Gen III Prius ~ TURN OFF!

Gen III Prius ~ EMERGENCY TURN OFF!

Hi Folks! I'm an enthusiastic new "Turned-ON" Prius owner, that has become concerned about how to Turn (Her) OFF, in an emergency! ~ A few thoughts from a new PriusChat member, as well to the Gen III Prius and a keyless entry/operation vehicle.

The recent tragic accident of a CA Highway Patrol Officer and his family in San Diego prompts the question: What CAN be done to disengage the Prius keyless operation drivetrain and safely bring the vehicle to a stop?

A quick check with local Toyota dealers, which I have tried and confirmed in my Gen III vehicle, suggests the following possible options: *

Option #1. Simply shift the car into NEUTRAL, by moving the shift lever to the LEFT and HOLD it there until the car comes out of DRIVE. The shift to neutral occurs quite rapidly, but you have to REMEMBER to purposely hold the shift lever LEFT, overcoming it's normal spring-loaded rest position. ... Just quickly moving the shift lever left and NOT holding it there, will NOT result in shifting the car to neutral.

Option #2. Turn the Prius OFF by PUSHING the POWER Button IN and HOLDING it IN for at least THREE SECONDS! The power train will then shut down and you can bring the car to a stop using the brakes, as normal BUT, BE AWARE, the power steering will also be OFF, which results in steering being somewhat difficult and sluggish, but certainly manageable. Please note that if you turn your Gen III OFF while moving, your Multi-Information Display will indicate "Shift to P Position".**

Of course all of the above presumes that the ignition; drivetrain and shifting sensors of the keyless vehicle you are driving are all working properly. Links to the tragic accident referenced above indicate a possible problem with the accelerator pedal being impeded by all-weather floor mats. One cannot help but empathize with the horrific circumstances the Sayor family found themselves in. If, in the final analysis, no vehicle control, electrical or mechanical faults are discovered to have caused the accident, a driver or passenger knowing how to put the vehicle in neutral or turn off the power is valuable, possibly life-saving information. My guess is that most Prius owners are NOT aware of these simple emergency procedures.

Best Wishes for many safe Prius miles, to all! ~ Aquanaut

* ... I do NOT know if these procedures apply to either the 1st or 2nd generation Prius models.

** ... Being more interested in bringing the vehicle to a safe stop, I chose NOT attempting to shift to PARK UNTIL fully stopped! Friends have guessed that, in spite of the display indication, the Prius might not shift into park while moving, - but none of them were willing to try it either! Something about the intersection of my original intent to stop the car safely and common sense tells me to let Toyota test when to actually shift into park vs. when their computer indicates to do so!!

You mention some accident and 'references' to it, but I saw no link to any news story or accident report. Without any clue what happened, I am not able to offer suggestions how to prevent it.

Re: Clock shuts off when accessary is on

putting the car(Lexus) in neutral would just make the engine bounce off the rev limiter.


and if the engine blew up it would be no loss considering what happened.

I do not think that a Prius is limited to 108 MPH would help much. Flipping it into Neutral/Holding down the Power button would both be 'good' bad choices. In neutral you may over rev the engine, with the power off, you have no power steering. I wonder if the Lexus owner did not try to use the brakes until he had none left.

I don't really understand, was this a coincidence and the brakes failed and the throttle stuck wide open at the same time? If the brakes are working normally on any street car they will be able to overcome the engine, even if the throttle is stuck wide open.

Could the driver have been pushing on the wrong pedal? Similar to the Audis going through garage walls a few years back? Only this time with tragic consequences? and as already mentioned why didn't he just shut it off? If there was time to call 911 and have a short conversation there was time to shut it off and coast to a stop. Remember he was driving a loaner car and may not have been familiar with it.

For this to be caused by the car several things would need to fail simultaneously, throttle, maybe the cruise control, brakes, power button or ignition switch.

On our cars neutral, power button, park button would all work. The car is quite drivable when powered down at highway speed, I have tried it. As Tideland mentioned I would not recommend using the foot operated parking brake in such a situation except as a very last resort. It's to hard to release and probably is not adjusted for even braking to each rear wheel anyway.

theres nothing you can do...myth busters trued this in one of there myths..but then again they used cars that had actual keys and not push to start.

Yes exactly, the hard questions have to be asked. If we don't explore all possibilities we can't find all the answers. To many people want to blame the machine, or the evil company that made it, and leave out the human factor.

Most new cars have throttle by wire, it is nearly impossible for the throttle to be stuck unless the computers act up. Put the car in netural and slam on the brakes as hard as possible.

The general topic of turning off the ICE in a fly-by-wire vehicle in an
alleged runaway situation, and the specific incident in San Diego used
as the opening gambit by the OP has been thoroughly discussed in
another thread:

http://priuschat.com/forums/freds-house-pancakes/68129-very-strange-lexus-crash.html

In that thread Tickwood, the OP, did an excellent job of
reposting to update information. His final posting was:

Well done Tickwood. :thumb:

The good news is the restrained and information rich responses. After
reading both these threads, I for one am now better prepared to handle
a similar situation in the unlikely event it should occur.

I appreciate the link to the earlier thread, as well as the mini-review of it and the reference to the final updated information.

I don't quite understand the attack on this thread's OP. I may be missing something here, and I'm just curious about your post.

I had no idea about the previous thread. Perhaps the OP didn't, either, and it didn't show when he started this thread (the title of the thread would not bring up the earlier thread).

Is the issue, in your opinion, that the OP should have provided an update on the crash investigation? I appreciate the fact the OP called a couple of Toyota dealers to try and find out how to handle the situation in a Gen3, should the same events arise. I could see the interest in the potention problem and action to get answers as enough to prompt me to start a thread on the subject, so I am just wondering what better steps the OP could have taken.

a priori,

The OP has raised a major question about the fundamental safety of all
fly-by-wire vehicles, the Prius included. I would think that there would
be keen, abiding interest in the responses to the questions raised. The
failure to reply to the request for specific information in post #2 raised
a red flag for me.

As to the potential trollishness, I said, "I am prepared to be shown
otherwise." A second posting by the OP would demonstrate to me that
the OP was in fact genuinely seeking information.

Let's wait and see what happens.

Something smells very wrong about this whole thing. They didn't
have time to take immediate remedial measures with the car, but
had time to fish for the cellphone and wait for 911 to connect.
WTF?? I might be convinced that people really do know that little
about the vehicles they're supposed to be controlling on the
roads, but the timing seems totally off and the first response
just completely wrong.
.
On my recent tool up Mt. Washington I got to chatting with some
of the gate people and the facility director after I came back
down, who said that far too often they have to REACH INTO the
cars and SHOW the drivers how to get into their low gears, because
they've never done it and have no clue. That's scary and really
makes you wonder why more vehicles don't go gaily sailing off
that road into the rocks every week.
.
_H*

The cell phone call was made by a passenger in the bacl seat.

It appears that there are excellent Prius experts on this site. One or two had offered input on this critically important topic which is valuable of course. Seems to be constirnation from other posters about accuracy and such.
Is it possible for the team from Toyota in California responsible for the Prius product to provide direct feedback on this. I would believe they would not as they would be legally bound to this input.

OK, I have to say something, the original post was what I thought beneficial to the whole here, so everyone was at least aware of how to "Turn Off" your car since it had push button start.

I actually followed the story initially since I read the LA Papers, Yes I know even living in the opposite climatic tundra!

The person involved in this accident no less was a CHP Officer! I must say I was a little startled by that, but it was obvious by the news article that this Lexus was a "Loaner Vehicle". Initial posts indicated that the "authroities" believe that the All Weather Rubber floor mat may have "creeped forward" causing the accelerator pedal to stick. (One reason it is clearly posted in a lot of cars today, not to use Floor mats that would mover or interfere with the Accelerator pedal, and it IS in the Prius Manual).

So, a couple things could have played a role with the crash, and I think having push button start has nothing to do with it, pursae, but one should know how to STOP the vehicle since it is slightly different. The Original poster was trying to emlighten all of us and the intent was certainly admirable and appreciated. Holding down the power button for 3 seconds, or shifting and HOLDING for few seconds to the "N" Position are all great things all of us should know.

I just think the thread seemed to be all over the place, and although I have concerns about how the crash really happened and what led up to that, since you would have thought a 20 year veteran with the CHP would have knowledge and training in that area, are questionable. We will never know for sure what they really did due to their death. But wil have to see the final report by the investigation and what they conclude.

I just think the thread went all over the board and don't understand why something that started out as a nice gesture had to be tore apart...OK so I am ranting a little....but all of us on here RANT from time to time and this was my time.

I get what Rokeby is saying, this has nothing to do with the incident or the potential, just that the OP wanted to strike fear into others in regards to what happened.
You are right, no other visits by the OP or comments (seems trollish).