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Woz Cites "Scary" Prius Acceleration Software Problem

Posted by Soulskill on from the bad-news-for-half-of-california dept.

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.

5 of 749 comments (clear)

  1. OMG!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Someone hacked Toyota and inserted a bit of dodgy software in the engine management system.

    It must have been China or T'rrists or Iran or whoever we want to blame this week.

  2. How's that Hope & Change working out? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    "I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
    --Barack Obama

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100201/bs_nm/us_budget_backdoortaxes

    1. Re:How's that Hope & Change working out? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Holy fucking shit. "Less than 250000$ a year"? That's probably 95% of Canadians right there, even if you use Canadian dollars.

    2. Re:How's that Hope & Change working out? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Yes. The fact that Obama would make such a commitment and then go on a spending spree that necessitates a tax increase on basically everyone is just further proof of his naivete and incompetence.

  3. Ha! by zogger · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I bet you are also guilty of not being psychic enough, to not only do the "correct thing", but to intuitively know when, where, how, and why, in advance.