AP: Apple co-founder Wozniak shirks off Prius glitch

Toyota builds the best cars hands down. The problems have been hyped in the U.S. but they are minor compared to the limitless problem history of manufacturers like GM who never pushed the car design envelope, just the corporate bottom line. If it ever comes to pass that GM made a decent car with excellent reviews, they'd have to make them for longer than I'll live to prove to me it wasn't a temporary glitch in their otherwise incompetent history of car manufacturing. Why chance a GM typical experience when Honda and Toyota consistently build good, safe, reliable cars and trucks. They may not be perfect, but they certainly have done far, far better than GM for about 3 decades so far, and the Prius is the highest performance car you can buy. Comfortable, economical, durable, practical and even priced well, I doubt I'll ever buy any other car. And GM is still waving the Chevy Volt in front of us that still hasn't been put into production, and still can't be bought and tested. It's the GM distraction so we look at the non existent Volt while they keep building and peddling the same-old, same-old inefficient gas guzzlers of Yesteryear.

 

+1 :rockon:

 

Toyota needed to look inward, they and we are not represented well when Toyota is left to rest on their laurels, exactly the cause of this problem, they ignored customer complaints, however small. Toyota dealerships have acted like they are the only game in town and customers are simply cattle to be used as they see fit, that didn't bode well when this situation came up, it created an opening for all the disgrunteled customers.

 

Yeah, I hate those old gas guzzlers like the; Tundra, Land Cruiser, Sequoia, Four Runner, FJ Cruiser... The Woz asked the car to accelerate to a given speed through his inputs, why should he be disturbed by the output? Garbage in garbage out.

 

With all due respect to Mr. Wozniak, I kind of wish he would learn the phrase "No Comment". Because while I do think he is sincere in his love for his Prius, unfortunately the more he talks about it, the worse it sounds.

Whether it's him, or the media spinning his comments, you can't say that you think the vehicle is "not unsafe" but then say it's going to fail because it has a computer in it and people should just shut it down and reboot.

Come on! Sorry Steve but often when driving you don't have time to react by shutting down and rebooting. There's a huge difference between driving and sitting at your desk.

It's like some passive/agressive nightmare. Everytime Steve talks about his Prius and how much he likes it, it ends up being a PR nightmare for Toyota. Here's hoping he gets a Chevy Volt, at least from Toyota's P.O.V..

 

I do not take exception to your comment, except to say it is a dealership by dealership issue. Before I bought my G3, I seriously was interested in a Fusion. I went to the local dealer, walked all around the showroom, and around the lot ... not one sales person spoke to us. We went to another (not in our town) and the salesperson "blew me off" because he did not have a Fusion in his inventory. We returned to Toyota, and were satisfied with the response. Everyones experience will be different.

 

Well,
1. The "problems" the Woz had with his Prius were that it did what he told it.
2. There is no need to "shut down" the computers in the Prius. They don't run an "operating system", they are dedicated microprocessors running simple code. I have -never- seen Pearl have a problem with a firmware error.
3. Luckily Pearl is smarter than I, and rejects my erroneous inputs.

The problems most people are having seem to be they are unable to operate the car properly and blame it. Then when the dealer tells them there is nothing wrong they blame Toyota!

I think we're supposed to call them "Luddites".

 

In reading the article:

"He said he conducted his own tests of Prius acceleration, taking his car to an open stretch of highway at dusk and then incrementally notching up the speed using the cruise control mechanism.
At "some number over 72" the car accelerated and kept picking up speed, Wozniak said.
"I wanted to see how high it would go," Wozniak said. "It wound up being unlimited so I hit the brake. The problem had to be in the software.""

It sounds like the car was doing exactly what he asked it to do. With this reasoning, he could mash the accelerator to the floor, count to 10, and complain to Toyota that the car kept accelerating.

 

Did anybody know about this??? I sure didn't.

Steve Wozniak tells Blitzer about his Prius, “It was a hoaxâ€

This happened 2/2 - Wozniak on CNN

I was told that Wozniak had gone on Wolf Blitzer’s “the situation room†and told Blitzer that “It was a hoax, it was a bet that I could get on your show.â€Indeed, that is what Wozniak said on [ame=http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/02/02/tsr.wozniak.toyota.owner.cnn]Video - Breaking News Videos from CNN.com[/ame]

So, if this is correct - at least in my case....typical....Read/Hear non-stop about his claim. Then when the truth comes out it dribbles. I am SO PO'd.........and irritated. I don't know whether to be at Wozniak, the Media - or both... Both.... I recall watching NBC Nightly News and Brian Williams made a big deal reporting this. I watch every night - never heard this reversal.

Steve Wozniak tells Blitzer about his Prius, "It was a hoax" | Lou Ann Hammond on carlist.com

 

Dominos are falling now. Steve Wozniak is now back pedaling and said it was a hoax too.