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Software Glitches Stall Toyota Prius
t35t0r writes "CNN/Money/Tech reports that 2004 and early 2005 Toyota Prius models have software bugs that cause them to stall while traveling at highway speeds. While no accidents were reported to have been caused by the software glitch, could we be heading into an era where our automobiles will require software updates and fixes to keep them from literally 'crashing'?"
...from Ford.
Toyota: The next Microsoft.
I was only trying to install the latest windshield wiper drivers....
My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch.
for my flying car. There will be a plumet, followed by a very sudden stop at the end.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Yes officer, I was trying to figure out how fast I was going but the speedometer was not refreshing and when I looked up "WHAM!"
...then... uh... i guess things would be just like they are now
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"You have shifted gears. You must restart your car for these changes to take effect."
Oh. At red lights. Not at highway speeds. Never mind.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
They meant:
It's a five minute software upgrade, but if we told you that, you'd be upset when the service dept made you wait for an hour.
After you crash, it's a Red Windscreen of Death.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
"Please insert your Prius into the original location from which the software was installed."
Operator, give me the number for 911!
If OS's Were Cars If operating systems ran your car, and you needed to go to the shops... MS-DOS: You get in the car and try to remember where you put the keys. Windows: You get in the car and drive to the shops very slowly, because attached to the back of the car is a freight train. Macintosh System 7: You get in the car to drive to the shops and the car drives you to church. Unix: You get in the car and type 'grep store'. After reaching speeds of 200 mph en route, you arrive at the barbershop. Windows NT: You get in the car and write a letter that says "go to the shops". Then you get out of the car and nail the letter to the dashboard. Taligent/Pink: You walk to the store with Ricardo Montalban who tells you how wonderful it will be when he can fly you to the store in his LearJet. OS/2: After fuelling up with 6000 gallons of fuel, you get in the car and drive to the shops with a motorcycle escort and a marching band in procession. Halfway there, the car blows up, killing everyone. S/36 SSP: You get in the car and drive to the shops. Halfway there you run out of fuel. While walking the rest of the way, you are run over by kids with mopeds. AS/400: An attendant kicks you into the car and then drives you to the shops where you get to watch everyone else buying filets mignon.
just wait until the sensor shorts out and tells the engine that I want to floor it, or vice versa.
Yeah, there's nothing worse than your engine shorting out and telling the sensor that you want to floor it.
I guess not everyone has seen this. I thought it was kinda funny.
(From Here
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.
In response to Mr. Gates' comments, General Motors issued the following press release (by Mr. Welch himself, the GM CEO).
If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would just die on the motorway for no reason, and you'd have to restart it. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a manoeuvre would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a "Car 95" or a "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats.
5. Amiga would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads.
6. Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars which would make their cars go much slower.
7. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" warning light.
8. People would get excited about the "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for many years.
9. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and all auto fluids but the packaging would be superb.
10. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
11. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.
12. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
13. They wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it.
14. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.
15. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM, and play Microsoft Cassettes. Unless of course, you buy the upgrade to use existing stuff.
16. Microsoft would do so well, because even though they don't own any roads, all of the road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars free, including IBM!
17. If you still ran old versions of car (ie. CarDOS 6.22/CarWIN 3.11), then you would be called old fashioned, but you would be able to drive much faster, and on more roads!
18. If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, then you could just borrow your friends, and then copy it.
19. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganise the ignition for a few days before it worked.
20. You would need to buy an upgrade to run cars on a motorway next to each other.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
but that's because they run out of gas between refuelling stops every few miles ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
or just imagine the Blue Screams of Death ... or Red Screams one supposes ... when that happens.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
#include <obYouMustBeNewHere.h>
no no no no no
do not turn off the ignition until the car is stopped if you do that you loose your power steering and brakes, the engine will bounce of the rev limiter for a minute but shit happens.
1. shift to neutral
2. stop car
3. turn off ignition
4 . profit (sue ford)
... because perhaps by then all the people repeating the tired jokes about "if microsoft made cars" will have given up.
Oh wait, this is slashdot, even the dupe is going to have tired jokes.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
#include <obYouMustBeNewHere.h>
LOL. Note the user id, Mr. 151611.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
It's all servo-driven, no linkage between the throttle and the gas pedal at all. If I had thought to check stuff like that I wouldn't have bought it.
And a cable is any better? I've been a car where the accelerator cable broke and left the throttle wide open. I suspect a servo might well be more robust than a cable.
Luckily it was a 70's era VM Vanagon camper. I think we went from 62 to 63 in the 5 minutes or so we spent playing with the accelerator pedal to see what the problem was.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Microsoft Windows for Automobiles - "Where do you want to stall, today?"
If you drive like me then 90 MPH is highway speed.
and my wife's, twice. She has had hers in for the "recalibration of the computer." We'll see if hers acts any differently now than it did before.
It seems to me that the problem occurs when the computer tries to restart the engine, and it doesn't catch immediately. It does seem that the car will continue to run as an electric car, and it does seem to come its senses within a few seconds.
My blindingly white Prius is nicknamed "Snowcrash" for exactly this reason -- if the computer goes down, it's just a car shaped hunk of metal.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Yow. I saw a Prius on the side of the highway this morning - I was wondering what could have gone wrong with it, since it looked brand new.
:)
The driver was wandering around the hood looking like he wanted to open it, but had no idea what to do when he did