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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'?"
Like planes, and other vehicles, any software problem should failover to a tested, less automated system. If my car stalls on the highway and I lose power steering and/or brakes, there's a big problem. Instead of stalling the engine, it should just shut down and let the engine take over, maybe flashing some warning lights.
could we be heading into an era where our automobiles will require software updates and fixes to keep them from literally 'crashing'?"
Without putting too fine a point on it, yes! But there is no reason to go all chicken little. Standards of reliability for automotive software are generally much higher than for desktop PC software. No EULAs and auto manufacturers generally can not disclaim warranties. If a car breaks down due to crappy software, Consumer Reports will put out a report and people won't buy it. Additionally there are Lemon Laws and lots of eager lawyers to protect consumers. Unlike PCs where we have been trained to expect crashing software, people don't put up with that in cars, especially since there is the potential for physical harm when hurtling down the road at 80mph.
Doesnt seem to bother people when they get on fly by wire planes.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
1.2 million people a year die on the world's roads. Yet whenever a one-off incident (even a non-fatal / non injury one) grabs the headlines because there was something unusual about it, people start to panic.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Doesnt seem to bother people when they get on fly by wire planes.
But most of us assume that part of the extremely large cost of those planes is in both more reliable technology and increased redundancy. I think the systems of a Boeing 777 are probably held to a higher standard than a Mazda or even a BMW...mostly due to the more catastrophic nature of a failure.
Doesn't mean we're right...maybe the systems on a BMW are every bit as reliable as on a plane. But it would still explain this reaction.
According to the organizations (JD Power, Consumer reports) who do objective studies of such things, the Prius has been more reliable, with higher owner satisfaction, that almost any other model.
Electronic systems are, in general, more reliable, with lower failure rates, than the mechanical systems they replace. They are also easier to service. (Though the repair bill may very well be higher, and specialized equipment may be necessary.)
This "software", as others have said, are not the same as the software we run on our PCs. The software quality standards are higher, and the testing is far more intense.
People lament the loss of simpler mechanical systems that can be fixed with know-how and a socket set. We publicize every example of a system failure we hear of. But the numbers don't lie: a 2005 model with a half-dozen embedded computers has a far lower incidence of problems than a corresponding 1970 model when it was new. You are far less likely to ever have to call a tow truck in your lifetime than your father/grandfather was.
Sensationalism is so much more fun than fact, though.
Whenever I get a 'new' car, I run down to the nearby college at night and find an empty lot and slide around a bit, and see what happens when I turn the engine off and if I can turn the key back and have it start magically, aka, a push start, which is incredibly useful if your car stalls while you're driving down the highway. (The other option being a normal start in neutral, but that takes much longer. And wouldn't work if your battery was dead, but that's a rather worse-case scenerio.)
Then I come back and do it again when it's raining, solely for seeing how it skids.
And if I have a car I've never tried it on, and I'm on a completely empty and straight stretch of highway, I kill the engine there, too, to see if it does something different at high speeds. (That's probably a traffic violation, but if a cop appeared out of the blue, I'd just say I stalled for some reason.)
I will admit I've never tried to solve a hypothetical 'stuck pedal', but, OTOH, the parking lots aren't really big enough for that. It's a good idea, though. I know I can shift into neutral at any speed, but I agree that cutting the engine is better...for one thing, it should let the engine slow down the car. I'll have to figure out some way to test that.
Do people really drive around in a ton of metal and not know in advance how it operates when bad things happen to it? When, exactly, are they planning on learning? The time to learn what happens when you slam on the brakes on a puddle of water is not in the middle of traffic. I once had an early antilock system that pulsed the brakes really oddly...there was a lag between losing traction and the unlocking of the brake, or something, I never really figured it out.
I mean, there are somethings you can't learn until they happen, for example, if you really need to stop the car, you can switch into park when you're going 20 mph, but you'd obviously never want to do that unless you had to. But what happens when your engine cuts off, or if you hit a patch of water while turning? Everyone should test that.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I don't know why so many moderators thought this was funny, but you likely have it exactly right.
It happened to me once on an icy road when my car started drifting. I thought I had my foot off the accelerator and on the brakes, but didn't realize why the anti-lock system wasn't working and the engine was making so much noise until I was sliding into a ditch. There was no damage and I was able to drive out, but at that moment I knew exactly how people can believe they had their foot on the brake.
Unfortunately, my mother wasn't so lucky. She got the pedals mixed up while manuvering in the driveway behind the house and ended up parking in the neighbor's bedroom (fortunately, no one was home). When my father ran outside and shut down the ignition, she was dazed from the impact, but her foot was still jammed on the accelerator.
You're probably right. The simple fact is that on any car (especially ordinary A-to-B type cars), the brakes have much more horsepower than does the engine (and this is assuming the engine is at its peak horsepower RPM). If you can't stop the car with the engine at WOT, then you're not pushing very hard on the brakes or they are faulty.