The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) has launched a preliminary evaluation into an alleged braking issue with some 250,000 trucks produced by Daimler Trucks.
The department has received 18 Vehicle Owner Questionnaires related to Freightliner Cascadia trucks that were produced by Daimler Trucks for the 2017-2022 model years. These reports allege that the vehicle’s Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) system can activate without an actual obstacle in the roadway. The NHTSA describes this as a “false positive event.”
These complaints go on to state that the subject vehicle will apply the brakes without warning or input from the driver. Braking application can be momentary or the brakes can be applied fully, bringing the truck to a complete stop.
The NHTSA has tested a Freightliner Cascadia equipped with AEB and notes that it automatically initiated hard braking after detecting a steel trench plate on the road, despite not needing to brake. Daimler Trucks North America says this test was not representative of real-world driving.
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Reports from owners have prompted the ODI to issue a preliminary evaluation to determine if the fault creates an unreasonable risk to safety.
If a recall is ultimately issued for the Freightliner Cascadia, Daimler would be wise to quickly repair impacted vehicles. In early 2021, Daimler Trucks was fined $15 million for failing to recall 464,000 vehicles in a timely fashion after a probe was issued into them in April 2018. Daimler was also threatened with an additional $15 million fine that it would have to pay were it to not implement an advanced data analytics program to improve its ability to detect and investigate potential safety defects. In December 2019, Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz U.S. division was handed a $20 million penalty for not issuing recalls in a timely manner.
