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$1M Prize For Finding Cause of Unintended Acceleration
phantomfive writes "Edmunds Auto has announced that it will be offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can find the cause of unintended acceleration. As Wikipedia notes, this is a problem that has plagued not only Toyota, but also Audi and other manufacturers. Consumer Reports has some suggestions all automakers can implement to solve this problem, including requiring brakes to be strong enough to stop the car even when the accelerator is floored."
An explanation I've heard is that some cars won't let you turn off the engine or shift into neutral at high speed.
Never mind the million dollars, give us the source to all the drive-by-wire modules so we can find the race condition (literally!) for you.
Being able to shift to neutral is a required safety feature. I can't imagine where "he couldn't do it!!!1111oneoneone" got started.
The Lexus ES-350, the vehicle CHP Officer Mark Saylor died in, does not have electronic shifters. Even if it did, electronic shifters allow gear shifting under speed. In fact, they do so without the natural increase in force necessary for non-electronic shifters to shift gears while under speed.
This is something you can actually test, it won't hurt the vehicle if you don't let it revv for very long. Accerlate on the freeway, shift to neutral without ceasing acceleration. Most vehicles will require more than normal force to change gears but will do so without complaint or problem. The exceptions are the vehicles that will act entirely as they do all the time, because they're by-wire themselves. Do, however, stop accelerating before shifting back.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
Having BEEN in the situation myself, I can tell you that switching to neutral was the LAST thing I thought of. When you're sitting minding your own business at a red light and suddenly your car flares to life doing 60 mph in a couple of seconds, You're really much more focused on trying to stop the car, not the transfer of power from the engine through the transmission.
On a sidenote: Cutting power to the engine is ALSO a bad idea, at least if you happen to have power steering. Or so I discovered.
--- To err is human... Am I more human than most ?
For the millionth time, you CAN put these cars into neutral at speed. I've personally done so. Your explanation of how transmissions work is not correct.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
If you have a car that has an automatic transmission, putting it into neutral while driving is a bad idea and it wouldn't surprise me if ALL automatics stopped the driver from doing so. The reason is that auto gearboxes have an oil pump that's driven by the engine. When you stop driving the gear box from the engine and start driving it from the wheels, the gear box quickly heats up and I suppose could even seize with potentially nasty consequences.
Try Googling "why can't i tow an automatic car" or something like that
this post is now diamonds!