Prius Paranoia

No - The car's smarter than that!

 

:lol:

i could so see it happening too... "but it said power!"

fortunately no, the car knows better. now if you hold it down for a certain length of time (an inordinate length of time- to avoid mistakes like this) it will go into emergency shutdown mode, but that shouldn't engage park. at least not that i've heard.

 

dreichla is right, nothing happens, unless the power button is held in for several seconds. That's an emergency shut-down. Electric power is cut from the drive battery and the ICE won't run. The car comes to a rapid, unpowered stop. It doesn't go into Park.

Speaking of Park, tapping that button while in rapid motion doesn't do anything either. Neither does moving the shift lever into R. An electronically controlled car has it's advantages...




Dang, galaxee types faster than I do.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Oct 16 2006, 04:41 PM) [snapback]333669[/snapback]</div>

Sometimes electronics (or electronic designers) are smarter than people. It's like having to select Start to shutdown your computer. :lol:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Beryl Octet @ Oct 16 2006, 01:28 PM) [snapback]333656[/snapback]</div>

You do think a lot. It wouldn't have even come across my mind, if the dealer hadn't told us that pressing Park or Power while cruising on the highway wouldn't crash the car.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Dawning Sky @ Oct 16 2006, 05:27 PM) [snapback]333698[/snapback]</div>

My son accidentally hit the "Power" button as he was rolling to a stop, thinking he was going for the 'Hazard' button so he could pull off to the side of the road to play with the Bluetooth phone option. He was probably only going about 5 mph, but it DID clunk to an immediate stop. I've been told this will only happen at very low speeds, and people on the forum have confirmed this, experimenting with it at higher speeds.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jeannie @ Oct 16 2006, 02:30 PM) [snapback]333700[/snapback]</div>

Yes you are correct, I don't know what the cut off is but at any speed that would damage the car or be dangerous it will not go into park. I have tried it, not at 70 MPH but at 40 or so. If you just jab the power button nothing happens as Bill pointed out. If you hold it in for a couple of seconds it goes into neutral, you lose power steering which is no problem just a bit harder to steer. The power brakes still have enough vacuum to stop you and if they didn't that would be no problem either just push harder on the pedal. After you stop you can restart it in the normal manner and off you go.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tumbleweed @ Oct 16 2006, 04:55 PM) [snapback]333725[/snapback]</div>

Since we're talking paranoia here, I might as well tell you about something I did, accidentally, that could have killed us all at home. I was showing a visitor the Prius, and, since the car was not making noise, since the gas engine was off, we got out of the car and went into the house. The car was still on, in the garage!

About 8 hours later, at 3:00 AM, my daughter comes home, comes through the garage, sees that the dash lights are on in the car, instantly panics that all in the house are dead, turns off the car, and rushes inside to see if we are still alive. Of course, we were OK, but I was too embarassed to tell my wife for months. The car was even OK, the battery was a bit low, but all was well.

I don't know if anyone has yet trumpeted the suicide-prevention aspects of the Prius

 

Pressing "P" just puts your car into neutral unless you are traveling below a cut-off speed (I'm guessing 5-6mph).