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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'?"
video of the car-to-car worm via bluetooth/ wifi that stalls cars
you would watch it move like a wave through traffic: on one end, normal moving traffic, on the other, fender benders and honking horns and frozen cars
it would move under overpasses and propagate upward and spread in either direction, like dominoes
awesome and frightening and completely plausible in the next 10-20 years
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I hate it.
My car (2004 Mazda 3) has a fully electronic throttle body. 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.
It hasn't given me any trouble yet (it's a 2004, it had better not), but just wait until the sensor shorts out and tells the engine that I want to floor it, or vice versa.
Imagine if in 10 years, when there's a minor fender-bender, once the accident is off to the shoulder, traffic picks back up at a regular pace. Now, everyone gawks and traffic stays backed up for miles thanks to that.
Or even better, when someone misses an exit, they don't slam on the brakes in the middle of the expressway and back up to the exit.
There was an 8 car pileup with numerous fatalities last year on the Baltimore beltway thanks to someone in the middle lane cutting across 2 lanes of traffic at top speed to turn into those "Emergency turnaround" digouts between expressway lanes. If he literally was prevented from doing something that stupid thanks to his car, those people would still be alive. Sure, he'd be 5 minutes later to where he was going...
Bring on cars that don't let people be idiots. The rest of us who do a good job of obeying traffic laws will be that much safer thanks to it.
As far as software controlling much of our cars, we're already mostly there. Power locks lock you out of your car if they fail. Power steering makes your car nearly unturnable if that fails. Power breaks provide so much extra breaking power that if they fail, your car is basically going to be nearly brake-less anyway.
Buy a classic auto while you still can.. before 1975 or so (depends on your state) so you can skirt around smog regulations as well. Especially if most of your daily driving is on local streets.
;)
Simple and functional, and after a while you'll even look forward to spending a weekend maintaining it.
I drive a 40 year old vehicle, and wouldn't give it up for anything. As vehicles become more and more drive-by-wire, I only see it as validating my decision.
After pulling into a Denny's parking lot, I hit the power button to "reboot" the car... fortunately, most of the lights disappeared, and the gas engine kicked in, but there was still a few alert and check-engine lights on. I was able to drive the car another 15 or so miles at full highway speeds to the dealership, who were able to pull the problem codes (P3191 P0A0F) and reprogrammed my computer... and all is great again!
While I agree that the problem is alarming, it wasn't as bad as the article claims... the electric engine still gave me all the power I need to pull over safely. And this was the only problem I've ever encountered with the Prius, after 13 months and 18000 miles!