Of the over 200 complaints, six said the braking caused “a collision with minor injuries,” as the cars’ sudden slowing down made them more vulnerable to being rear-ended, NHTSA documents said. The affected vehicles are 2018-2019 Honda Accords and 2017-2019 Honda CR-Vs, according to the NHTSA.
The agency estimated the problem could affect more than 1.7 million Honda models, potentially leading to another recall for the company after thousands of Hondas were recalled in December 2021. Honda is not the only car company to experience this equipment problem, as the NHTSA opened another investigation just last week into more than 300 complaints about a similar braking system malfunction in Tesla vehicles.
The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation will be looking into the “scope and severity” of the reported problems with Honda’s Collision Breaking Management System. The CMBS is designed to first alert the driver of a potential collision, then begins to brake if the driver takes no action, according to the Honda Info Center.
The complaints say the system would automatically deploy, making the cars brake even with “nothing obstructing the vehicle’s path of travel,” the documents said. One complaint said the car was driving 40 miles per hour and coming to the top of a hill when the system made it brake suddenly.
“The whole warning/stopping event occurred in a few seconds. There were no obstacles in the road,” the driver wrote. “There was a car following me about 2 or 3 car lengths behind who had to stop very quickly in order not to rear-end me.”
Another person who wrote a complaint said taking the car to a local Honda dealership resulted in an inspection that found no problems. The individual looked online and found this had happened to many people who owned the same model, according to the complaint.
One of the complaint writers who wrote about being rear-ended added that the incident happened on an interstate and that two other people were hurt, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement sent to Newsweek, Honda said it is aware of the problem.
“Honda is committed to safety,” it said. “Honda will cooperate with the NHTSA through the investigation process, and we will continue our own internal review of the available information.”
This is not the first technical glitch that has caused problems for Honda. In early December last year, the company had to recall more than 4,000 2021-2022 Accord, CR-V, Insight and Ridgeline vehicles because of problems with a function that allows parents to install child safety seats.
Later that month, the company recalled nearly 300 Acura RDX and CR-V Hybrid vehicles for problems with the driveshafts that caused front wheels to roll while they were supposed to be parked.
Update 02/24/22, 11:45 p.m. ET: This story was updated to add more information and background and a statement from Honda.
