Feds to probe cause of runaway Prius in California

Thanks for the kind words.

In Michigan, the requirements have become much tougher for new drivers, at least on the books. The problem is in the implementation. Like almost everything else, driver's training has become privatized, so new drivers learn through a private company and are tested by a private company. The quality of these companies varies a lot.

The requirements for time behind the wheel are mostly left to parents. Some parents are diligent, but many don't have the time or inclination to speed that much time riding with their kids. A lot of the driving time gets faked, with the help of parents. We made our kids do the whole 50 hours.

Much of this comes down to attitude. As a culture, if we were serious about driving we would be better drivers even without higher licensing requirements. As it is, we treat driving as a right, not a privilege. Driving is a casual thing in this country. It must be, otherwise cup holders would not be the most important part of a new car purchase.

Tom

 

Tom, some of your throwaway lines are priceless!

 

This is a comment that you might hear a lawyer give to a jury. In fact there are numerous failure scenarios that can easily explain the sequence of events that causes CTRL-ALT-DEL to not work. Primarily it is because keystrokes are processed by the same computer with the same memory space that has already malfunctioned (without going into the technical details of it all).
In a car there are seperate computers with seperate memory spaces. The different computers share data via a defined mechanism and testing for the complete or partial failure of one computer and how it affects another one can be (relatively) easy to test and demonstrate.

When your computer hangs and stops responding to keystrokes, including CTRL-ALT-DEL...what would happen you pull the plug out of the wall (and the battery, if a laptop) do you expect the computer to stop executing non-sensical instructions or to continue? You know it will stop because you have told it to shutdown by using a mechanism not involved in the malfunction.

Seem so obvious when you say it this way, IMO.

3PriusMike

 

How could he respond to the instruction to put his car in neutral, he had one hand on the wheel and another holding a telephone to his ear. If you hold a Prius at full throttle it will go much faster than 94mph. I agree with the person who said this clown sped past a police car so said his throttle was stuck to get off the ticket. Did anyone else wonder that there was a police car near by? A police car is only ever near when you are speeding, not when you actually want a police person to attend.

 

If my PC stops responding and CTRL-ALT-DEL does nothing I hold the power button and the BIOS shuts down the PC. It takes a couple of seconds but always works. The BIOS does not know or care what the microprocessor or programs are doing at the time. It sees the call to shut down the power and does it.

 

An article currently on MSNBC says that Toyota and Federal investigators are questioning his account of what occurred.

 

Read the article on Yahoo front page of the goverment and Toyota's findings of the "runaway" prius. Just like most suspected. The car brake kills the fuel like it should if you really push on it firm and not lightly. I wonder what will happen with this fellow?

 

Mr. Sikes is a real estate agent/broker. Any questions?

 

In a perfect world:



-Brad

 

LOL! I hope so! and then of course all the lawsuits against the guy for trying to further harm Toyota and also let us not forget his hurting the resale value of our cars! :mod:

Class action against this bozo anyone???

 

Memo: Investigators can't replicate runaway Prius

Investigators with Toyota Motor Corp. and the federal government could not replicate the runaway speeding reported by a Prius owner who said his car's accelerator stuck as he drove on a California freeway, according to a memo drafted for a congressional panel.
The memo, obtained Saturday by The Associated Press, said the experts who examined and test drove the car could not replicate the sudden, unintended acceleration James Sikes said he encountered. A backup mechanism that shuts off the engine when the brake and gas pedals are floored also worked properly during tests.
Sikes, 61, called 911 on Monday to report losing control of his 2008 Prius as the hybrid reached speeds of 94 mph. A California Highway Patrol officer helped Sikes bring the vehicle to a safe stop on Interstate 8 near San Diego.
The incident happened at the worst possible time for Toyota, which has recalled millions of cars because of floor mats that can snag gas pedals or accelerators that can sometimes stick. Just hours before the incident, Toyota had called reporters to its Torrance, Calif. office to hear experts refute claims that the company had not identified - or fixed - what might be causing its cars to speed out of control.
Sikes' car was covered by the floor mat recall but not the one for sticky accelerators. He later told reporters that he tried to pull on the gas pedal during his harrowing ride, but it didn't "move at all."
During two hours of test drives of Sikes' car Thursday, technicians with Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration failed to duplicate the same experience that Sikes described, according to the memo written by the Republican staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. One congressional staff member observed the investigation of Sikes' Prius.
"Every time the technician placed the gas pedal to the floor and the brake pedal to the floor the engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down," the memo said.
Also, the Prius is designed to shut down if the brakes are applied while the gas pedal is pressed to the floor. If it doesn't, the engine would "completely seize," according to the report that cited Toyota's "residential Hybrid expert."
"It does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically that his gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time," according to the memo.
The memo did say that investigators found the front brake pads were spent.
"Visually checking the brake pads and rotor it was clearly visible that there was nothing left," it said.
But the wear was not consistent with the brakes being applied at full force for a long period, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, citing three people familiar with the probe, whom it did not name. The newspaper said the brakes may have been applied intermittently.
Toyota Corp. spokesman Mike Michels declined to confirm the Journal's report. He said the investigation was continuing and the company planned to release technical findings soon.
Jill Zuckman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Transportation Department that oversees the highway safety agency, said investigators "are still reviewing data and have not reached any conclusions."
The findings raise questions about "the credibility of Mr. Sikes' reporting of events," said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the oversight committee.
Sikes could not be reached to comment. However, his wife, Patty Sikes, said he stands by his story.
"Everyone can just leave us alone," she said. "Jim didn't get hurt. There's no intent at all to sue Toyota. If any good can come out of this, maybe they can find out what happened so other people don't get killed."
Mrs. Sikes said the couple's lives have been turned upside down since Monday and they are getting death threats.
"We're just fed up with all of it," she said. "Our careers are ruined and life is just not good anymore."
Monday's incident appeared to be another blow to Toyota, which has had to fend off intense public backlash over safety after recalls of some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide - more than 6 million in the United States - because of acceleration and floor mat problems in multiple models and braking issues in the Prius. Regulators have linked 52 deaths to crashes allegedly caused by accelerator problems.
Sikes called 911 from the freeway on Monday and reported that his gas pedal was stuck. In two calls that spanned 23 minutes, a dispatcher repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral and turn it off. Sikes later said he had put down the phone to keep both hands on the wheel and was afraid the car would flip if he put it in neutral at such high speed.
The officer eventually pulled alongside the car and told Sikes over a loudspeaker to push the brake pedal to the floor and apply the emergency brake.
Once the car slowed to 50 mph, Sikes shut off the engine, the officer said.
The congressional memo obtained by the AP describes a series of tests conducted by Toyota and the NHTSA on Wednesday and Thursday. A full diagnostics was conducted, followed an inspection of the brakes and a test drive. Investigators also compared the Sikes vehicle to a 2008 Prius provided by a Toyota dealership.
NHTSA told congressional staff that the results "were the same on both vehicles and within the manufactures specifications," according to the memo.
Following the tests, NHTSA paid Sikes $2,500 for the gas pedal, throttle body and the two computers from his vehicle, the memo said.
Drivers of two other Toyota vehicles that crashed last week said those incidents also resulted from the vehicles accelerating suddenly.
NHTSA is sending experts to a New York City suburb where the driver of a 2005 Prius said she crashed into a stone wall Monday after the car accelerated on its own.
And in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the driver of a 2007 Lexus said it careened through a parking lot and crashed into a light pole Thursday after its accelerator suddenly dropped to the floor. That car was the subject of a floor mat recall. Driver Myrna Cook of Paulding, Ohio, said it had been repaired.
___
Thomas reported from Washington, D.C.
© Copyright 2010 CSC Holdings, Inc.

 

I don't necessarily believe Mr. Sykes but... just because something can't be replicated doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen.

I had problems with the DVD nav system (subject of another thread) -- there'd be a message telling me to insert the map DVD then the screen would freeze. After varying amounts of time, the system would reboot itself. It wouldn't last long enough for me to take it to the dealer to show them. I couldn't replicate the problem for them and they couldn't replicate it. But I did take a picture of the screen when it happened so I had something to show them. In the end they did replace the system and it has been working since.

Let's assume for a moment that the reports of UA are actually real, if the problem is electronic rather than mechanical, isn't it possible that it can't be replicated at will -- just like my nav system?

 

100% agree with you. I think at this moment, Toyota could not duplicate the problem; when they can, they will try to find out and fix the problem, because it will cost more to to ignore it and the problem will comeback (when certain conditions are met).

 

You can't prove that something isn't broken. You can only prove that it is broken, or not broken at the moment. It's the fundamental problem with all positive arguments.

For example, we can't prove that the earth's gravity will be here tomorrow morning. It's a pretty safe bet, since gravity has worked every other day, but still, all we can do is infer from all of the positive evidence and assume all will be normal tomorrow.

Likewise with the suspect Prius. For all we know, a stray gamma ray flipped a bit and caused a temporary problem; one that was reset once the car was powered off and back on. Is that likely? Hell no. The odds are so small as to be inconsequential. Now if it happens with some regularity we might be able to say that it is true. But speculation about a single event is just that: speculation. As scientists, we way off the one unlikely chance against all of the other data and say that it is not at all likely.

Tom

 

If I wake up tomorrow morning on the ceiling, I'm blaming you for breaking gravity. :madgrin:

 

The BIOS is just more x86 code running in the same memory space on the same microprocessor. The power switch is connected to an independent circuit on the motherboard that requires a trickle of power to operate and when pressed the soft switch turns on the entire power supply and causes the entire PC to boot up. In addition (depending on a MB jumper) the PC can be commanded to power-on via the network (wake on LAN feature). I know these parts for sure.

What happens when you press the power button during normal operation and when a crash has occured varies on laptop/desktop and OEM design (so there may be different designs). But normally a quick press gets captured by the software to allow an orderly Windows shutdown, or a sleep, etc based on your individual settings. Holding the button down for a few seconds overrides all this and the MB circuitry kills the power to the whole PC (except the trickle that operates the switch and the wake-on-LAN).

3PriusMike

 

Yes, you are correct that strange electronic glitches can occur. And in the case of a DVD issue its just an annoyance. But in the case of UA and safety there are several independent computers and systems involved. The investigators will (and have already) been looking at the supposed story, what is known (brake wear, etc.), what happens with the car now and try to put together the several indpendent failures that must have occurred for this event to have taken place.

Like I have been trying to show with the PC example...cars are not like a PC where a single program error can corrupt any or many bytes of the PC memory and cause all sorts of secondary problems. In the car a glitch in one computer cannot also cause another computer to have damaged code, generally. In this case, it seems that one glitch would have been needed to cause the acceleration. And another one to prevent hard braking from shutting off the gas supply. And the evidence seems to be that the brake pad wear is not consistent with the story or with hard braking.


3PriusMike

 

Hi 3PriusMike,

I think you are good with both Computer PC and Car Puter.

Question:

So if the ECU in our Prius is having a glitch how many thing can be malfunction?

 

Agreed. The probability that multiple redundant computers with multiple redundant sensors feeding them, all failed simultaneously, is very slim. But, technically it's not zero.

I can even accept that Mr. Sike's Prius had a problem. It does not necessarily follow that the entire fleet of Prii have the same problem.

Consequently, I'm waiting with baited breath to hear the results of the inquisition...hopefully it doesn't blame something like faeries or gremlins.

Chuck

 

I don't know about the Prius ECU...there are many others here that know much more specific details than me. But my guess is that one faulty signal can't cause a max acceleration. Nor could one high resistance connection, etc. However, once the proper signals are validated and in the ECU memory in algorithms being processed a serious dose of electromagnetic interference (i.e. radiation of some sort...neutrons, cosmic rays) could cause the "value" to become erroneous. This is the same thing that happens when natural radiation causes causes a memory bit to flip. PCs protect against this by using parity bits or more complex ECC (error correcting circuits that fix single bit errors and detect double bit errors). I'd assume that all car computers have hardware ECC or some software method of detecting errors that is more robust since the quantity of critical data is small and the computation rate so much lower than in a PC.

However during the next time period after a single/double memory glitch you'd think that the real pedal position would be read and be correct and everything would fix itself. So the failure mode would have to (perhaps) be that the cruise control got enabled and set to a high speed by a glitch. But then why wouldn't just touching the brake pedal disable it? You can see how you'd need a chain of independent memory failures and/or software bugs. I would think that all the starting single point of failures have been analyzed then followed down to where a double failure would need to occur by every car maker in order to be protected against these.

3PriusMike