While traveling on a dry highway, with good tires/new tires, and decelerating from 45 mph and approaching a red light, and a moderate, but firm pressure on the brake to bring the van to a full stop, the speed decreased to 15 mph, with the tachometer stable at 800 rpm and then to 10 mph, with both hands on the wheel, left foot on the dead pedal, and right foot on the middle of the brake pedal. As the speedometer made the transition at 10 MPH, the tachometer surged to 1500 RPM and then to 3000 in under 3 seconds, which cause me to initiate an emergency action drill of stabbing the brake pedal hard three times and rotating the transmission control to the lowest gear. The transmission refused to shift lower, and the control of the vehicle turned on oa wrestling match and the tachometer surged from 1500 RPM, them 3000 RPM, then 4500 RPM, and then 6000 RPM, each time the vehicle acting like it was repeatedly being rear-ended at a speed exceeding 15 MPH. The engine could not be disengaged and aceelaretd uncontrollably to over 40 MPH, through a busy intersection, and required over 24 hard break stages over a 10 second period to actually stop the car, and the engine refused to disengage until stopped. Once the car was restarted it immediately surged forward trying to fight through the hard applied brakes. The cruise control was never on the entire time. I then stut down the engine once I was able to wretle it to a stop with the engine climbing to over 4500 RPM. I then took this vehicle to a safe area, and repeated the conditions, and again as the vehilce speed dropped below 15 MPH, and certainly below 10 MPH, the egine tachometer increased in steps of 1500 MPH, 3000, 4500, 6000 RPM, and no control could be achieved other then violently "stabbing" the brake pedal. Under controlled conditions the behavior was repeatable over 20 times. This is a life threatenign defect, and it appears to be software in origin. I have CAN data streams from the events (23) and video.
NHTSA ODI 11433618