With Earth Day just around the corner, it’s an electric week at Auto123 as we turn the lights towards noteworthy developments in the EV segment.
The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), the US equivalent of Transport Canada, announced earlier this week that it had opened a preliminary investigation into claims relating to a loss of brake assist on the Cadillac Lyriq, the first electric vehicle from General Motors' (GM) luxury brand.
A total of 3,322 units are affected.
The NHTSA said it had received incident reports of the brake pedal becoming hard, followed by a Brake System Failure message. The situation seems to occur at start-up, but also while driving, which is obviously more worrying.
The evaluation covers 2023 model-year vehicles.
GM has stated that the electronic brake control module has an internal pin that can break when the anti-lock braking system (ABS) is activated, according to an NHTSA preliminary evaluation report.
As a result of the pin breaking, vehicles can lose brake assist, have their speed limited and also see the ABS system lose some of its effectiveness, GM said, according to the NHTSA report.
GM has prepared an update that will alert drivers in the event of axle failure, the NHTSA said.
A loss of Brake Assist does not mean that the brakes no longer work, but that more force is required to achieve the same results. When you don't expect it, it can surprise you and increase braking distance, thus increasing the risk of an accident.
We are following this issue and will come back to it if the company needs to issue a recall.