Houston Press "Investigates" Safety Record of Toyota Prius

[Danny]

A new story entry has been added:

Houston Press "Investigates" Safety Record of Toyota Prius

The Houston Press posted an Earth Day gem of an article today - "Wild Rides: The Toyota Prius Isn't the Angel Everyone Thinks". In trying to write an article bringing the harsh underbelly of Prius safety to light, the author comes off as doing nothing more than cherry-picking. The piece talks about examples of Prius safety issues in non-replicable situations. and while we've heard about a few of these issues in the past, they are not nearly as rampant as the article suggests.

[bredekamp]

drivel

[zcat3]

We all know about the traction control issues on the Prius, and I think a large portion of Prius owners have experienced some odd behavior in that regard. I, for example, have had the power cut out on me when I hit some gravel while trying to merge from a standstill onto a 50 MPH road. But the "car accelerated on its own to 90 MPH while I had the brakes pushed in and the e-brake pushed in" just does not ring true at all. These are purely mechanical systems and the car's computer cannot just shut them off. Even if the computer decided to run the engine at full throttle, I highly doubt you could get the car moving very fast with both brakes fully activated.

Note: I have removed my Houston newspaper comment because it was off the cuff and not a fair statement. Frankly, I would expect a lot more than this poorly written and reported article from any legitimate news source, regardless of location. If anything proves this, it is the selective method in which they have quoted the various posters here - clearly the criteria is to just find a snippet here or there that will inflame whatever minimal readership this story gets. The follow up photo gallery which talks about "smug" Prius owners further establishes that this "writer" (I use that term loosely) does not care about real news. Perhaps he can get a job writing for the Enquirer. All this story needed was an added tidbit that each time a Prius speeds off on its own, defying the laws of physics by somehow overriding a mechanical braking system, the car takes the driver to a field with crop circles and a mother ship.

[jayman]

Here we go again ....

Now watch as Rush buzzes all over this, like flies on fresh s***

[HTMLSpinnr]

Mashing on the pedal beyond the stroke sensor limit will engage manual braking pressure via an actual master cylinder.

I've experimented w/ my own car mashing the throttle and the brakes at the same time - the car slows down, despite the commotion from the engine trying to do otherwise.

In a different case, I experienced a temporary braking ECU failure when the inverter coolant pump failed. Braking reverts to manual and somewhat diagonal (i.e. the car WILL pull) and brakes lock easily.

Isn't it a requirement somewhere that braking force must be stronger than engine power?

[ceric]

One can do a similar article on any model of any car maker in USA.
"Unintended acceleration", "broken down on highway - scared the daylight out of me", etc.

I am a software engineers myself. Any software has bug. Intensive testing simply reduces the obvious ones (a matter of test coverage). No one can claim that the Prius software has 0 bug as it is now (millions lines of codes as I heard before). No one. Can you?
When it happens to you, you will see things differently.
I loved my old BMW and was a Bimmer fanatic until it started to fail me twice on highway.

I am trying to be objective here.
Floormats can be blamed in some of the cases, I am sure, but probably not all.
Some cases are obviously related to the TCS and lousy tires (those we knew already).
Don't brush this "unintended acceleration" off so quickly. If there is a bug some where, I surely
hope it can be corrected and update the software on all Prius out there.

[Tideland Prius]

Indeed. Remember the Audi 90 that nearly bankrupted Audi?


I stopped reading after the first page. 8 pages of crap? Nah, I've got better uses of my time.

[toxicity]

My car was in a severe accident, and was rebuilt piece by piece, and yet I've never had the acceleration problem. WTF? BTW Houston Press is free, so there you go, they can really afford investigative journalism, lol.

[morpheusx]

not to mention a lot of vehicles now use the "drive by wire" this is not new technology, like my wife's 2001 VW Beetle uses drive by wire and my friends 2008 Civic is a drive by wire system.

[FL_Prius_Driver]

Originally Posted by ceric

Any software has bug.

I would agree that most software has bugs, but there is a lot of aircraft flight code and space life support code that has been vetted and tested enough to earn a "bug-free" result from 20 years of accumulated testing.

Originally Posted by ceric

Don't brush this "unintended acceleration" off so quickly. If there is a bug some where, I surely
hope it can be corrected and update the software on all Prius out there.

What justifies blaming software? That some reporters or lawyers claim it is possible? The only thing missing is any evidence. Claims are not evidence.

Let me state a fact about guns. Guns only go off accidentally while being cleaned. Nobody ever reports that their gun went off accidentally while engaged in horseplay. I would also note that every software generated car acceleration incident always seems to 1) accelerate on its own to extremely high speed and 2) the brakes don't work at all even though they are being pushed to the floor. Enough said.