It was a great scare that this American faced on Thursday, April 7. While driving his Tesla Model 3 on a California highway, the vehicle’s on-board computer froze.
No controls were responding, neither the turn signals nor the hazard lights, and the main screen was frozen. Even more worrying: the speed was stuck at 83 mph, or 133 km/h, despite several attempts to press the brake pedal.
Perilous braking
After several unsuccessful attempts, the brake pedal fortunately started working again, but that was not really enough to reassure the driver. “I was nervous that if I had to brake hard, I wouldn’t be able to regain the speed I needed to keep up with traffic and around cars. I was afraid someone would run into me,” he told ABC News.
The man finally managed to slow down, pull over to the hard shoulder and shut off the engine. When he restarted it a few minutes later, “everything seemed normal again” but he still preferred to ask for the escort of a California Highway Patrol officer to get off the highway safely before doing tow his car.
“I need more explanations”
If Tesla assured him that he had repaired his car, the manufacturer was satisfied with a written report. This mentions the diagnosis of “a miscommunication causing the shutdown of the power conversion system in order to protect the components on board during the journey”.
Unconvinced by this comment, the owner of the vehicle fears that a similar failure could happen again in the future. “I need more explanations,” he argued.