Featured LATimes: After second recall, Toyota Prius electrical system is still overheating

Every component may fail some day, electronics included. Even if the software modification has given less stress 2014 onwards, inverter would continue to break, more rarely than before, but still, not immortal.
Let's see what NHTSA has to say...

 

People remember the Pinto because of the fires. What is forgotten is that many of the rear endings that pierced the fuel tank and started the fires was due to the Pinto's engine being prone to stalling.

The Prius doesn't have its gas tank right behind the rear bumper, but one getting rear ended can still have serious, and even deadly consequences. One woman suffered a cracked vertebrae and a punctured lung.

So everything does fail at some point, but the question for NHTSA is if these inverters are doing so at an unacceptable rate, and if the failure could likely lead to a crash. If yes, it is as important to fix these cars as it was to fix the Pinto.

 

and i thought someone said tesla's weren't safe for hiking

 

Well this throws light on the absence of an EV.

Bob Wilson

 

it's not easy trying to retain the mpg leadership

 

I thought it was because they couldn't slap one of their grills on a BEV without it looking (more) foolish.

 

That didn’t stop Jaguar iPace.

Bob Wilson

 

One tree does not make a forest, nor my personal findings, but the inverter failure rate is probably very low from what I've seen in the portuguese forum. From all the 3Gens registered (aprox 110), and 50% updated, 2 had HV battery issues at 9 year old age and one a ICE problem (still under repair), no inverter failures ever reported.

 

Too small of a sample. The Prii potentially effected is about 1.8 million worldwide.

Not saying there is an issue, just that the safety ramifications means it shouldn't just be brushed off.

This is the more troubling issue from the article;
The process the NHTSA followed is part of a trend over the last several years, in which the safety agency does not convene a formal process and instead “conducts business behind closed doors and then pops out an announcement with the manufacturer,” said Levine, the Center for Auto Safety chief.


“Failing to be transparent in the process raises substantial questions about how decisions were made, how much investigation went on and whether NHTSA rubber-stamped a proposal,” he said.

 

From the safety point of view of a potential rear-ending, blowing an inverter in a hybrid is much the same of running out of gas in a ICE only.
Are there any safeguards against running out of gas?...

 

Yes.. gas stations.

 

When a kid, cars had fuel gauges, and now they all have a low fuel indicator, and likely more than one way to alert the driver.

The example doesn't apply because the car operator is liable for keeping the car fueled, if the the fuel gauges are working properly. If there is a defect in the fuel gauge, or out of spec gas fried it, then the liability lies elsewhere.

 

Mine tells SWMBO that she is out of gas long before she actually is.