Unintended acceleration into building

BMW i3 Forum

Help Support BMW i3 Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

bwilson4web

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 30, 2016
Messages
805
Location
Huntsville, AL
Not sure where to put this:

Source: https://insideevs.com/news/364540/video-bmw-i3-crash-building/

"A driver plowed into the Kaimuki Times this morning, leaving behind a large dent in the store. Luckily, no one was injured."

Bob Wilson
 
Second such event involving an i3 in Honolulu during the past couple of weeks. Since buying our i3 in Honolulu almost 5 years ago, these are the first such incidents involving an i3 in Honolulu that I know about. Something weird going on :?
 
Most cases like this are simply the driver thinking that their foot is on the brake but instead it is on the accelerator pedal.

However, I think that in the case of the i3 it could also be that the driver selected "D" when thinking they were selecting "R". The i3 drive selector is backwards from most other automatic transmission gear selectors. In the i3 you push forward to select "D" and backward to select "R", while in most other cars (my wife's BMW 535i for example) you press forward to select "R" and pull backward to select "D". While I actually think that the i3 drive selection process makes the most sense, I think that BMW made a BIG mistake going against the common "PRNDL" selector layout that has been used forever and is firmly ingrained into all of our minds (and reflexes). I know that the other day I had my i3 parked outside in the driveway and came scarily close to driving into the garage door when I jumped in, pressed forward on the drive selector, and started to drive off. Fortunately I hit the brakes before I hit the door, but it scared the crap out of me. And I think this is actually made worse by the fact that the i3 doesn't "creep" like a standard gasoline car does when you pop it into gear. You don't have any movement feedback of which direction the car is going to go until you actually press on the accelerator, and then it can be too late.
 
alohart said:
Second such event involving an i3 in Honolulu during the past couple of weeks. Since buying our i3 in Honolulu almost 5 years ago, these are the first such incidents involving an i3 in Honolulu that I know about. Something weird going on :?

1) Relieved to hear that the accident wasn't your car!

2) Are those car-rental apps like Turo (airbnb for cars) popular on the islands? Just wondering if these accidents could have been tourists in borrowed/rented cars that they didn't know how to drive?

3) Does your local news have any other pictures that show whether the airbags deployed or how much damage the car suffered?????
 
Fisher99 said:
While I actually think that the i3 drive selection process makes the most sense, I think that BMW made a BIG mistake going against the common "PRNDL" selector layout that has been used forever and is firmly ingrained into all of our minds (and reflexes).
The automatic transmission gear selector layout certainly isn't ingrained in all of our minds and reflexes. Even having driven in the U.S. for 60 years, I have never owned an automatic transmission vehicle, so our i3's gear selector layout is very intuitive to me. Many European drivers have likely never owned automatic transmission vehicles as well.

Backing out of our tight apartment parking space next to a wall such that no passenger can enter while parked, I have to stop after backing out to allow my wife to enter the passenger side. I have occasionally forgotten to shift from R to D after backing out while waiting for my wife to enter. Always driving in Eco Pro, the power pedal is less sensitive than in Comfort, so pressing the power pedal expecting to drive forward hasn't caused any collisions. However, I can understand how pressing the power pedal in Comfort in D when expecting to be in R could cause a collision.
 
vreihen said:
1) Relieved to hear that the accident wasn't your car!
Me, too, since our i3 is in storage for 3.5 months while we're in Europe.

vreihen said:
2) Are those car-rental apps like Turo (airbnb for cars) popular on the islands? Just wondering if these accidents could have been tourists in borrowed/rented cars that they didn't know how to drive?
Turo is used in Hawaii, but currently, no i3's are listed on Turo in Honolulu, only Tesla cars.

vreihen said:
3) Does your local news have any other pictures that show whether the airbags deployed or how much damage the car suffered?????
I watched a video that showed the owner removing things from inside the car. There were no deployed airbags visible which sort of surprised me considering how much damage was done to the building. I suppose airbags don't deploy during a very low-speed collision where injury to the driver could be greater from an airbag deploying.

The video did not show the i3 in the most recent i3-building collision being pulled out of the building like a video in the first collision. In that case, no damage was visible after that i3 drove through the glass front of a store. I'm sure there were plenty of paint scratches. Colliding with a solid wall likely caused more damage.
 
The airbags are triggered by g-forces...if there's much crushing of the building, and at low speeds, that threshold probably wouldn't be crossed. The i3 chassis is also designed to progressive break, but I would expect those forces would be enough to trigger the air bags as the chassis is stiffer than human body parts.
 
alohart said:
The automatic transmission gear selector layout certainly isn't ingrained in all of our minds and reflexes. Even having driven in the U.S. for 60 years, I have never owned an automatic transmission vehicle, so our i3's gear selector layout is very intuitive to me. Many European drivers have likely never owned automatic transmission vehicles as well.
[snip]

I get that stick shifts are probably more prevalent in Europe than in the USA, but I'm still guessing that more premium brand cars (Mercedes, Audi, BMW) are sold with automatics than sticks, even in Europe. And I believe that they use the same PRNDL layout as in the USA. Or actually, more recently PRNDL is giving way to a momentary "toggle" shifter, but still with reverse at the top (push forward) and drive at the bottom (pull back). The i3 is simply backwards from pretty much anything else on the market.

I have 2 BMWs sitting in my garage and their drive selectors are backwards from each other. That seems problematic to me and even more problematic to my wife. Even if I do think that the i3's drive selector operation makes more sense, it is simply problematic in a multi-automatic-vehicle household. And as I mentioned earlier, when you combine this with the fact that the i3 doesn't "creep" when you select a gear (thus giving you a sense of which direction the car will go when you press the accelerator), it's kind of surprising to me that there aren't more unintended i3 parking lot mishaps than there are. Or maybe there are, and we just don't hear about them unless they actually go through the wall of a building... :eek:

But I also understand that for you, since you have never owned a conventional automatic vehicle, that the i3 drive selector layout is a non-issue.
 
I wonder if it is related to the regenerative braking. If you turn sharply, or hit a bump, the regen braking will disengage to protect the drive train, which can cause the car to leap forward when the driver isn't expecting it. Combine that with someone who is a 'one-foot' driver, using their right foot for both accelerator pedal and brake pedal, and the sudden unexpected jump forward could cause a panic foot down on the accelerator instead of the brake. There is a nice dip in the road approaching a stop sign near my house. Invariably as I approach, the car hits the dip, the regenerative braking disengages, and the car does a little rabbit leap toward the stop-line. Being a two-foot driver, taught to drive by an uncle who raced rally cars, never an issue.
 
Interesting! I've never experienced a situation where regenerative braking disengages. Didn't even know it did that!
 
Fisher99 said:
Interesting! I've never experienced a situation where regenerative braking disengages. Didn't even know it did that!

It can be disconcerting unless you're prepared for it. The state of the roads means I see it fairly often around here, especially in the spring before they've filled the winter created potholes. I've driven the car long enough to where I can generally anticipate it will happen.

The regen will be adjusted when a wheel slips, the speed changes on a wheel more than the others, and when going around a sharp turn. There's all sorts of little things the car does that should make it more stable that people may not really notice as most of them are in the background. I find a close reading of the user's manual periodically helps to get the most value out of the car when I read something and say...I didn't know that! There's lots of stuff you miss the first time through. Lots of little things many people complain about that if they'd read the manual, would find out the car can do, for example, the charging port cover has an indent that will let it hang on the door opening hook...it won't stay if you try to catch it by the end, or anywhere else, but in one spot where there's a pocket designed to catch on the hook...have heard lots of people complain about that, but it's in the manual. Had an acronym in the army - RTFM...you might guess what that stands for...(read the F* manual).
 
I can definitely testify to the skittish behavior over certain bumps with the regen and the stability control briefly working against the driver. I find washboard roads to be particularly bad. I don't think it would be bad enough to cause a loss of control on dry pavement, but add in slick conditions and it could be quite an unpleasant surprise.
 
On the thought of blaming the shifter setup, the security department where I work had a Prius at one point for patrolling the grounds. I say had because they were forced to replace it within a year for a more traditional car, after a building collision, several car collisions, and an accidental excursion or two into the grass. Toyota used a funky shifter setup on the Prius, and it was cited as the cause of most of these accidents.....
 
I'm currently having the pleasure of teaching my 2 oldest grandkids to drive. Started them out in my Honda Civic with 5-speed stick, as I thought it was important for them to learn to drive a stick. Then sold the Honda and bought the i3 a couple months ago, so now they are switching back and forth between driving my i3 and my wife's 535i. It has been immediately obvious to them that the drive selectors are backwards between the two. Interestingly enough, they haven't commented yet on which one they think is actually backwards. Just that it's strange that they aren't the same. I am using it as an opportunity to teach them the importance of visually checking what the drive selector display actually shows before they try to drive off. And driving off slowly until they know for sure which direction the car is going to go. ;)
 
Haven't been on the forum for a while and I saw this. I live close to this times super market but never go here. He must have really smashed the accelerator thinking it was his brake pedal. There are curbs and parking bricks in front of all stalls and he had to have picked up some decent momentum to get that far into the wall. I'm going to drive by later today and see if the hole is still there.
 
Back
Top