Drive by wire (DBW)????

"drive by wire" is not "steer by wire".

kindly stick to "share what you know, learn what you don't", ok?

You all sound like a bunch of bickering women.

"Drive by wire" is a term usurped from "fly by wire" in the first place, used to refer to electronic steering control, throttle control, potentially braking control (haven't seen anyone using that yet, but it's only a matter of time), or any other electronic, non-mechanically-interfaced control of a car's "drive" systems.

The term is used differently by different manufacturers as to which system it's referring to, and indeed, probably refers to multiple systems in some (throttle AND steering together, for example). Since the meaning varies with the specific make of car, debating it here is completely meaningless... same as debating whether the proper term is ABS for Antilock Braking System, or ALB for Anti Lock Brakes, or any other acronym for that type of system, which varies from one manufacturer to the next.

Sez you... You wanna make somethin of it???

Actually, I'll accept your description since the application "...by wire" is somewhat generic with automobiles.

Anti lock brakes have been used in aircraft for a long time but again, airplanes are subject to specific mandatory maintenance regimens.

JT

you forgot "old".

of course!!!

but /nobody/ has that. and nobody /will/ have that unless you want a car with autopilot. and that's not coming to public roads for a while yet.

most modern cars have that now.

mercedes had it [sbc - sensotronic brake control] but dropped it - customers didn't like it. they even retrofitted back to standard/abs brakes for cars that had been shipped with it.

Matt Ion wrote in news:lo46j.4421$iU.3489@pd7urf2no:

Actually,jet engines have had electronic "throttle" control long before the term "fly-by-wire" came into use.The FBW term has been used for FLIGHT controls("steering" the AC),not engine control.

jim beam wrote in news:16WdnUHf27wGRcXanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@speakeasy.net:

Uh,yeah,it is.

Meaning FLIGHT control("steering"),not engine control,since jet engines have used electronic control long before FBW was implemented.

It's changing THIS YEAR;

Mazda will have it(electronic steering control) on one of their 2008 platforms

sorry dude, it's not. there are no cars that have that. not one. /all/ use direct mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and the front wheel knuckles. most have power assist. assist is not electronic control.

you could argue that about the rear of honda's 4ws they had on the prelude back in the 80's. but it's not the real deal. the fact remains, all these vehicles have direct mechanical linkage. in the even of system failure or shutdown, driver has direct mechanical control. that is not the case with any form of "fly by wire".

Having the throttle controlled by an ECU (computer) driven Servo instead of by a mechanical cable link. Something that Honda does very well on the S2000 (which feels like a mechanical link and very natural) yet very horribly on my wife's '07 Si sedan (which hangs for about 1-1.5 seconds after letting off the throttle thus turning anyone who has a clue how to drive into a herky-jerky looking idiot... In this case it's worse than GM's skip shift and the service techs can't seem to find a way to reprogram it...)