New NHTSA investigation

[jmueller065]

Looks like all the entries on the NHTSA website have been noticed:

Ford Focus Electric probed for stalling while driving

 

[az erik]

12 incidents? More like 12 people and 3 to 4 times the number of stalls they are talking about.

Sadly I thought I'd start driving this to be a little more greenie. Now I'm starting to plan my escape route.

 

[WattsUp]

Sadly I thought I'd start driving this to be a little more greenie. Now I'm starting to plan my escape route.

For all the people who have encountered the SSN issue, keep in mind that there are many, many more who have not. According to insideevs.com, at least 1200 FFEs have been sold as of August. So, even if we double the incident number from 12 to 24, that's 2% of the cars.

Unfortunately, I think the SSN issue, although obviously a major problem, is happening only to a "relatively" small number of FFE owners. The vast majority are unaffected (you might say "yet", but I choose to remain optimistic). I'm not saying the issue is not alarming, and I totally agree that 2% is way too high of a defect level, but the small number of cases, and cases where people repeatedly encounter an SSN, could also indicate that the problem is isolated to specific cars, built a specific way, with specific parts.

I have 10K miles on my FFE so far with no SSN. But... I am glad the NHTSA is investigating.

----

:arrow: Correction: According to this article linked here, actually about 2000 total FFEs have been sold, counting sales figures for both 2012 and 2013. The figure of 1200 was just for 2013. So, 24 of 2000 is 1.2% (but still too high of a defect level).

 

[Susan]

There are many owners who do not know about this forum and probably never thought to report their incidents to the NHTSA. I am not sure of the process but the dealer records should be a good indicator of the number and magnitude of reported incidents. I do not consider the NHTSA amount to be the true universe of people who have experienced this unnerving situation. Thank you to all that reported the problem. I am hoping for a positive outcome for all of us.

 

[az erik]

I do agree that this is probably limited but I stumbled across this site and myself I would have never thought to reported to the NTSHA. basically I bought my car after reading this thread and the other threads about the investigation, it wasn't until I actually possibly put myself in that situation they really really started to click.

As one of the main founding members of the Arizona lightning owners association I for one know single-handedly what it's like to actually have a forum report about 2 to 5% of the actual population in the area. it's a very good indication that the few people that have been reporting this are actually about that percentage the dealer records really will show what's going on

 

[lateapex]

NYTimes also mentioned that NHTSA Preliminary Evaluation PE 13-031 on Monday's Wheels blog, with a link to an initial summary.

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/gone-but-not-forgotten-suzuki-issues-194000-vehicle-airbag-recall/

Lake EV's memorable quote of a highway patrol lecture is there, too (http://www.myfocuselectric.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=900&p=4702#p4702). The next step would be an Engineering Analysis, before any recall, The Times said -- see the BMW entry after the FFE one.