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Ah yes, where Toyota was found guilty of not being a US company. The only thing they did in the recall was the same floor mat anchor as so many other cases. "
by LanceH 10mo ago
Ah yes, where Toyota was found guilty of not being a US company.
The only thing they did in the recall was the same floor mat anchor as so many other cases.
"NASA engineers found no electronic flaws in Toyota vehicles capable of producing the large throttle openings required to create dangerous high-speed unintended acceleration incidents. The two mechanical safety defects identified by NHTSA more than a year ago – “sticking” accelerator pedals and a design flaw that enabled accelerator pedals to become trapped by floor mats – remain the only known causes for these kinds of unsafe unintended acceleration incidents. Toyota has recalled nearly 8 million vehicles in the United States for these two defects." -- transportation.gov
Cosmic rays and other wild theories over the simple theory of driver error. Even with a stuck throttle, the brakes will still stop a car (not to mention shifting into neutral still works).
- Denatonium 10mo agoNot to mention that in an emergency, you can always turn the key to kill the engine, and then put it back into pre-igntion (to unlock the steering column). You won't have power-assisted braking or power-steering, but with a bit of adrenaline-fueled strength, it is definitely preferable to being in a car that is stuck accelerating.
- helterskelter 10mo agoKey?
- chneu 10mo agoLong press the start/stop button.
- laweijfmvo 10mo agoshift into neutral
- ehnto 10mo agoIt was a 2005 model, so it should have been possible. However the article isn't super clear on where exactly the software is running, and the transmission controller and engine control unit can be interlinked in various ways. Especially more modern vehicles, it would be entirely possible to write code that disallowed shifting if it was an automatic. We have no idea just how poorly orchestrated this system was and what features were affected. I don't know enough about 2005 Camry's though, so I wouldn't speculate much further than that.
- PhotonHunter 10mo agoThe service brakes of anything short of a supercar are sufficient to stop a car at WOT.
- joecool1029 10mo agoWell, they didn’t here, also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_fade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brake_fade
- jjav 10mo agoBrakes will always overpower the engine unless the braking system is severly damaged. This is simple physics. Cars decelerate far faster than they accelerate, which is to say, the brakes can generate far more horsepower than the engine can. (Apparently the Rimac Nevera, with about 2000hp, can accelerate faster than it brakes. So that one might be the only exception. So unless you're driving a 2000hp car, the brakes will always overpower the engine, that is not debatable.) Brake fade is irrelevant here. Brakes fade when overheated beyond their operating range, either due to fluid boiling and/or the pads overheating. This is nearly impossible to achieve in street driving, but can be experienced on the race track. None of the claimed acceleration accidents involved extreme repeated braking prior to the incident.
- mmooss 10mo agoThat's a lot of thought and action in a unexpected and very fast-moving situation. I don't think that's a realistic expectation, except perhaps for trained personnel like airplane pilots.
- LanceH 10mo agoStomp on brakes is pretty basic, and all that was ever needed for overpowering a prius's engine/motor. This "scandal" was never about mechanical failures. It was almost certainly about driver error and mass hysteria. As for Toyota settling, had this been Ford or Chevy, the government wouldn't have had the appetite to go after them for what was always a non-issue. It was just less expensive for Toyota to fix floor mats and pay a billion to put it all behind them.
- SV_BubbleTime 10mo agoOk, but their engine controller was found to have 12,000 global variables and no one could ever say conclusively that the pedal issue was real or not. The issue was not that no one found the flaw, it’s that no one could prove it wasn’t there.
- cwmoore 10mo ago[flagged]
- McGlockenshire 10mo ago> no one could ever say conclusively that the pedal issue was real or not You should ask a mechanic's opinion.
- behringer 10mo agoOver 9000!!??
- jiggawatts 10mo agoCommon in some real time systems with minimal or no usage of the stack.
- behringer 10mo agoYes. In fact I would trust such a system far more since a more procedural approach to the system would be much, much easier to spot bugs.
- SV_BubbleTime 10mo agoMy man. As someone who works on Autosar controllers, your trust is extremely misplaced.
- majormajor 10mo ago>The issue was not that no one found the flaw, it’s that no one could prove it wasn’t there. Are cars since then required to have formally verified codebases, or is "no one could prove [there are no bugs]" still true? --- Trying to evaluate what happened based on observation of events alone and stats, in absence of a formal proof of issue or non-issue... the cars didn't just disappear overnight so if there was such an issue... where did it go?