There’s nothing quite like the experience of getting a brand new car. I mean, there’s a reason Rod Roddy would shout it out so gleefully on The Price Is Right .
Usually it takes many years for the shine to wear off, but for one family in Southern California, just days after bringing home their new purchase, things went tragically wrong.
Mallory and Adam Harcourt were obviously happy with their new wheels at the time.
Their growing family, with a two-year-old and another one the way, would be riding in style with a brand new Tesla Model X. The pair got to drive the Model X home on December 23, 2018.
Their new car happiness wouldn’t last long.
Just four days later, she would end up in the hospital, and in a bad way, after being pinned to the garage wall by the Tesla, a lawsuit alleges.
Like so many moms, Mallory had her hands full when she got home from the grocery store that day.
According to the lawsuit, Mallory parked the Tesla in the driveway with the engine off, opened up the falcon doors to get her toddler and groceries out, and walked into the garage with her son following her.
However, the boy turned back towards the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Mallory turned back to call for her son, but just as she did so, the Tesla accelerated into her.
Now, one of the things Tesla loves to promote about its cars is the lightning fast acceleration — the Model X can take its 5,500 pounds from zero to 60 mph in a mere 2.8 seconds.
That’s what hit Mallory, picking her up and slamming her into the back wall of the garage.
Mallory’s pelvis broke in three places, and her right leg snapped.
And, at eight months pregnant, it’s amazing that the damage wasn’t worse, but she was still in a bad way.
“I was trapped and had to scream until someone heard me and came for help,” she said. Her son could only watch his mother struggle in pain from the front seat, but thankfully the airbag didn’t deploy.
Thankfully, neighbors heard Mallory and called an ambulance.
But she went into labor prematurely, a troubling thing with such extreme lower body injuries. Somehow she managed to give birth to a healthy baby girl, however, and healing could begin.
The Harcourt family’s lawsuit places the blame squarely on Tesla’s design of the Model X.
They’re saying that the Model X lacks proper safety control devices to ensure that it can’t be unintentionally operated — things like a driver’s occupancy seat sensor.
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Or logic to ensure the car can’t accelerate with the doors wide open.
The lawsuit also cites another case of unintentional acceleration involving a Toyota, in which a jury found in favor of the plaintiffs.
Tesla did respond to a letter from the Harcourt family’s attorney, Alison Gokal.
The company pointed to the car’s data log, which showed that at the time of the incident, the brake was pushed, the driver’s door closed, and the gear shift put into drive.
For several seconds afterwards, both the accelerator and brake pedals were pressed.
“In the next 4 seconds, while varying manual pressure continued to be applied to the accelerator pedal, the vehicle speed increase was consistent with the pressure applied to the accelerator pedal and then multiple alerts were triggered indicative of an impact to the left side falcon door. Then, the brake pedal was pressed including activation of the Anti-Lock Braking System, the accelerator pedal was released, and the vehicle came to a stop.”
Tesla’s position, according to that letter, is that the Model X was only doing what it was asked to do.
“The above demonstrates that the vehicle responded to the operator’s inputs, as designed. We regret that this incident happened, however, we have not found any other instance of this sequence of events occurring…”
Tesla says they couldn’t have known this could happen and there’s no way they could have had safety measures in place.
“…An unsupervised child manages to successfully shift the vehicle into gear and then apply the accelerator pedal—and we do not believe it is reasonably foreseeable.”
Gokal called the company’s response “outrageous.”
“My clients are absolutely terrified of this happening to another family and want Tesla to prevent a repeat of this tragedy,” she said.
“Families like us are Tesla’s target market for the Model X,” Mallory added.
Gokal highlighted just how easily this situation happened.
“My toddler learned how to start and operate the Tesla faster than an adult can open a childproof bottle. We could have died, the public needs to know.”
h/t: [Businesswire](( https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190529005839/en/ )
