors were deadlocked and could not be manually freed, which meant they had to dial Tesla's emergency helpline resulting in a pair of technicians releasing them from their vehicle after being trapped for two hours! Tesla has given them a courtesy car for the last fortnight but is unable to diagnose the fault or bring the car back to life, which is a cause for concern. I drive a Fiat 500e Passion which is quite low-tech but still heavy reliant on complex electrical systems, as is also the case with most ICE cars nowadays However, at least I have manual door handles for emergencies which would, hopefully, work in similar circumstances.

Has the car been seized by the police for further investigation especially as this seems to have happened before? A third time and it may not end so well.

Police cars could encorporate emp cannons to shut down all cars when in situations like this.

You should know this is possible, it happened in Kirkintilloch with a MG Ev recently no matter how hard he braked it done nothing to slow the car down.

It's all BS, he's been arrested.

There are brake by wire cars, it's a system made by Continental, the Alfa Romeo Giulia uses it.

The brakes would overcome the drive

So EV’s are completely safe and it was driver error. What a relief

This has happened before many times when the cruise control has stuck on cars nothing new

there may be just a fault on this make or even just this one car. i would like to know how many petrol cars have needed this. because the throttle cable gets stuck. we never see such data, it always is seen and only for electric vehicles. that it is this type of fuel has this problem which is total BS.

Nope he was just pressing the trottle instead of the brake.

The speed is definitely much more and the lack of hydraulic fluid it's going to be more sudden so please be prepared for it don't slam it. I think it's air instead so it doesn't have that delay motor cars have. Think of it like a giant go cart.

Strange story. Quite right, all cars have brakes. If the car was road legal the brakes should work. If a brake fault is detected , Jaguar should recall all affected cars at ipace. Excuse the Pun. However what made me laugh that RU-vid played a Jaguar advert after your video😂

Now knowing who the driver is.. likely it is a stunt or driver error.

Sounds like a Jaguar Land Rover problem rather than an Electric Vehicle problem. If an ICE car did this, they would be the odds-on favourite in guess the brand.

Not sure any vehicle that makes use of regenerative braking can have a direct link between the brake pedal and the friction brakes, otherwise how would the vehicle use regenerative braking without always also engaging the friction brakes? We know that brake disc corrosion can be a problem on EVs due to the friction brakes sometimes hardly ever getting used.

He has been arrested on suspicion of dangerous driving and causing a public nuisance.

Did he get done for using the phone driving?

I doubt whether any of this is related to the fact that the car uses a traction battery. There have been millions of EVs sold over the last decade, the Tesla Y is the best selling car in history but I have never heard of this happening simply because the car is an EV.

With an ICE car there is sn ignition switch. The should fit kill swirches to EVs, we used to have to fit them to cars we raced back in the 60s

In an ICE car, even with automatic gearbox, you can break by manually decrease the speeds, thus forcing engine break. There are EV biased people and ICE biased people. At the end of the day, everyone was ok and props to Police for safely stop the car. Btw, if you push both pedals(brake and acceleration) in an ICE car, the car will always stop.

A compulsive liar has been found out. He wasted the hard earned tax payers money. Clearly nothing went wrong with the car. He’s a compulsive ‘I’m more special than the rest of you’ type of w anchor.

In EV's the brake pedal is an electronic switch that is not mechanically connected to the brakes. This is to allow for regenerative braking to recoup energy. The brake failure is likely a software failure.

Personally I am delighted! We get a new type of FUD posted. If you get an electric car you will run out of power and set on fire and force you to do 90mph down the motorway and be remote controlled by the WEF

Would be nice to have the telemetry but there are 650 or so accidents due to "brake failure" in the UK every year. Nothing unusual then unless you are an EV hater.

They were lucky it actually made it onto the road in the first place,, the I-Pace's natural home is a lenghy stay in the dealership, reliability is not its strong point, actually I don't think they have a strong🤔

The problem is that the same vehicle has tried to kill it's driver before and Jaguar have been unable to fix the problem. Damage done, end of Jaguar's credibility and end of story as far as I'm concerned. Any vehicle that you have no absolute control over as a driver is a death trap and an accident waiting to happen. If I was the owner of this vehicle I would be rejecting it and demanding my money back.

It’s ok folks, nothing to see here! Move along!

Yet again people jump on the 'we hate EV's' campaign. Any car can fail on brakes. So how come people forget about all the petrol and diesel car failures when they see this.

a lot of these evs seem to end up in ponds/lakes/fjords . something wrong... people are also completely crap drivers.

was likely wearing 🤡 shoes, pressing both pedals at once. Brake should have a brake switch on the pedal, assuming the iPace has accelerator cut when braking.

Even if, and that’s a big IF, this is as reported, don’t crow. I hate EVs but Having been a victim myself, I bet there are more incidents of conventional brake failure in ICE cars that don’t have regenerative braking as an option.

This has happened before with ICE BMWs. But people forget.