If you haven’t been paying attention, there’s something odd going on with the Dodge Charger Daytona EV. Edmunds first reported last week that its long-term tester would accelerate – albeit slowly – even if the driver wasn’t applying either the accelerator or brake pedals, leading to some confusion on the part of the outlet. Apparently, it wasn’t alone, as many owners have reported “unintended acceleration” from their Dodge EVs, with one going so far as to complain directly to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Well, as it turns out, the Charger Daytona’s propensity to add speed without being asked is actually a safety feature. Wait, what?
- Base Trim Engine
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Electric
- Base Trim Transmission
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Automatic
- Base Trim Drivetrain
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All-Wheel Drive
Stellantis Responds, We Scratch Our Heads
According to Carscoops, Stellantis responded to the NHTSA complaint by clarifying the intended purpose of that acceleration. As seen in the original Edmunds video, the car doesn’t accelerate uncontrollably, only adding a mile per hour every second or so. The person behind the wheel was able to apply the brakes and easily bring the car back to a halt. The NHTSA complaint corroborated that occurrence, with the vehicle owner saying they could stop the car by hitting the left pedal.
The reason the car gets up and moving without any throttle application has to do with an accelerator failsafe. In the event of a glitch with the skinny pedal, the car will still be drivable so that its owner can get to a safe location or repair facility, rather than be left stranded on the side of a busy highway or – worse yet – blocking traffic. Stellantis says the “drive-by-brake” feature has been part of its internal combustion lineup for years, and in the case of the NHTSA complainant, it worked exactly as designed to get them to safety.
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Makes Sense, But Why Didn’t We Know About It Before?
In the case of the Edmunds long-term tester, the outlet reported that its driver had noticed a variety of warnings on the digital instrument cluster, including stability control, regenerative braking, and forward collision monitoring faults. The car entered low-power mode and accelerated sluggishly – even after the driver had lifted his foot from the accelerator. After observing the “unintended acceleration,” the tester pulled off to a side street, hard-restarted the car, and saw that the error faults had disappeared and the Charger returned to normal operation.
As Carscoops points out, however, it’s odd that the drive-by-brake feature doesn’t have any kind of warning messaging or how-to instructions associated with it. Feeling a car gain speed without driver intervention is unsettling enough, much less for a brand-new EV design that people are already skeptical of. Stellantis should include a dashboard warning describing the drive-by-brake function so that owners don’t panic, because in all honesty, it is a pretty neat feature. Being able to limp a car to the dealership in relative safety is vastly more convenient than pulling over on a narrow shoulder or grinding to a halt in city traffic. It just would be nice to know what to expect in such a situation, rather than be surprised by your 670-horsepower EV adding speed.
