NHTSA Complaint #11693304 — 2021 FORD MUSTANG MACH E

There are many reports of the Mustang Mach E "accelerating unexpectedly." This usually happens in parking lots or other situations involving low speed and a rapid turn of the wheel. I know exactly what the problem is, because it happened to me this morning. While parking in my parking garage, my car rapidly accelerated uphill and I only narrowly avoided hitting a wall. Here is why: There are two interconnected problems. The first is that the "cruise control on/off" button is located on the far left of the interior of the steering wheel, which makes it easy to accidentally press when doing a sharp, quick one-handed turn of the wheel (like when parking). When this happens, CC engages while in the act of parking. This is exactly what happened to me. I accidentally hit the button while doing a sharp twist of the wheel, I saw the CC engage, the car rapidly accelerated uphill without my foot on the gas pedal, and I would have hit the wall in front of me if I had been a split-second slower in hitting the brake. The second problem is that there is supposed to be a failsafe for accidentally activating CC at low speed, BUT IT DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK. Page 224 of my manual says "Press the button to activate system. When the system activates, the set speed is equal to whichever is greater, the current vehicle speed, or 15 mph...." This part is true, and this is how the unexpected acceleration to 15mph occurs when parking. But the manual continues: "If the speed is too low, or other conditions are not correct for adaptive cruise control activation, the system enters standby mode. When you are below 15 mph ... adaptive cruise control does not activate unless you are following another vehicle." This is FALSE. This did not work. Clearly the CC mistook the wall in front of me for "following another vehicle." And so, when I accidentally activated CC while parking, it lurched forward UPHILL to 15mph toward a wall a few feet away. Ford needs to move the button and/or fix the failsafe.