more prius questions

A. He didn't want to hit the power button at speed to turn off the ignition, because he feared it would lock the steering.

B. He didn't want to shift to neutral, because he was afraid it might accidentally shift to reverse.

I'm pretty sure (B) was not a real danger, all cars have had lockout since decades ago, right?

Anybody know if (A) was real?

J.

Reply to
zzznot
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(A) can only happen if you put it in park, which can't happen at speed anyway. (B) you're right, there is a lockout.

Reply to
E. Meyer

Can't speak for Prius, but my Accord's steering lock doesn't engage until the key is removed, so not a problem to turn it to OFF.

Yes, only in books like "Stroker Ace" do people shift into R at 100 kpm. ... Maybe it's a knew Toyota defect? :)

FWIW, this guy's story doesn't smell right.

Reply to
Tony Harding

The correct answer is C. Unskilled driver.

However, point D. is the most important. Faulty equipment.

A lot of Toyotas have major safety issues.

This car, instead of being on a highway, could have easily accelerated out of control in a busy parking lot, killing or injuring dozens of people.

We should focus our attention on WHY these cars are accelerating suddenly, THEN focus on the drivers.

Reply to
jr92

Apparently not.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

"zzznot" wrote in news:hn9l70$u1k$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

No, it's not.

You mean this report?:

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That incident is /extremely/ suspicious.

The driver admitted he floored the gas pedal in order to pass another car, so there's a VERY strong possibility that he's just trying to get out of a speeding ticket.

The Prius does not have the CTS gas pedal unit, and this particular one was not part of the Prius recall.

The Prius has regenerative braking. Touch the brakes, and the power to the wheels is automatically killed. It's basically the same idea as Toyota is now applying to all non-hybrids, such as the one in which the San Diego cop died.

The way the Prius throttle and brake work, it is /impossible/ for the car to keep accelerating if the brake pedal is touched.

Plus the shifter is a completely independent circuit. The claim that the shifter would not go into Neutral is clearly bogus. It went into Park just fine after the driver stopped the car.

It is very odd how as soon as the cop pulled in front of the Prius (thus presenting the driver of the Prius with the very real danger of damage to his car), the car STOPPED. How so very convenient!

Reply to
Tegger

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That's the incident, but I saw another report that the driver REFUSED to even attempt to turn off the ignition at speed or to shift to neutral, for the reasons I listed above.

While making a five-minute 911 call?

I have not heard that the police were anywhere in sight, until he called for them.

Right.

I thought I heard only some/all Lexus models have the cutout.

The tv reports all have the cop saying he could smell the burnt brakes, apparently as he drove behind.

The driver would not ATTEMPT it.

Er, yes, but that may be the first time the driver tried it.

I'm curious how the cop managed to catch up with a car going 90. I'm even curious how there was such a stretch of freeway anywhere in socal, that was open enough to go

90mph for more than about one minute - and heard at least one local news guy ask the same question!

So, my take is that it was a real runaway, even if it did begin with the guy putting the pedal to the metal, but that he REFUSED to try TWO things that might have cut it short.

Another part of this is the claim that the brakes would NOT stop the runaway, which still seems bogus to me in ALL of these incidents.

But if it's true, they might want to put bigger brakes on these suckers. And maybe a tail hook.

J.

Reply to
zzznot

Some peopel say this is hoax.

Some people say Toyota PR people or lawyers are planting the suspicions of a hoax too.

Reply to
rick++

This doesn't seem bogus to me; most drivers do not know how to apply maximum pressure to the brakes all at once. Riding the brakes with an open throttle will quickly overheat the brakes greatly reducing/ eliminating their effectiveness.

No, the cars need brake assist. See Mercedes Benz.

And that's called brake override.

Reply to
ACAR

"zzznot" wrote in news:hnb3lj$puu$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

All he did was shake his head at the cop. That could mean a number of things.

All you know are the TV reports, which will be found later on to be full of omissions and errors. Guaranteed.

Well you thought incorrectly.

All Priuses with regenerative braking have /always/ had the brake override.

You have no idea if the driver had been braking hard immediately prior to the alleged acceleration incident.

If you have ANY idea of how a Prius works, you'd know that what the driver alleges is impossible.

The Prius has regenerative braking. The system not only applies the regenerative brakes when the brake pedal is pressed, but ALSO kills power to the engine. It would be senseless to have it any other way, since the regenerative braking would be negated if power were applied at the same time.

In addition to the above, the stop lamp switch acts as a backup, so if for some reason the regen system doesn't kick in, current through the stop lamp circuit tells the PCM to kill engine power on its own.

The driver SAID he tried to put it in neutral and the shifter would not move. This is also impossible.

Too many things would have to fail for the car to actually be impossible to stop. The driver is lying.

Reply to
Tegger

ACAR wrote in news:ea8e9aba-6f3a-4bc8-ab6e- snipped-for-privacy@j27g2000yqn.googlegroups.com:

YOU CANNOT DO THAT ON A PRIUS.

The Prius system kills power to the engine when the brake is pressed. It is IMPOSSIBLE to have both gas and brake activated at the same time on the Prius. IMPOSSIBLE. Ask any Prius driver.

Which all Prius's with regenerative braking have had all along. The driver's Prius also has a brake override. In fact, it has TWO independent override circuits.

Reply to
Tegger

Yeah, I knew that about Prius; I was referring to the more general statement re. "in ALL of these incidents." I should have been more specific.

Well,all but at least one. I wonder if they'll have enough to convict him of something; perhaps reckless endangerment.

Reply to
ACAR

specifically, it kills spark and gas. At that speed, the engine itself is in fact turning. At any speed over 42mph, the engine must physically turn--that's inherent in the design.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

yeah, IF it were possible for the throttle to be open while the brake pedal is being pushed.

Not possible in a Prius. This ain't your father's Oldsmobile.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in news:elmop- snipped-for-privacy@nothing.attdns.com:

OK, to be more specific... when the PCM sees both throttle and brake, it shuts off the injectors, which is how it "kills power". The engine may still be turning, but it is now a drag on the car, not a power source.

I'm not too sure the PCM kills the spark as well. Spark is normally left running so as to retain the ability to be able to pulse the injectors in order to prevent O2-poisoning of the cat.

Reply to
Tegger

"Elmo P. Shagnasty" wrote in news:elmop- snipped-for-privacy@nothing.attdns.com:

I disagree; if the car/engine IS in a "runaway" state,then the throttle IS open while the driver is pressing on the brake.(that's why the car accellerates) the engine is not going to "runaway" with a closed (idle position) throttle plate.No matter how much fuel the injectors dump into the intakes.

Unless,like the Audi example,the driver only thinks they're pressing on the brake and is really standing on the gas pedal.

That is why some believe there's a software problem that occurs under some unknown combination of conditions,that commands the electrically driven throttle plate to open wide. This is a possibility with throttle-by-wire.(TBW)

Duplicating the fault condition will be tough. Some of the affected cars need to have an external monitor connected that monitors the various inputs and outputs of the ECU.(I'd add a temporary fuel pump cutoff switch so you can shut it down quickly if necessary.) (it seems the ECU is not setting it's own fault codes,but only Toyota knows for certain,and they aint talking.)

Reply to
Jim Yanik

In this report.

Again, in the other report, it stated he refused for (bogus) reason.

Still, y'all have convinced me, this one at least was probably a hoax.

J.

Reply to
JRStern

stop right there dude. the input conditions are only "unknown" to people that don't understand the systems. they are very much known to the people that do and very well mapped.

you're repeating underinformed guesswork. if you want to worry about something in this ridiculous toyota fiasco, worry about the extent to which the whitehouse feels entitled to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on supporting companies that outsource their jobs to china. you should also worry about the shameless fear-mongering that's trying to exploit public ignorance of "black boxes". it's a very worrying precedent. don't let yourself get suckered in.

Reply to
jim beam

Jim Yanik wrote in news:Xns9D38F285AA1BFjyaniklocalnetcom@216.168.3.44:

If the Prius PCM sees brake application, it shuts off the injectors. That's why throttle position does not matter.

The Prius is very specifically designed to disable fuel delivery on account of its regenerative braking. It would be stupid for fuel to continue to be delivered when you step on the brake; that would defeat the whole idea of regenerative braking.

Most of the alleged runaway incidents will eventually be proven to be that. Statistically, it's inevitable, since just about all other unintended accelerations prove to be that as well.

It's such an "out there" posibility that it ranks alongside the idea of the moon landings being faked.

Throttle-by-wire, on account of its inherent dangers, has a design that is MANDATED by the feds. The feds control the design to such an extent that it's not even possible to hack into the software. And Toyota has several additinal fail-safes built into the mechanisms and the circuitry to prevent runaways. And this works. Even those 12 confirmed incidents of actual sticky CTS pedals resulted in no crashes.

The default state of the throttle is OFF, unless every single required parameter is correct. The slightest error of any kind, and the throttle refuses to operate.

There are too many separate things that would have to fail to cause a runaway Prius. And this is by design.

And if nobody can duplicate the fault despite hundreds of hours of effort (except in a highly-unlikely scenario), then that sort of tells you something...

Reply to
Tegger

JRStern wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I remember the original Audi 5000 case, where the lady ran over her kid. 60 Minutes interviewed her, and she said she was most definitely on the brake and not on the gas, and that the car was clearly defective. This was reported without question by 60 Minutes and the rest of the hysterical media. The problem was, that same lady had previously admitted to the /cops/ that she'd mistakenly been pressing the GAS. 60 Minutes didn't bother including that little nugget in their smear episodes.

I'm not sure this Prius incident is an actual hoax. But what it is, exactly, will come out in the next few months, after everybody has lost interest in it. Keep an eye on the magazines, and on the back pages of the newspapers.

Reply to
Tegger

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