How Lexus is losing the luxury war

May 01, 2011 29 Replies

You apparently have not read Steve Wozniak's testimony, or perhaps have read it but do not understand it.

Woz discovered, while using the Prius cruise control, that he can repeatably and consistently cause his Prius to go into an uncontrolled acceleration mode which is entirely unexpected and potentially lethal.

His driving skills are more than adequate to handle this emergency and thus he did not panic as many people would.

Instead, he analytically isolated the sequence of driver steps which consistently provoke the problem. In the spirit of a true computer systems engineer, he analyzed and isolated the provocative conditions.

How Toyota dealt with his complaint was IDIOTIC. How the government initially dealt with his complaint was IDIOTIC. Some people might say (as I certainly would) CRIMINAL.

And some people on the Internet who are ill-informed might say, what an idiot Steve Wozniak is. He doesn't know how to drive a car properly.

It does leave the question open, who the actual idiots are.....

Link?

Link?

Oh come ON now, that has NOTHING to do with sudden acceleration.

Given the half dozen or more exchanges we have had, I can see that it is entirely obvious that your mind was and still is made up that the problem is entirely traceable to "idiot drivers" and publicity hounds, including those who died.

You do not acknowledge nor even reply to the fact that many other car makers including Mercedes, GM, and many others used a safer and better design algorithm for many years before Toyota begrudgingly and reluctantly retro-fitted it to their cars under a Federally mandated recall, after paying over 16 million dollars in fines.

Wozniak's testimony is all over the Internet from CBS News, the Washington Post, CNN and numerous other sources who are reputable and (no doubt) partially sponsored by Toyota yet still report honestly. If anything they would suppress such bad news rather than amplify it as you claim.

I have personally experienced extremely repeatable software bugs in my last Lexus as I mentioned earlier in this post. Lexus denied the problem yet 2 other engineers of comparable experience to my own (35 + years apiece) easily and clearly can demonstrate the issues.

You cannot see any connection between Wozniak's loss of accelerator control and the sudden acceleration issue so many other people have experienced and witnessed and reported? I can only conclude that you are not interested in facts or reality, and I am entirely done entertaining your nonsense and bullshit. You must either work for Toyota, be a total troll, or lack even basic powers of reasoning and logic.

Given the half dozen or more exchanges we have had, I can see that it is entirely obvious that your mind was and still is made up that the problem is entirely traceable to "idiot drivers" and publicity hounds, including those who died.

You do not acknowledge nor even reply to the fact that many other car makers including Mercedes, GM, and many others used a safer and better design algorithm for many years before Toyota begrudgingly and reluctantly retro-fitted it to their cars under a Federally mandated recall, after paying over 16 million dollars in fines.

Wozniak's testimony is all over the Internet from CBS News, the Washington Post, CNN and numerous other sources who are reputable and (no doubt) partially sponsored by Toyota yet still report honestly. If anything they would suppress such bad news rather than amplify it as you claim.

I have personally experienced extremely repeatable software bugs in my last Lexus as I mentioned earlier in this post. Lexus denied the problem yet 2 other engineers of comparable experience to my own (35 + years apiece) easily and clearly can demonstrate the issues.

You cannot see any connection between Wozniak's loss of accelerator control and the sudden acceleration issue so many other people have experienced and witnessed and reported? I can only conclude that you are not interested in facts or reality, and I am entirely done entertaining your nonsense and bullshit. You must either work for Toyota, be a total troll, or lack even basic powers of reasoning and logic.

Do you continue to insist that a misprogrammed cruise control that gently accelerates the car--and which can be turned off by the driver once he notices, if he's not butt-stupid--has anything to do with "sudden acceleration"?

Still waiting for links, Smarty.

If you can't provide them--if you can't back up your stories--then you have nothing.

On the other hand, we have the previous Audi witch hunt, which was deemed not to be the fault of the car but rather the driver, and we have the current Toyota witch hunt, which was deemed not to be the fault of the car but of the driver.

Plus, we have the guy who blatantly tried to take advantage of the witch hunt and fake "sudden acceleration", up to and including having a cop drive next to him and then in front of him--only for us to find out that he was faking it.

Idiots and rubes. Learn how to drive, learn which pedal is which, learn about gears and how to operate your car.

You have discovered the futility of trying to have an intelligent and congenial conversation with Mr. Nasty. Welcome to the club. Usenet is littered by many others who have come before you.

Thanks David for confirming my observations!

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