NHTSA Tracking Braking Loss on Prius Hybrids

Well, it might be Toyotas IF that person stabbed the wrong pedal because the one that was supposed to stop them wasn't stopping them and they switched to the other pedal. People in panic do that sort of thing. If "A" doesn't work and all they have is "B", they switch to "B"...or they, more often-thankfully, press "A" harder.

If a company is aware of a potential problem and they ignore it and someone gets hurt it's called "Negligence". It really won't be a REAL issue until someone gets hurt as I see it and the lawyers/judge/jury have to then sort it all out.

 

So I need to bear personal responsibility if I fall down your stairway, but if I don't use the car properly I can sue Toyota? :madgrin:

 

Dogfriend, for a human-animal hybrid you ask too many questions!

Please, don't harrass me...stop trolling.

 

It is not "MAY" be a problem there is a real problem here and it needs to be fixed. I must first admit I do not own one of these cars, nor would I ever, but a friend of mine has one (Just picked it up a few weeks ago) and he has this problem. He is not very versed in how cars work, so he turned to me after he took the car back to the dealer and they told him it was "Normal" and that it's only because he is not "Used" to the regen braking system. Now, the dealer may be able to get away with that with some folks, but I once was a dealer mechanic years ago, and since have gone back to college and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. So when my friend turned to me because he felt the dealer was blowing him off, he did so because he knows my back ground and trusts that I will tell him the real deal. I took his car for a ride, and was very easily able to recreate the problem by taking the car thru a dip in the road under hard braking, which causes the car to get light on the front end when it comes out of the dip. This is not an ABS issue. This is a program issue when the car is in regen mode and senses a wheel is stopping, and begins to apply the mechanical brake, but when the wheel begins to speed up again, the regen mode is reactivated. The only way to clear the confusion to the program is to actually let up on the brake, and then re-apply the brakes. Now this is very hard to convince the brain to do this when the driver is panic stopping, but it is needed because the system is lost for a moment because it is not normal to go from the mechanical braking mode, to regen braking (This is normal done the other way around).

Now, some of the answers I have read on here like, "The car cannot make up for lack of judgement from the driver", is just as good as the dealer telling my friend this is normal. This car has a huge issue under certain conditions, and people are going to be hurt before this gets fixed because the dealers are telling people this is normal. This sounds a lot like the whole floor mat issue on the Lexus, which wasn't a real problem until 4 members of the same family were killed. This problem is only going to get worse as the potholes begin to show up in the freeze states as winter gets rolling. I suggested to my friend, and any others on here who are having the same problem to contact NTSB and file a complaint. Hopefully Toyota will acknowledge this issue and not hide it until after their advertising campaign is over. We'll see if they'll do the right thing or not. I for one, doubt they will. They have too much riding on the new generation prius to acknowledge they built it with a design flaw IMO.

 

I'm not trolling, I'm trying to find logical consistency.

It seems that Toyota is compelled to make a functional product + they must make a product that "feels" the same as other products or they are negligent. This seems to be an impossible standard to meet while introducing new technology. I think that the fact that the brakes "feel" as normal as they do is a major feat of engineering.

 

Actually, just apply additional pressure to the brake pedal and it stops fine, there is no need to let up on the brake.

 

OK, then if you want logical consistency let me borrow from your stair example (which wasn't logically consistent btw).

If YOU are using an escalator in a house I designed, and you went to step off the escalator in a manner consistent with every other escalator you've ever used before, and just as you stepped forward the escalator changed it's speed, or stopped working entirely for a split second, and you fell or jumped off and got hurt- then YES you would have a legitimate claim...probably not against me as the architect, though EVERYONE gets dragged into court by the attorneys...

 

You installed an escalator in a house?! I was expecting regular stairs and I might get hurt if I try to use the escalator the same exact way that I use stairs. Your escalator is unsafe. :madgrin:

 

This is your first post? Right into the middle of things. OK. And laying it on a bit thick I would say.

Your profile says you own a Prius 2010 III Executive (I am not familiar with this model. OK). But your first sentence says you don't own one and never will. So which one is the truth and which one is an error? Could you correct this first. And why did you make one of these obviously wrong statements?

As for your comparison between some answers by others and the dealer - there is a big difference. The people on this board have no business relationship with each other so they are free to express their opinion. There is no duty. An opinion is just an opinion. This is not true between a dealer and a customer where a business relationship exist and arguably a dealer may (or may not) speak for Toyota. So I would not criticize the people on this board so much - especially on your first post. Some people feel it is a problem, some people don't feel so. Some people are wrong - just like you are wrong about both owning a 2010 Prius and not owning a 2010 Prius. The dealer may be liable for what is said - I don't know if you can apply that to the people on this board.

 

You're my client- you ASKED for an escalator. I tried to talk you out of it...but NOOOOOOOO.

 

Toyota designed a hybrid car with regenerative braking by wire. The dealer told you it had regenerative braking didn't they? You bought it anyway, didn't you? :madgrin:

 

Dogfriend, I don't care if it's nuclear, solar or regenerative...brakes should NEVER exhibit brake loss when tires are still rotating on dry surfaces.

I'm really getting sick of this thread. Please quit the baiting.

 

I want solar brakes. But they have to work exactly like regenerative ones. :madgrin:

 

What I have felt is, instead of a 'loss of braking' is almost an acceleration over the bumps. Yes, the brakes seem to be less at that time but the car seems to actually accelerate slightly. I'm from Michigan and we have a whole lot of rough roads due to the state shifting moneys away from road maintenance so it happens fairly frequently.

I have already had my 2010 in once for it and a problem with the cruise control where it took a lot of foot pressure on the brake pedal to get the cruise to disengage. They fixed that by adjusting the brake sensor on the pedal mechanism but I had a heck of a time recreating the accelerating/braking thing...

It's freaked me out when it first happened. I nearly panicked as it took me completely by surprise. Now, I am not so freaked but it still happens.

Is it some kind of traction control action/reaction? Is it sensing the wheels turning at a different rate and adjusting the acceleration accordingly and at the same time stopping the regenerative braking system resulting in the accelerating feeling? Hmm... Sounds possible to me.

Is there a USB port to reprogram the firmware on the Prius?

Just my two cents...

 

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I agree. Many here notice a half a second of lossy feel, that is 44 feet at 60 mph. This is an issue, there is no doubt. I too can reason my way through it, and rationalize this, technically or otherwise, but it is not the feedback a braking system should present to the user. The driver feedback should not instill anyone with anything but confidence and familiarity. It does, in fact, give you the feeling that the brakes stopped working. It is something I'd have to explain away to a driver that was new to my car, and I'd be quite ashamed to do so. I experienced this the first time braking over railroad tracks, and the driver feel was Unsatisfactory. I'm verbalizing this to my Toyota dealer and Toyota. This does not instill confidence for the driver, nor the feedback any other car, nevermind any other Toyota, would present to the user.

 

OK, we can mod that but you can only drive on sunny days if you intend to stop.

 

Ha Ha Ha - Ho Ho Ho - lets fish some more....

No one has died - no accidents have occurred - time to give it a rest while it's being looked at... There are probably 100K 3G cars running worldwide... I had it happen - scary - yes - life threatening - no.

Now we can argue what if a space alien flew down and landed in front of the car at the moment of "scariness" - but that does not show stopping distance was affected. To be clear - I have no prejudice against space aliens - and feel their lives are as important as ours...

It's funny how something that has not to date caused an accident - is causing so many random (and likely not even G3 owners) to jump onto a crazy bandwagon...

 

Another two cents: My bigger issues that I've experienced is the silent backing up issue as I've nearly backed over people who for some reason can't se the backup lights on and take it upon themselves to walk right behind my car and/or drive behind my car...

The other issue is no iPod integration...

I'm thinking of getting an external beeper to warn people when they want to walk behind my car and risk getting backed into. The iPod thing, I'm living with...

 

Oh sure- just let the space aliens come across our planet's borders and take away all our jobs and let their kids learn at our schools and take advantage of our Emergency Rooms and social services....and pay NO taxes in the process....great.

 

First - space aliens have far superior technologies - traveling light years - lets just leave that one as proven.

Second - with far superiors technologies, and the ability to navigate vast regions of space, we can pretty well state that they would not put themselves in front of a semi-carbon burning machine - especially since someone would see them (and clearly - space aliens look nothing like us).

So long and thanks for all the fish...