Houston Press "Investigates" Safety Record of Toyota Prius

drivel

 

We all know about the traction control issues on the Prius, and I think a large portion of Prius owners have experienced some odd behavior in that regard. I, for example, have had the power cut out on me when I hit some gravel while trying to merge from a standstill onto a 50 MPH road. But the "car accelerated on its own to 90 MPH while I had the brakes pushed in and the e-brake pushed in" just does not ring true at all. These are purely mechanical systems and the car's computer cannot just shut them off. Even if the computer decided to run the engine at full throttle, I highly doubt you could get the car moving very fast with both brakes fully activated.

Note: I have removed my Houston newspaper comment because it was off the cuff and not a fair statement. Frankly, I would expect a lot more than this poorly written and reported article from any legitimate news source, regardless of location. If anything proves this, it is the selective method in which they have quoted the various posters here - clearly the criteria is to just find a snippet here or there that will inflame whatever minimal readership this story gets. The follow up photo gallery which talks about "smug" Prius owners further establishes that this "writer" (I use that term loosely) does not care about real news. Perhaps he can get a job writing for the Enquirer. All this story needed was an added tidbit that each time a Prius speeds off on its own, defying the laws of physics by somehow overriding a mechanical braking system, the car takes the driver to a field with crop circles and a mother ship.

 

Here we go again ....

Now watch as Rush buzzes all over this, like flies on fresh s***

 

One can do a similar article on any model of any car maker in USA.
"Unintended acceleration", "broken down on highway - scared the daylight out of me", etc.

I am a software engineers myself. Any software has bug. Intensive testing simply reduces the obvious ones (a matter of test coverage). No one can claim that the Prius software has 0 bug as it is now (millions lines of codes as I heard before). No one. Can you?
When it happens to you, you will see things differently.
I loved my old BMW and was a Bimmer fanatic until it started to fail me twice on highway.

I am trying to be objective here.
Floormats can be blamed in some of the cases, I am sure, but probably not all.
Some cases are obviously related to the TCS and lousy tires (those we knew already).
Don't brush this "unintended acceleration" off so quickly. If there is a bug some where, I surely
hope it can be corrected and update the software on all Prius out there.

 

My car was in a severe accident, and was rebuilt piece by piece, and yet I've never had the acceleration problem. Wth? BTW Houston Press is free, so there you go, they can really afford investigative journalism, lol.

 

not to mention a lot of vehicles now use the "drive by wire" this is not new technology, like my wife's 2001 VW Beetle uses drive by wire and my friends 2008 Civic is a drive by wire system.

 

I would agree that most software has bugs, but there is a lot of aircraft flight code and space life support code that has been vetted and tested enough to earn a "bug-free" result from 20 years of accumulated testing.

What justifies blaming software? That some reporters or lawyers claim it is possible? The only thing missing is any evidence. Claims are not evidence.

Let me state a fact about guns. Guns only go off accidentally while being cleaned. Nobody ever reports that their gun went off accidentally while engaged in horseplay. I would also note that every software generated car acceleration incident always seems to 1) accelerate on its own to extremely high speed and 2) the brakes don't work at all even though they are being pushed to the floor. Enough said.

 

This smells of bias.

 

Sounds like a pile of FUD...

In that one story where they could duplicate it, they should have tried shifting to neutral, and then seeing if it still happened. If it did, shift to neutral and stop somewhere (with e-brake) and check the mats.

 

I must admit that I once personally experienced this brake-related 'unintended acceleration', in a car that no one has accused of having this problem ('86 Accord), on an evening when very fatigued. But my winter slippery-road reflexes instantly kicked in, hitting the clutch and releasing the brake for a softer re-try. Not only did the engine quit revving and the car immediately stop, but the brake pedal felt different the second time, and it had moved a few inches left.

Since then, my fatigue limit for driving has changed, and I'm skeptical of those who insist that 'pedal misapplication' is not involved. And I'm happy to still have a clutch to break the connection between engine and wheels. Most drivers out there seem to lack both the clutch, and the winter reflexes to let up on the (non-ABS) brake when it doesn't work, rather than stomp harder.

 

So she is too stupid to wear a seatbelt. Is she too stupid to drive properly?

How come I never heard this on PriusChat?

3 car companies shared a government handout to develop an environmentally responsible car but they were beaten to it by one that recieved nothing

from the handout. And the big 3 car companies run hat in hand to the government, the American people for another handout? One wonders how they make money, it it car sales or blackmailing governments?

His efforts were in vein, I get 60mpg without trying and without gauges. Funny this guy isn't on PC either. you would think a fanatic would be.

3.5 pages of crap is my limit.

 

Gosh, were you never invited to the Prian party? We've got our own forum and everything! :nod:

Talk about pulling a story out of his arse, hmm? Or, as an old saying goes, "That was quilted from whole cloth!"

 

I think there's something fishy about this "newspaper".

Did a google, and noticed that there's SEVERAL "newspapers" running the same story. Most of the story is the same.

Houston News - Wild Rides - page 1
Miami News - The Toyota Prius: Hybrid Hell - page 1
Denver News - The Prius can take owners on a wild ride - page 1
Seattle News - The Flip Side of the Perfect Prius - page 1
St. Louis News - Wild Rides: Sometimes the cars accelerate on their own. Sometimes they stop dead. Drivers of the hybrid Prius have discovered they can be an unexpected adventure. - page 1
Broward/Palm Beach News - Drivers of the Toyota Prius Have Discovered They Can Be In for an Unexpected Adventure - page 4

One thing in common: All written by the same author, and all of those websites are by Village Voice Media.

Went to New York News - New York Local News and NY News Coverage
and lo and behold, in their "News from Coast to Coast" section, no less then 5 articles of the same thing, only in different places.

The strange thing is... the wording is slightly different in some of the opening paragraphs...

 

Timing of all these articles seems to be a reaction to the recent spate of positive reviews in the auto press and herein about the rollout of the new 2010. Coincidental? I never believe in coincidences in business or politics.

 

FYI, this is typical of the drivel HP publishes. It's a pretentious hipster weekly distributed in bins and funded mostly by the "ahem" classified ads. Their "investigative" journalism is always just anecdotal, with no real research or understanding displayed. In reality, it's just a gossip rag with bad reviews of movies, music and restaurants. All their stories are written with the same irritating smart-nice person holier than thou attitude. It gets no respect locally, and I stopped looking at it a long time ago.

 

Among the projects I've been involved with are "secure" RTOS as used in fly-by-wire aircraft, cruise missiles, etc. Some famous bugs, but mostly non-fatal

I don't claim the Prius is CMM 7. The much-publicized "stall" is a good example of a bug. However, the article is highly misleading

There are very few failure modes that can produce an outright braking failure in the Prius. Patrick Wong covered one such failure in his father's Prius. There can also be outright brake failures in conventional cars too.

How did it fail? Why?

The problem Audi had has already been brought up. One interesting thing is that due to our litigation-crazed society, the car makers have had to resort to having black boxes in virtually all their models, including the Prius

The automotive black box records basic parameters once the airbag pops: seatbelt use, speed, accelerator pedal %, brake pedal %, etc

The ambulance chasing lawers were very disappointed to discover their cash cow had wised up

 

You held in longer than I did