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On Friday just before 5 p.m., the driver was trying to park his Model S at The Christmas Tree Shops when the vehicle sped up, striking two parked cars in the process, according to police reports.
The incident comes in the wake of several other notably similar complaints submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2018 alone, in which Tesla drivers report unprompted acceleration of their vehicles, Consumer Affairs reports.
In December, a Model X owner in California sued the manufacturer over what he says was a sudden acceleration caused by his all-electric SUV.
The California driver is has filed a class action suit citing other instances of sudden acceleration -- like Friday's incident on Ikea Drive.
A report from a woman in San Jose who experienced the same issue with her Tesla Model S says Tesla maintained she was on the gas pedal for a second too long.
“I applied the pedal from 0-18 percent, and then quickly applied the brake," she said in the Consumer Affairs article.
"If I applied the pedal, I would not be able to apply my brake in a split second. Tesla refused to provide the force given to the pedal and any telegraphy.”
The Tesla system can accelerate one of two ways: either by pressing the accelerator which sends voltage to the electric motors or, for vehicles equipped with driver assistance, by the system sending voltage to the electric motors directly without pedal pressure.
Tesla does not differentiate whether it is measuring actual physical pressure to the pedal by way of a sensor, or if it is simply logging voltage sent to the electric motor, sources said.
Consumer Affairs says the drivers accept the unprompted accelerations as pedal misapplication but blame Tesla for not preventing the events.
The company is asking the courts to dismiss the claims, the article says.
In 2018, Tesla Model S outsold all other luxury cars in the U.S., including the Mercedes S-Class, Porsche Panamera, BMW 7 series and more.
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