Woz Cites "Scary" Prius Acceleration Software Problem

theodp writes "Speaking at Discovery Forum 2010, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak went off topic and spoke about a 'very scary' problem with his 2010 Toyota Prius. 'I don't get upset and teed off at things in life, except computers that don't work right,' said Woz, who went on to explain he'd been trying to get through to Toyota and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration for three months, but could not get anyone to explore an alleged software-related acceleration problem. 'I have a new model that didn't get recalled,' Steve said. 'This new model has an accelerator that goes wild but only under certain conditions of cruise control. And I can repeat it over and over and over again — safely.' Toyota said it investigates all complaints. 'We're in the business of investigating complaints, assessing problems and finding remedies,' said Toyota's John Hanson. 'After man-years of exhaustive testing we have not found any evidence of an electronic [software] problem that would have led to unwanted acceleration.'" We recently discussed other problems Toyota has had with electronic acceleration systems.

Comments

Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude

[Colin Smith]

low labor-cost morons.

Way to categorize thousands of people you've never met, you fucking psychopath.

 

Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude

[cvtan]

Excuse me, but Woz does not "understand the problem", he simply experienced it. He says he can duplicate the problem at will, but doesn't say how. Anyway, my wife's 2007 Prius runs fine. Boring, but fine.

Re:Safely. noted this one on /. before:

[Blakey Rat]

It's fairly common knowledge that woz posts on Slashdot under that name.

If you say so. I've read Slashdot for years, and I'd never seen him post before. Sorry I don't have your "common knowledge."

With such a low UID, I'd expect you to know this.

First of all, a low UID means exactly jack shit. It's a goddamned index in a database record, people treat it as if it's some shorthand for your IQ or something around here. For all you know, I signed up for an account once in 1999 then never visited the site again until yesterday. For all you know, I'm functionally retarded with only enough intelligence to get through Slashdot's registration process.

I wish this damned website wouldn't even know that to users, it's meaningless and (as a human being) I don't like being fucking numbered.

Secondly, I must have missed that in the extension Slashdot.org Users Guide and Manual that I was supposed to have read apparently before signing up for my account. Oh wait, there is none, you ass.

Thirdly, I'm guessing the entire point of your post was to say "I'm 1337er than you! I knew Woz had an account!" Whoop-de-shit.

All that aside, what I said was still good advice: don't automatically assign someone your admiration and respect because of their fucking screenname! (Or UID!)

Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude

[syousef]

I'm sure it was refurbished and not entirely new but it was pretty good service.

And I'm sure the person that got your old phone "referbished" (meaning repackaged) thought the same thing. Fucking fanbois! Don't even know when you've been scammed. No wonder Apple's able to sell based on style rather than substance. Now watch me get modded troll for stating the bleeding obvious.