Once the car is stopped, you can press the Park button, then press the Power button to shut it down.
AFAIK, you can't do those things while it's in motion, or the computer will ignore you anyway.
Posted on 03/09/2010 8:02:35 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Runaway Toyota Prius reached 90 mph - police Tue Mar 9, 2010 3:46pm GMT
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius said his car uncontrollably accelerated to over 90 miles per hour on a San Diego County freeway before a California Highway Patrol officer helped him stop the car, police said.
The driver, 61-year-old James Sikes, was not injured in the Monday incident, which is another claim of unintended acceleration that has caused the greatest image crisis for Toyota Motor Corp in its history.
The incident occurred in the same county where an off-duty California Highway Patrol trooper and three family members were killed last August in an incident that brought the issue to national attention and led to the first major recall over unintended acceleration.
Sikes said he had received a recall notice to take his car into a Toyota dealership, but when he did, he was told that his car was not on recall lists, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The automaker has not recalled the 2008 Prius.
On Monday afternoon, Sikes overtook another car on Interstate 8 near San Diego, and then the Prius accelerated beyond his control, the highway patrol said.
For the next 20 minutes, Sikes sped 30 miles along the freeway, he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
Thanks AC. I hadn’t read those comments of yours and I appreciate you repeating them. I agree with your logic. If this does turn out to be a drive by wire (electronic solenoids) problem, it will be exactly the same thing.
...and not good at all. This is the fear concerning that configuration come to life.
Once the car is stopped, you can press the Park button, then press the Power button to shut it down.
AFAIK, you can't do those things while it's in motion, or the computer will ignore you anyway.
Yes, that steering is certainly a concern. What happens if you get scraped at 65 mph, and your electronics get damaged? Good luck coming to a reasonable stop.
Looks like Toyota may be defaulting to the gas peddle for that. LMAO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOPS ;-)
Fly-by-wire aircraft have redundant computers - 3, IIRC. At least, the F-111 had 3.
And yes, there were times a plane crashed due to computer problems. However, using computers allows an aircraft that is inherently unstable (thus also more maneuverable) to fly. We use fly by wire because the additional performance is critical, knowing it can sometimes fail, even with 3 cross-checking computers.
I don’t see drive by wire offering that significant a performance improvement for transmissions. Fuel? Maybe. Gear selection? No thanks.
I like your reasoning there. I agree. For flight it does offer a clear advantage. The computer actually keeps you in the air there. On the auto, it doesn’t really provide an operational advantage unless I’m just totally missing it.
LOL, possibly.
“Shift our line to Neutral? Waddya mean ‘idling lines’? We’re union, we don’t do that!”
All cars make it difficult or impossible to shift into reverse while driving (for obvious—transmission-destroying reasons).
However, I really fail to believe Toyotas or any other car cannot be shifted into neutral while driving. That’s part of the purpose of a neutral in the first place—as a safety.
“Well that’s some scary stuff then... If the brakes, gas, and transmission are that computer controlled then were is the mechanical override? That’s some HAL 9000 stuff there...”
Wait until they make cars that drive themselves from one place to another. What happens if they suddenly decide to go straight where the road turns.
The F-16 has 4 channels with 4 signals in each...and a comparator circuit.
“The computer might decide you didn’t really want neutral, and not give it to you.” Exactly. It will not give you reverse, if you are driving forward, too fast(a safety feature)
“The gear knob on a Prius isn’t attached to the transmission. It is simply an input to the computer.” Exactly. There’re 12-14 computers in the prius, in reality most of them are “microcontrollers”.
“It has a push button starter.” The Pruis has no starter, you push “ON” the start button. This powers up all the computers, you step on the accelerator and either the engine or the batteries move the car forward or backward
“They lock when you remove the key.” The electronic key stays in your purse or pocket, you approach the driver’s side door and it unlocks the door.
These Hybrid cars are unlike anything you have ever seen.
The textbook answer is: 1) Select Neutral, 2) Push and hold the Start Button for 3-5 seconds If that fails, then it’s time for “Jesus to take the wheel”!
Power (assisted) steering and power (assisted) brakes....things that have been part of cars since the early ‘60s are, though originally mechanical, in essence a form of “fly by wire” since you are using other systems (besides human muscle) as force in these safety systems. They aren’t strictly necessary, as there have been generations of cars, and even heavy trucks and tractors which were “fully manual.” Power features however, do make vehicles easier to drive, and more convenient.
Electronic fuel control systems make engines far more efficient and drivable(modern diesel cars for example, due to electronics, are almost indistinguishable in driving than their gasoline powered cousins—contra the diesel slug-cars from 20 years ago), suspension controls, emission controls, lighting....and you name it-—all systems can be improved even if just subtly, with electronics. Even our discussion here is via electronics...it is silly to be a Luddite when it comes to the amazing improvements which electronic tweaking can and does provide to virtually all complex electro/mechanical systems, of which a car is a typical example.
Due to pollution and other controls, it’s safe to say without complex computer electronics, not a single car made today would operate at all.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m nearly certain that Toyota’s electronic controls (and all other brands) have a redundant system, as in fighter aircraft.... Though naturally in cars SINCE YOU CAN ALWAYS PUT IT IN NEUTRAL AND STOP ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, such a level of failsafe systems as you find in aircraft are not nearly as necessary.
yah...I’ve heard other speculation that it could be an EMI problem too. What if your blackberry ring tone goes off, just as you pass near a power transmission line, going exactly at the shift point from 2nd to 3rd....and so forth. Pick your combination.
The point was that you are asked to turn electronic devices off on an airplane so the EMI doesn’t interfere with the aircraft’s instruments. Why wouldn’t the computer in your car, that is 2 feet away from your cell phone and not even close to being EMI hardened, ( PC, IPos, crackberry, et al); be subject to the same kind of EMI??
Scary prospect if the computer really has that much control over the car....
You are required to do so, but repeated testing has NEVER supported the idea that any interference actually occurs.
It's a "what if" regulation with no basis in fact.
I suspect you drive a Prius since you know way too much about them. This begs the question, what self respecting cowgirl drives a Prius? :-)
I’m saying that there is not evidence either way, and all kinds of things are being proposed as candidates. Who can really say exactly what kind of electronic environment these computers actually operate under at any given moment, or what vulnerabilities they have that never occurred to anyone to test for??
So, there I was, barreling down the highway at 90 mph, totally out of control — and out of nowhere this little digital voice says “Do you want to play a game?”
But that's exactly my point: You can't regulate based on unknowns. The fact that you can imagine something happening in your mind does NOT mean that there's any threat of it happening in reality.
If RF interference were a realistic problem, you'd see far more than 0.0003% of devices malfunctioning, because there are hostile RF environments everywhere.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.