After the Rover debacle, could the next in line be Renault?
In an affair dubbed 'pedalegate', news from France suggests that the company could be heading for big trouble in its home country. Some 30 car crashes over the last six months are alleged to have been caused by faulty cruise control.
The allegation is that cars become locked into a certain speed and the cruise control does not disengage, resulting in cars crashing at full speed into motorway toll booths and other fixed objects.
Renault has been checking its systems for months and has responded, saying, "There’s absolutely nothing wrong with our electronic systems. Crashes are the consequence of human mistakes such as pressing the clutch instead of the accelerator."
This has done little for the company's image in France, reports one automotive blog (see link below), and the media is following the story.
Blogger Christophe Labédan spoke to a Renault engineer through a personal contact. Naturally, he wanted to remain anonymous but did say that, “The latest we’ve found out is that the systems seems faulty. Electromagnetic interference occurs between the ABS and cruise control computers."
It's been further suggested that level 5 rather than level 3 is required to protect them from interference.
More at Christophe's site (in French)
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