A terrified driver was “hijacked” by his out-of-control electric car – forcing him to swerve at red lights and roundabouts and call police to ram the car off the road.
Brian Morrison, 53, said he was on his way home from work on Sunday when his new £30,000 MG ZS EV suffered a “catastrophic malfunction” and started driving itself at 30mph.
The driver was unable to apply the brakes and called police, who eventually stopped the vehicle by slowly crashing it into their van.
Mr Morrison, from Glasgow, said he was “lucky” that the incident happened late at night, just after 10pm.
“As I approached a roundabout I realized something was wrong and I tried to slow down but I couldn’t,” he said.
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Brian Morrison, 53, said he was on his way home from work on Sunday when his new MG ZS EV suffered a “catastrophic malfunction” and started driving itself at 30mph
Following the horrific incident in Glasgow, police stopped Mr Morrison’s car. A police car can be seen at the back and another van at the front
“Then I heard a loud grinding noise that sounded like brake pads. Since it was such a new car, I knew it couldn’t be a problem for them.
“I managed to get around the roundabout at about 30mph and then had a long road ahead of me. So I assumed he would stop without me accelerating, but that wasn’t the case.”
“I have mobility issues so I couldn’t even jump out – I was completely trapped in the car at 30mph.”
“It might not sound like it’s very fast, but when you have no control over the speed and you’re completely stuck inside, it’s terrifying.”
Mr Morrison initially called his wife in a panic and asked her to come out and warn the cars in front of him that he could not stop.
After realizing he would soon have to drive past traffic lights and several roundabouts – and fearing colliding with pedestrians and pub-goers – he called 999.
Mr Morrison, from Glasgow, said he was “lucky” that the incident happened late at night, just after 10pm. Pictured here is Mr Morrison’s car (left) being stopped by police
The driver described the start of the incident: “As I approached a roundabout I realized something was wrong and I wanted to slow down but I couldn’t.”
“The car just drove away on its own, there was nothing I could do,” he said.
“When I dialed 999 they sent the police to help and put a couple of engineers on the phone to try to solve the problem and they asked if it was a self-driving car.”
“It was the first time the call handlers had the problem and had no idea what to do.”
“So eventually three police vehicles arrived, driving in front of and behind me.”
“I was concentrating 100% on driving, and then when a police car pulled up next to me and asked me if I was Brian and was everything OK, I just shouted: “No, I’m not, I can’t stop. “”
Police first asked Mr Morrison to throw his electronic key through the window of their van before driving off – but this failed to switch off the engine.
They told him to try different ways to turn off the car, but they failed.
Eventually they told Mr Morrison to deliberately drive into the back of their van before entering a more built-up area.
Mr Morrison said: “After I tried to turn the car off, errors lit up all over my dashboard and then after a second it all disappeared and there was just a big red car symbol that said ‘Drive carefully, stop immediately.’ to drive” or something like that.
“At one point I came to a roundabout which slowed the car to about 15mph and the police car was waiting for me on the other side.
“I drove into the back of the van while driving before they applied the brakes to stop me.”
“Afterwards, a police officer jumped into my car and did something that appeared to cause the car to stop.”
“However, after I got out, they tried to move their van but the car kept moving – so they had to sit there with the van for ages until the RAC arrived.”
“I still have no idea what happened, but when the RAC arrived about three hours later, they hooked up the car to do a diagnostic check and there were pages and pages of errors.”
Mr Morrison with the MG ZS EV, which costs £30,000
“He said he had never seen anything like it and decided he wasn’t willing to turn the engine on to see what was going on.”
Mr Morrison’s insurance company says it is currently investigating the incident.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: “At around 10.35pm on Sunday October 1 we received a report that a driver was unable to stop his electric car on the A803 towards Kirkintilloch.”
“The car was driving at low speed and the officers stopped in a controlled manner with the help of a police vehicle.” There was no damage to either vehicle. The driver arranged for the vehicle to be recovered.”
MG Cars Europe has been contacted for comment.
Although most electric cars are considered safe, they have been linked to a number of safety incidents.
Concerns have been raised about fires caused by lithium-ion batteries. Last month, a battery that came loose from an MG ZS EV was identified as the cause of a fire in Australia.
On September 24, a Merseyside family’s home was set on fire after their electric car reportedly exploded in the driveway.
Mr Morrison’s insurance company says it is currently investigating the incident. He was seen behind the wheel of the car
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service rushed to a family home in Bromborough, Wirral, at around 10pm after receiving reports that a car was on fire. The fire was extinguished in just ten minutes.
The Liverpool Echo reported that the facade of the two-storey family home was blackened by the fire and that the garage had also previously burned.
A man told the Echo that after speaking to the car’s owners this morning they believed the cause of the fire was a “faulty electric car battery”, although this has not been officially confirmed by the fire service.
Electric vehicle drivers are also suffering from a shortage of chargers, which is why marshals are being deployed to trigger police “charging frenzy” between drivers at motorway service stations.
The boss of Britain’s biggest motorway service provider said long waits for power sockets were making drivers “very angry and stressed”.
Moto CEO Ken McMeikan warned that Britain’s motorway service stations were facing increasing “public unrest” due to a lack of grid connections to install enough car chargers to meet rising demand.
He said many motorists were facing long waits and angry drivers were confronting their staff and each other, and warned of the growing risk of “rate rage” on Britain’s motorways.
Motorists in the United States have already been embroiled in heated arguments as they compete over the shortage of power connections – dubbed a “charging frenzy” by US media. The term refers to the frustration and anger experienced by electric car drivers when they cannot find a charging station.
Data from the Department for Transport shows that many of the areas with the fewest charging points in the UK are in remote areas away from major cities.
Rishi Sunak is currently sticking with his plans for more than half of all new cars in the UK to be electric within five years, despite pushing back the total ban on petrol and diesel cars until 2030
There are around 850,000 electric vehicles on UK roads and two in ten of the new cars registered in August were electric.
Asif Ghafoor, managing director of the public charging network Be.EV, called for the planning and grid connection process to be streamlined.
Rishi Sunak is currently sticking with his plans for more than half of all new cars in the UK to be electric within five years, despite pushing back the total ban on petrol and diesel cars until 2030.
Drivers are expected to be guided to make their next electric purchase under the Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate (ZEVM). This program is set to remain unchanged despite Mr Sunak’s net zero U-turn.
Carmakers must ensure that 22 percent of new cars sold in the UK next year are electric or hydrogen-powered – so-called “zero emission” vehicles (ZEVs) – before rising to 52 percent by 2028.
And by 2035, 100 percent of new car sales will be emission-free – although gasoline and diesel vehicles can still be traded on the used market.
However, experts predict fossil fuel-powered cars will “disappear from showrooms” by 2030 as manufacturers increase production of electric cars – meaning consumers will be forced to make the switch early anyway.