This nissan leaf has an ez-pedal feature. when enabled, taking your foot off the accelerator slows you down quickly until you come to a full stop. and then the car does not move. and this non-movement does not require depressing the brake. while a convenience, there is a design flaw. when enabled and the car is stopped (but in drive), the brake lights do not come one. in contrast, when stopped using the brakes, the brake lights are illuminated. this is a safety hazard! drivers approaching from behind don't expect a stopped car to not have brake lights on. they may realize rather late that the car is stopped. in other words, the visual cue of "brake lights on means car is stopped or slowing down" is not evident. which can lead to mistakes by drivers who are not paying full attention. this happened to me recently. i was stopped behind a car waiting at a crosswalk. on a 3 lane 40mph street, with no lights or stop signs for a mile. a fast stretch with no expectation of stopping!. i, in my leaf, had ez pedal enabled. i worried that someone might hit me, since i was stopped in a place that is unusual to stop in. and 15 seconds after stopping i wast rear ended! no personal damage, but $1500 in repair (and more for the car that hit me). since i was not at fault, i will get full insurance. but it is not a good thing! i checked later - and indeed the brake lights do not go on when the car is stopped in ez-pedal mode. this needs to be resolved! i imagine this is a software update. i suggest that for cars (leaf or other) in drive, with ez-pedal enabled: when the car is fully stopped the brake lights must go on. and, when the car is decelerating quickly (when you take your foot of the accelerator while moving), the brake lights should go on. thanks. i could of put on my emergency flashers, but it is not easy to think of such a trick on the fly.*dt*jb *dt*jb
On the street we use to leave our neighborhood, there is one section of the cement that is a little taller than the one before it.intermittently, the automatic breaking will be set off in this spot for no reason. it is alarming! we are also worried it will happen on a busy street and cause an accident.
While driving forward, the vehicle suddenly, unexpectedly and violently applies the brakes without any driver input whatsoever! there are no other vehicles or pedestrians in the vicinity at the time. this sudden braking problem began on or about 5/15/18 and happened on several occasions after that. twice while entering the underground parking garage at an office building and twice while driving on a city street. vehicle has been at the local nissan dealer for over a week but neither the dealership nor the manufacturer apparently has any idea how to fix the problem. they think that there is a fault in the automatic emergency braking system. the service manager told me that other instances of the same issue have been reported to nissan. the salesperson indicated that there were 4 other similar cases at their dealership alone.they also will not let us take the vehicle home without signing a release of liability document. the obvious concern is that the emergency braking system will again randomly activate while traveling at a higher speed and cause an accident resulting in serious property damage and injuries!
When the brakes are applied moderately at around 40mph to slow down, and if a wheel go on top of some bumps or pot holes, car seems to loose braking power, brake padel drop about 1 inch, have to pedal hard to get the brakes back. at one time i saw a message on dashboard "not available" which i was not able to read and confirm, as this happened in a panic situation. this is occational but has happened to be 4 - 5 times now. my guess is car try to apply regenerative brakes first, if that cannot work due to excessive, bump / pot-hole on the road, it give up, and as a result, car loose braking power for 1-2 seconds. this 2 seconds can be life and death in an emergency braking situation. i took the car to dealer, and they said, no issues found. this problem is hard to reproduce, but can be reproduced. this happened in local roads with 45mph speed limit. one time when there was rough road due to construction. another time when one tire was going on top of road dividers which are about 1 inch tall and 1 foot apart, it had many of these next to each other, when i was applying brake.