Harrier.EV Fatal Crash Fresh Footage Surfaces: We Have 10 Questions For Tata

Tata Motors launched the flagship Harrier.EV with much fanfare a couple of months ago, and the electric SUV now dominates buyer conversations for the sheer performance and wide gamut of features it offers. One such feature is Summon Mode, which allows the driver to driverless-ly summon the car over short distances of upto 12 meters. Summon Mode has now come under the spotlight after a recent incident in Tamilnadu, where one Mr. Senthil, an owner of the Harrier.EV, tragically lost his life after getting slammed onto the ground.

What really happened?

As our previous story described in detail, the driverless Tata Harrier.EV rolled back after Summon mode got deactivated when Mr. Senthil opened the driver's side door of the car. Mr. Senthil, in a desperate bid to regain control of the car, tried to press the brake of the car from the outside as the door was still open.

He lost balance in the process, got slammed into the ground, and fell unconscious. After a brief hospital stay, where doctors couldn't arrest internal bleeding in his brain to revive him from coma, Mr. Senthil lost his life. Now, fresh footage from Sun News shows what really happened before the car began its uncontrolled roll.

As the video indicates, Mr. Senthil first used the Summon Mode to move the car from the parking space to the inclined ramp leading to the parking space. When the Harrier.EV was parked on the ramp, Mr. Senthil is seen fiddling with what appears to be the key fob of the car. It looks as though he's trying to activate Summon Mode again.

The car seems to refuse to go into Summon Mode on the inclined ramp. Perhaps this is by design as Tata Motors' manual says that the Summon Mode should not be used in inclines exceeding 8 percent, which translated to a grade of about 4.6 %. Visually, here's what an 8 percent slope looks like:

Via ArchToolbox

Tata's clear instructions in the Harrier.EV manual specifies that APA (autonomous park assist) should not be used in slopes exceeding 8 %, and in specific conditions. Here are actual screenshots from the manual.

Coming back to the video, when the car refuses to go into Summon mode, Mr. Senthil walks towards the car, and opens the front door. It's unclear as to why he does that as he does not get into the car immediately.

While we previously speculated that he could have pressed the manual brake of the car or released the electric parking brake, it's clearly NOT the case. Moments after Mr. Senthil opens the door, there's a minor jerk - the kind of jerk that occurs when the electric parking brake (EPB) is released on a slope. After this jerk, the car simply rolls down. And we think, this is exactly where the problem is, and that raises serious questions.

Now, the questions!

Question #1

When the door of the Harrier.EV was opened, why did the car roll down? Was it because the EPB was released?

Question #2

If the EPB was released when the door was opened, why was it released? Isn't the EPB supposed to engage as soon Summon Mode is deactivated (either manually by stopping the long press of the key fob, or automatically when the door is opened)?

As per the manual, a pre-condition for Summon Mode to engage is all doors including the bootlid remaining shut. Clearly, in this case, one door was open, and this means the Summon Mode should have been inactive. So, the EPB must be firmly engaged (automatically by the car).

Question #3

Assuming that the EPB was engaged when the Summon Mode was deactivated, did the EPB fail? If yes, does the EPB fail on steep ramps? Is there a fail safe?

Question #4

If the EPB did not fail, how did the car go into neutral? Clearly, Mr. Senthil is not seen tampering with the gear shifter or any other control of the Harrier.EV as he's well outside the vehicle.

Question #5

Does the Harrier.EV have a pawl to lock the electric transaxle? Or is it simply the case that the electric parking brake (which is essentially a handbrake that engages and disengages the rear brakes electrically through a motor) functions as the transmission lock, ie, the P mode.

We think that the Harrier.EV does not have a pawl to lock the transmission when the vehicle's gearshifter is moved to P (park mode). Instead, the EPB comes on, and locks the rear wheels of the car when the gear shifter is moved to P. Here's a video that we took during the Harrier.EV's first drive.

The video shows that the transmission moves to neutral rather than P when the EPB is disengaged. This, in our opinion, indicates that the EPB functions as the Park mode because had the transmission used a physical pawl to lock it when the gear shifter was moved into P (park) mode, it would have not gone into neutral. Rather it would have stayed in Park.

Now, why is this very important? Well, this could be one of the reasons for the Harrier.EV to roll freely instead of staying put in EPB-on mode. And, this can happen again.

Question #6

Here's a scenario.

Assume that one is on a ramp of some kind (which is well below the 8 percent grade), and uses the Summon Mode to hail the car to the ramp. Once the car arrives at the ramp, it's natural for one to release the long press on the key fob to deactivate Summon Mode.

After this, expecting the car to stay stationary with the EPB active as one tries to enter the car before driving off is again, a logical next step. What will happen to the Harrier.EV when such a thing is done on a mild incline (under 8 percent)? Will it roll back like it did in Mr. Selvam's case?

Question #7

Why has Tata Motors not assumed the custody of the vehicle to try and replicate this seemingly strange, and perhaps dangerous behavior?

Question #8

Shouldn't Tata be disabling the Summon Mode feature through an Over-The-Air (OTA) update until a fix to this issue is found?

Question #9

If an OTA cannot disable the Summon Mode until a fix is found, shouldn't a recall take place to ensure that the Summon Mode on all Harrier.EVs is disabled at the service center level?

Question #10

Has Tata Motors come up with an alternate explanation as to why the Harrier.EV rolled down in Mr. Senthil's case?

More questions than answers for now. Now, if only Tata Motors takes custody of the vehicle (if it already hasn't), black box (event data recorder) data may perhaps reveal what happened.

As for us, we sincerely hope that the vehicle is taken into Tata's custody and engineers figure out what exactly happened, and come up with a clear explanation for it. If this exercise isn't carried out, and something like this happens again, Tata's impeccable reputation for safety could come under a cloud.

We'd like to hear from Tata Motors and understand what actually happened and what precautions, if any, are required. We can be reached at editor(at)cartoq(dot)com. We'd be happy to share the same with our readers.