Slashdot Mirror
Car With A Mind Of Its Own -- Part 2
An anonymous reader writes "As a sequel to the previous Slashdot story where a car 'began accelerating to 120 mph on its own', Renault (the car manufacturer) has examined the supposed faulty car, and as many of us have suspected, no anomaly has been found (google translation). Renault will initiate a court action to discover the truth about the matter. Read more about it here (translation)."
No anomaly found? Of course not. This guy is full of shit, plain and simple. A similar problem almost put Audi out of business in the 80's because of a "story" on 60 Minutes. These people were just as full of shit as this guy.
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How many people actually know someone that is a competent driver that has had this happen?
Linky to the Audi story here (google's first result): http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy
Anyone remember the Audi disputes in the 80's where people kept claiming they randomly accelerated when the brakes were appled? I think it turned out that the accelerator and brake were too close together and people were hitting the gas pedal instead of the brake.
This way to the egress...
This is a fancy way of saying "The guy is lying".
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
FYI, from their media site:
After one of its vehicles is incriminated
RENAULT TAKES LEGAL ACTION
Under the control of an independent court-authorized expert appointed by Renault and with the
consent of the customer, Renault evaluated the Renault Vel Satis 3L Dci automatic, registration
number 218 TH 18, in static and dynamic conditions on Wednesday October 6.
According to the driver's comments as reported in the media, the car was jammed at high speed
on the A71 motorway on Sunday October 3, due to a faulty cruise control. The driver reportedly
said that it was impossible for him to stop the car after trying different possibilities for almost an
hour.
The evaluation covered all the vehicle's electronic, mechanical and hydraulic functions. The
data collected and the facts as established reveal no malfunction. The braking system, which
shows no sign of abnormal wear, the gearbox control, the powertrain and the cruise control all
worked perfectly. A full detailed report is expected very shortly.
Given the findings of the evaluation and its concern about the impact this incident might have on
its product image, Renault has decided to take legal action in the form of a summary
proceeding, without prejudice to other actions taken in compensation for any damage suffered
by the company.
Your statement has the same weight as Irwin Fletcher saying "Its all ball bearings these days."
Throttle by wire - a couple of companies
Brake by wire - none
Steering by wire - none
Why? If the first one fails, the engine dies. If the second 2 fail, you die. Some carmakers are experimenting with it, but none have brought to production.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
- the driver was not drunk;
- he actually called the police while driving at 200 Km/h to ask for help;
- he had not been ticketed before the call or caught by any police radar that would have made him want to pull that stunt to cover his speeding excess;
- he eventually managed to disconnect controls to the car so that it finally and slowly cruised to a stop on the emergency lane.
Yes, the driver might still be lying about the all thing, but, if so, it was not to cover any known misdoing. On the contrary.ABS is essentially brake-by-wire. If the black box decides it doesn't want pressure at the slave cylinders, the driver is just along for the ride.
I do not know about other ABS systems, but in my vehicles if the ABS fails the power brakes still work. I had my ABS malfunction in one vehicle and the brakes worked like normal. In my experience, ABS modules are very fail-safe and I have never heard of one taking the driver along for the ride. Maybe you have, I am not saying you are wrong, just that I have not heard of that before.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Turning the key off was not preferred as it locks the steering wheel on most cars causing a loss of control.
I drove stick cars for many years. My first was a beetle and my latest a Mustang. I had a throttle stick once (broken spring) and I didn't want to blow the engine. Plan ahead on what to do. Pratice it. I calmly turned the key one click only. Problem solved. Nothing broken.
Newer automatic cars are even simpler. Turn the key off. It won't go into lock until you put the shift in park. They do that on new cars so they won't roll away if you forget to put it in park as it keeps you from removing the keys. To get your keys out, you have to put it in park and then lock the steering. Only then can the keys be removed.
Try it. Shut off the car in your driveway but leave it in nutral or in drive. Try to lock the steering and remove your key.. There are only a few cars that let you remove your key without locking the transmission and steering.
The truth shall set you free!
If you had read the other story, you read that:
Selon LCI, le conducteur avait déjà été condamné pour état d'ivresse et excès de vitesse, son permis lui avait été retiré durant 4 ans.
Translation:According to LCI [a TV Channel], the driver has already been prosecuted for drunken driving and over-speeding, and his license cancelled for 4 years
This guy sounds like a dangerous idiot who is trying to protect his but with a fake story.
It also sounds like the media picked up HIS story first without fact-checking. Same thing happened with a woman in the Paris subway who claimed she and her baby were attacked by "anti-semites". Her story went first page in most of the newspapers, people started shouting against the insecurity in France, "anti-semitisme" and all sort of non-sense. It turned out she was mythomaniac and made up the whole story.
Actually, that's completely incorrect.
The aircraft did give the pilot TOGA power (take off/go around power), but the aircraft was ALREADY so far behind the "power curve" (i.e. in the region of the flight envelope where slowing down actually induces MORE drag - if you want to find out more google for a drag/airspeed diagram - unlike ground vehicles, the curve has a "back side" for aircraft where induced drag increases as speed decreases) that it was simply against the laws of physics for the pilot to extricate himself from the pickle he'd put himself in.
It takes several seconds for a turbofan engine to "spool up". Unlike a small piston engine which can go from idle to maximum rated power almost instantly, a turbofan engine takes several seconds to go from a low power setting to takeoff power. There's an awful lot of inertia in the many turbine and compressor discs. (Modern jet engines are much better than the first generation ones, but they still take time to get up to speed).
The pilot did ask for takeoff thrust. However, by the time the engines did reach takeoff thrust (they actually performed slightly better than spec) the tail of the aircraft - which was already in a nose-high attitude because of the angle of attack needed to fly as slowly as he was flying - was already striking the trees at the end of the airfield. The additional drag of pulling the empennage through the trees overcame the thrust of the engines, and the plane slowed further causing it to impact more trees, adding more drag, slowing the plane further, until the final impact with terrain.
The pilot was ENTIRELY at fault. The same thing would have happened if he was flying a Boeing 727 ('Jurassic Jet') with the same kind of flight profile. He tried to violate the laws of physics and lost. The overall record of the Airbus A320 series shows that calling it "die by wire" is pure, unadulterated inaccurate hyperbole.
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