NASA Summoned To Fix Prius Problems

Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:43 · Score: 2, Funny

How many engineers does it take to fix a Toyota?

Re:Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Three.
One to remove the floor-mat.
One to absorb the cosmic rays supposedly causing the problem.
One to actually fix the problem, by reintroducing mechanical acceleration.
I'll be here all day.
Re:Queue joke... by DeadDecoy · 2010-03-30 07:48 · Score: 1

None, you blame it on the programmers and make them fix it.
Re:Queue joke... by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-30 07:54 · Score: 1

Wouldn't those be software engineers and hence still engineers?

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Re:Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:57 · Score: 1, Interesting

The programmers are too busy updating the bugs, adding more bugs and bypassing the quality controls.
Mean while the suits are passing the buck, slipping money into politicians' pockets and giving themselves a around of raise.
Re:Queue joke... by fatalwall · 2010-03-30 08:08 · Score: 1

that highly depends... a programmer is not necessarily a software engineer and a software engineer is not necessarily a programmer although commonly is.
Re:Queue joke... by rickb928 · 2010-03-30 08:28 · Score: 1

Yeah...
How many Russians does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Two. But don't ask how they got in there....

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Re:Queue joke... by Bakkster · 2010-03-30 08:28 · Score: 1

And the people who write code for throttle-by-wire systems probably have an engineering background. At least, they damn well better!
Regardless, it would be the responsibility of Software/Computer Engineers to fix any problem in code.

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Re:Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:48 · Score: 1, Insightful

While mechanical acceleration is certainly a much less complex system, it doesn't completely remove the potential for problems. I know of an older guy whose cruise control would not disengage a couple of decades ago. It was stuck in the accelerate position. If you're in the 60+ age bracket, already going 65mph and your car suddenly floors the accelerator, it doesn't take long to pick up speed and reaction times might not be that great for the "elderly". He said it was pretty scary. Fortunately he had the sense to hit the brakes and turn the engine off, which then reset the cruise control (the brake pedal did not cause it to disengage).
I think the bigger problem is that people are protected from learning good alert & defensive driving in all kinds of situations. For example, our city recently passed a no cell phone law while driving. The end result will be people that talk on their cells anyway but can't legally learn how to do it in a responsible and smart way. As a society we try so hard to protect people from any kind of danger that people freeze when any real danger occurs because they've never had to deal with it.
Re:Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:15 · Score: 0

global warming ?
Re:Queue joke... by jandrese · 2010-03-30 09:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's not like purely mechanical accelerators never stuck though. Cables would freeze up or the return spring would wear out/snap and bam, full throttle. I actually learned to drive on a car that had this problem, which led to some rather scary moments--luckily it was a manual, so just hitting the clutch was enough to stop the car from going out of control.

That said, why is it in these stories of runaway acceleration, that nobody slaps the thing into neutral and hits the brakes? The stories always read like "I was powerless to stop my deathcar!" but drivers have lots of options in situations like that. You can even just turn the car off and hope you haven't picked up a vacuum leak.

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Re:Queue joke... by RebootKid · 2010-03-30 10:09 · Score: 1

As a society we try so hard to protect people from any kind of danger that people freeze when any real danger occurs because they've never had to deal with it.
I couldn't agree more.
As for driving, how about making a defensive driving course mandatory for all licensed drivers, with periodic retests both from a written and a behind the wheel standpoint. That would weed out many folks who shouldn't be driving, and it will give folks much better "tools" to deal with difficult situations.
Re:Queue joke... by HBoar · 2010-03-30 10:33 · Score: 1

Exactly. There is no excuse for letting a stuck throttle escalate into a runaway car scenario. I too used to drive a car that had a sticky throttle cable, it's no big deal. The cause of these accidents is not bad electronics or anything like that, it's just bad and/or stupid drivers.
Re:Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:49 · Score: 1, Interesting

Because it's a hoax.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%932010_Toyota_vehicle_recalls#James_Sikes_alleged_unintended_acceleration_case

James Sikes alleged unintended acceleration case
On March 8, 2010, a 2008 Prius allegedly uncontrollably accelerated to 94 miles per hour on a California Highway (US), and the Prius had to be stopped with the verbal assistance of the California Highway Patrol as news cameras watched. The incident received national news coverage, with initial reporting including inaccurate information about the event, such as the claim that a CHP car was used to physically block Sikes' vehicle. Subsequent investigations uncovered suspicious information about the alleged runaway Prius driver, 61-year old James Sikes, including being US$19,000 behind in his Prius car payments and with $US700,000 in accumulated debt. Sikes stated he wanted a new car as compensation for the incident. Analyses by Edmunds.com and Forbes found Sikes' acceleration claims and fears of shifting to neutral implausible, with Edmunds concluding that "in other words, this is BS", and Forbes comparing it to the balloon boy hoax. Further government investigator tests on Sikes's Prius reportedly showed that the brake wear were consistent with intermittent braking, not constant hard braking as he claimed. Sikes also reportedly had a history of false police reports, suspect insurance claims, theft and fraud allegations, and television aspirations. These findings raised questions about "the credibility of Mr. Sikes' reporting of events" in a Congressional memo.
A few months ago, every auto maker had the same low reporting rate of cases of uncontrolled acceleration. The drivers were disproportionately elderly. Driver error and stuck floor mats have been routinely confirmed as causes in a majority of cases. Now there are hundreds of Toyota cases.
In 2007, Toyota issued a recall on some floor mats after they were found to have caused an issue. In 2009, they expand the recall after some tests and it got minor attention. This prompted Toyota owners who otherwise might not have reported an incident to open their mouths, bringing attention to other issues, which snowballed the media exposure level.
Then a driver ended up upside down in a lake, killing himself and the other three people in the car. His floor mats were in the trunk. A sticky accelerator pedal was blamed (initially by, I believe, the family). That's when the media absolutely exploded. There's just one problem... the driver was a 56 year old man with epilepsy. Hmm.
There have been hundreds of claims from people in the last month or so, very few of which were in any danger or even suffered any damages. It's a hoax, plain and simple.
Re:Queue joke... by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 10:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

Mechanical throttles are conceptually simpler and have more obvious and obviously testable failure cases. It's not that hard to deal with them.
However, drive by wire introduces a number of layers of complexity and abstraction. In addition to mechanical failure cases, now you have electronic (hardware) and logical (software) problems as well. The added complexity makes all of this much more difficult to address, and it insulates the driver from the overall control of the vehicle.
This being said, I think it is obvious that where you have a hybrid car, purely mechanical acceleration is simply not an option. The complexity of the hybrid system itself requires electronic control, which more or less requires drive by wire of an equivalent. So this isn't an unconditional opposition. I just don;t think it is appropriate for traditional, gas-powered cars.

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Re:Queue joke... by Aranykai · 2010-03-30 11:12 · Score: 2, Informative

I have to correct you. I personally knew the man, as well as the other three passengers, and he certainly did not have epilepsy. We attended the same church for nearly 15 years and he was good friends with my father. The accelerator pedal was already questioned in the media when this accident occurred and the family has never issued a public statement on their view of the cause. The only people who spoke to reporters were eye witnesses.
That being said, I too believe this accelerator pedal situation is incredibly sensationalized but lets keep to the facts or we are just as much to blame as the media. According to witnesses, the car accelerated rapidly crashing through a fence, into a tree and came to rest upside down in about 4 ft of water on the edge of a pond.

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Re:Queue joke... by Fluffeh · 2010-03-30 11:45 · Score: 1

Why not just introduce a German style Drivers License test, along with the cost, the instruction and the detail that those guys go through.

If I am ever in some sort of dangerous situation as a passenger in a car, I would pick a person with a German drivers license as the best person to be behind the wheel if I had a choice.

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Re:Queue joke... by mallie_mcg · 2010-03-30 11:59 · Score: 1

That said, why is it in these stories of runaway acceleration, that nobody slaps the thing into neutral and hits the brakes? The stories always read like "I was powerless to stop my deathcar!" but drivers have lots of options in situations like that. You can even just turn the car off and hope you haven't picked up a vacuum leak.
I believe the issue is that some of these cars have a computer controlled auto gearbox that does not actually disengage drive when slapped into neutral.

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Re:Queue joke... by Glendale2x · 2010-03-30 12:41 · Score: 3, Interesting

That said, why is it in these stories of runaway acceleration, that nobody slaps the thing into neutral and hits the brakes? The stories always read like "I was powerless to stop my deathcar!" but drivers have lots of options in situations like that. You can even just turn the car off and hope you haven't picked up a vacuum leak.
I hear that these cars are "too smart" to let you shift while driving. I drive a stick (my preference) so I have no idea if that's accurate or not, but I did sit in a Prius at an auto show once and there's nothing mechanical about the drive/park/reverse selector. It merely indicates to the computer what you would like to do.

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Re:Queue joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 13:10 · Score: 0

Defensive driving would be great depending on how it's implemented. I think most people growing up in the "system" end up taking driver's ed. at some point. I did when I was 15. A big problem, however, is that the level of instruction varies. For example, one instructor required his students to turn on and adjust the radio while driving so he could teach them how to do it in a safe and controlled way. Another teacher absolutely forbid any music or background noise while driving. This is kind of like the cell phone / no cell phone debate. I think as part of driver's ed. courses and maybe eventually a required defensive driving course like you suggested, people should learn how to drive responsibly and alertly doing anything they might normally be doing while in the car.
Re:Queue joke... by Glonoinha · 2010-03-30 13:36 · Score: 1

I heard a story a few years ago about a pilot instructor (small single engine private planes like a Cessna 152) flying with his advanced students and, on one of the last sets of checkout flights, during final approach he would pull a lighter out, light it and hold it up in front of the student - not enough to prevent the student from seeing anything important, but enough to be a constant significant distraction.
Land an airplane while there's a fire in the cockpit - if you can do that, you're ready to command your own plane regardless of circumstances.

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Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Re:Queue joke... by Jedi+Alec · 2010-03-30 13:40 · Score: 1

If I am ever in some sort of dangerous situation as a passenger in a car, I would pick a person with a German drivers license as the best person to be behind the wheel if I had a choice.
The germans have their shit pretty well sorted out, but when it comes to actual driving skill I'd rather be sitting next to a Finn when shit hits the fan.

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Re:Queue joke... by u17 · 2010-03-30 14:20 · Score: 1

Just one -- and knowing NASA, the solution will be to install a parachute-style aerobrake at the rear of the car ;-)
Re:Queue joke... by SageMusings · 2010-03-30 15:45 · Score: 1

Oh, I believe I'd take a Finnish driver over a German.
Some of you out there will know what I'm talking about :)

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Re:Queue joke... by Mr.+Freeman · 2010-03-30 18:38 · Score: 1

First, the elderly driver with delayed reaction times has absolutly nothing to do with the cruise control, I literally have NO idea why you mentioned it.

Second, no one said that mechanical control was infallible, just that it's less fallible than software control. Obviously any solution is going to have problems, but on average mechanical control is safer than software control.

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Re:Queue joke... by Chrisje · 2010-03-30 19:37 · Score: 1

Does the name Michael Schumacher ring a bell? :)
All that aside, I think various people have their advantages and disadvantages behind the wheel. The Dutch are quite good at driving in the rain, Swedes and Finns are good at ice, snow and sleet, the Germans are good in situations where the rules of engagement are clear, the Italians and Israelis are good at ad-hoc driving in chaotic situations and the Americans are nice defensive drivers.
On the other hand, if something is not in the rule-book, the Germans and Swedes tend to freeze. The Dutch are generally quite annoying in the mountains. The Israelis and Italians drive irresponsibly in certain situations that don't lend themselves to their style and the French bang up your car while they park. So your mileage may vary. As always, with everything.
Re:Queue joke... by Chrisje · 2010-03-30 19:46 · Score: 1

Is that true?
Because it's easy to say that "this system is more reliable than that system", but I have the following questions:
- How do you measure "more reliable"?
- What actual data do you have to support that claim?
- How do you look at historical data?
I'm quite sure that the current electronically driven telecommunication networks are more feature-rich and stable than their mechanical switchboard counterparts from back in the day, but there must have been a transition period where certain childhood-illnesses had to be fixed.
In the same vein I guess mechanical controls are quite stable because they've been around for a long time, so it's proven technology. It stands to reason that software driven electronic systems may be more reliable as soon as they hit a certain level of maturity. So are we there yet, and what do the numbers say?
Obviously the Toyota story is big in the news, so it serves as food for your confirmation bias. Also it tells your reptile brain electronic acceleration is an issue because you have ample "examples" your reptile brain recalls of this being an issue. However, I wonder at the statistics over time and "real" data surrounding this topic, because I generally do feel safer in new cars than old ones, and most of them are electronically run.
Re:Queue joke... by Chrisje · 2010-03-30 20:14 · Score: 1, Flamebait

> We attended the same church for nearly 15 years
Quite a few neuro-scientists link religious experiences with mis-firing of parts of the brain or local attacks of epilepsy. One of those is Dr. Dick Swaab, former director of the Dutch Institute for Brain Research as it's called, and he has given a crystal clear opinion on religion in a Dutch TV series entitled "God does not exist". A transcript of what he has to say on religion and brain function can be found here (Dutch).
Now I didn't know the man, but when you're defending the notion that someone is in possession of all of his or her faculties it is not an encouraging argument to say you attended church with them for that long.
Re:Queue joke... by Twanfox · 2010-03-31 01:33 · Score: 1

So what you're saying is you're attacking the GP's posting about the subject's health based on the the notion that they attended the same church together, using a doctor's opinion about how religion is supposed to cause epilepsy? Did you even preview what you wrote before you hit submit?
I can do some back-of-the-napkin statistics about how many people who attend church (lots) and how many people have epilepsy (probably not lots) and theorize that, while there may be a way to induce a seizure in someone, simply going to church is not a reliable test to determine whether or not someone has epilepsy. If it were, I'm sure our cases if epilepsy would probably include far more people than it does now.
You may not like religion, but at least come to the table with a real argument, some facts or something, before making such an attack.
Re:Queue joke... by Ihlosi · 2010-03-31 01:37 · Score: 1

How many engineers does it take to fix a Toyota?
Just one ... provided he can catch up with the car.
Re:Queue joke... by jandrese · 2010-03-31 03:12 · Score: 1

Wouldn't that be a safety problem since the second thing you do when making an emergency stopping maneuver in an automatic is to slam the car into neutral so your brakes aren't fighting the engine? That's the reason people take driving classes, so they practice emergency maneuvers enough to make the actions instinctive when you only have a fraction of a second to react on the real road. It can save lives, not to mention property. If the car is actively resisting your efforts then that's a bigger problem than I originally thought.

OTOH, I could see an argument that because the Prius is a hybrid, putting the car in neutral would only disengage the gas engine, you could still be fighting the electric motors (which are very torquey at the low end) if there has been some sort of complete systems failure.

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:Queue joke... by Screen404-O · 2010-03-31 05:12 · Score: 1

Well, correct me if i'm wrong: 1. Prius does not have a starter key! (Remote keyless entry system with Push Button Start, 2-stage unlocking and panic function) - so it's not like you can kill the engine by turning off the key and mechanical disconnecting electrical power from the engine. 2. Most modern cars do not have mechanical linkage between shifter in the cabin and tranny. Prius, if i remember correctly, has a CVT tranny so i must be computer controlled 3. Breaks are useless in the "run away car", you have 30 sec at best (band you rotters and break pads) before you have no breaks due to heat, and usage at speeds above 50 mph. Most modern cars also "care about them self" computer will not let you shit in to LOW or REVERSE gear if you are going fast to protect the car and tranny, ext.... In my opinion it is programming errors on the computers or even worse logic error in the car. But it's not like toyota will Open Source the system so we can prove it.
Re:Queue joke... by Screen404-O · 2010-03-31 06:40 · Score: 1

Here is what i think is happening. Human: Hey i'm not touching gas but a car is accelerating! Car: Gas sensor reports 100% - "MORE POWER!" Human: Tap the breaks Car: "MORE POWER" some noise on the break pedal - "set noise tolerance to unreachable parameters" any input from break pedal is now noise - you have not break pedal! Human: Step on the break - Oh Shit Car: it looks i'm dropping speed Break pedal? - no it's just noise must be up hill "More Power" Human: Press "Start/Stop" button. Car: Hmm... Speed - 75 mph and rising Gas - pressed to the floor Break - noise just ignore it well is i stop engine now driver will loose control and crash, "More Power" Human: shift to "N" shift to "P" shift to "R" shift to "L" Car: are you trying to kill my trany...?!? good luck with that. "MORE POWER" Human: to busy freaking out about the car in stead of driving (not a first time he drove at 75/85 mph) does not see a slight turn on the high way hits a wall at 85 Car: shit, so he was trying to stop and it was not noise in the break pedal. Oh well, better luck next time.
Re:Queue joke... by HBoar · 2010-03-31 09:33 · Score: 1

I'm sick of hearing about brakes that don't work -- it simply isn't true on a car with even remotely well maintained brakes. Yes, if you continue down the road at full throttle using your brakes to keep you at a constant speed, they will eventually heat up and lose effectiveness. However, if you simply stop the car as normal, they have no trouble at all. This is the safest method to stop ANY car with a stuck throttle, including cars with no computers whatsoever. Putting the gearbox in neutral will likely result in the destruction of the engine, and turning the engine off will result in a loss of power steering, which can be quite a disadvantage in larger cars. I have performed this maneuverer in a modified early 80's Subaru ~150bhp with the standard tiny disks at the front and DRUMS at the rear. There was no drama whatsoever. I simply slowed the car reasonably quickly (nothing violent at all) and pulled to the side of the road.
Re:Queue joke... by stormy_petral · 2010-03-31 14:33 · Score: 1

You sat in one in an Auto show, and that qualifies you to say these things?
I own a 2010 Prius, and have for 8 months.
It will shift into neutral at any speed, like any other car out there. You need to hold the shift paddle in the neutral position for a few seconds, no longer than it takes to maneuver a mechanical column shifter into the neutral notch. The delay is a feature, not a bug...it keeps you from inadvertently shifting, just like the need to pull the lever on a column shifter toward you in order to shift it.
And furthermore, shifting into neutral at highway speed will NOT destroy the engine. If it could, then the standard manual transmission could not exist.
Re:Queue joke... by Glendale2x · 2010-03-31 15:05 · Score: 1

just like the need to pull the lever on a column shifter toward you in order to shift it.
Not true. On many cars (I won't say all because I have not seen every car) the locking key that the button/lever action moves is notched in a descending pattern so you can push the shifter into neutral. What I said was, in case you need help reading:
I did sit in a Prius at an auto show once and there's nothing mechanical about the drive/park/reverse selector.
I said nothing about destroying the engine, merely that the Prius shifter is not mechanically linked. You appear to have confirmed this as on a car with some kind of mechanical link you don't need to hold it in a certain position beyond a delay to to confirm your commands.
Wikipedia also says: "Some shifters with a shift button allow the driver to freely move the shifter from R to N or D, or simply moving the shifter to N or D without actually depressing the button. However, the driver cannot put back the shifter to R without depressing the shift button to prevent accidental shifting, especially at high speeds, which could damage the transmission."

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this is my sig
Re:Queue joke... by holmstar · 2010-04-01 07:22 · Score: 1

The problem is that these people are not thinking rationally. They don't slam on the brakes to bring the car to a quick stop, they do exactly what you said... use light braking to keep the car the speed they want, overheating and destroying the brakes, such that they then panic when the brakes have failed and they are accelerating again.

If you want to stop things from moving anywhere... by aapold · 2010-03-30 07:44 · Score: 5, Funny

I guess today's NASA is a good call...

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"Waste not one watt!" - CZ

So... by Anachragnome · 2010-03-30 07:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

So, this is an admission that sticking pedals and faulty floormats had nothing to do with the problem, and that the recalls to fix pedal and floormat "problems" were simply a smokescreen to hide the actual cause of the problem (albeit, unknown cause)?

Re:So... by SBrach · 2010-03-30 07:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes. Toyota decided the least convoluted way of admitting to software issues was to have a government agency of a foreign country (NHTSA) call in another agency (NASA) to look for software bugs as part of that foreign country's investigation into the matter.
Re:So... by khallow · 2010-03-30 07:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

Or it's an admission that the administration wants to make a public circus out of this in order to protect their investment in GM and Chrysler. Or maybe it's an admission that the NHTS doesn't have experience in embedded computer systems and grabbed some from elsewhere.
Re:So... by pegasustonans · 2010-03-30 07:53 · Score: 0, Troll

So, this is an admission that sticking pedals and faulty floormats had nothing to do with the problem, and that the recalls to fix pedal and floormat "problems" were simply a smokescreen to hide the actual cause of the problem (albeit, unknown cause)?
No, this is an admission that the United States government wants the US automotive companies they purchased to increase in value at the expense of the competition.
Headline-grabbing 'investigations' are the best way to scare the public and drive people to purchase more GM cars.

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And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Re:So... by natehoy · 2010-03-30 07:53 · Score: 5, Informative

This is an "admission" of nothing. Nowhere does it say that Toyota has asked NASA to help out.
The NHTSA is asking NASA to help out, but the NHTSA has never asserted that this was a pedal or floormat problem. They've just been holding Toyota to the fire to get a fix. And the fixes so far do not appear to be working.
This is a sign that the NTSB is likely suspicious of Toyota's explanation, and frustrated with continuing reports of sudden acceleration even on "fixed" cars, and would like someone without a vested interest in a cheap fix to examine this. Given NASA's experience with writing software that's just gotta work or else, I'd be very hard-pressed to think of no better team of programmers for the job.

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Re:So... by Jenming · 2010-03-30 07:56 · Score: 5, Funny

It was my understanding that the entire problem was caused by some Shadowrunners hired by GM and Ford to break into the Toyato supply lines. I heard it was a three pronged attack, their decker injected some software bugs, they let a troll loose in the factory to fuck with the pedals and they got a shaman to curse the floor mats.

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Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:57 · Score: 1, Interesting

Or it's an admission that the administration wants to make a public circus out of this in order to protect their investment in GM and Chrysler...
Bingo! We have a winner. Watch for it to get very, very expensive for Toyota to sell cars in the US.
Re:So... by ircmaxell · 2010-03-30 08:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Watch for it to get very, very expensive for Toyota to sell cars in the US.
And if the reason it is so cheap for them now is because of inadequate development practices (testing, code review, etc), I'll be all the more happier to pay the extra price. The question isn't did Toyota fuck-up here. The question is how may fuck-ups where there before they got caught. And how many fuck-ups are there in the rest of the automotive industry that just haven't surfaced (because of any one of a number of reasons)...

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If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Re:So... by ravenshrike · 2010-03-30 08:05 · Score: 1, Informative

It was my understanding that the entire problem was caused by some Shadowrunners hired by GM and Chrysler to break into the Toyota supply lines. I heard it was a three pronged attack, their decker injected some software bugs, they let a troll loose in the factory to fuck with the pedals and they got a shaman to curse the floor mats.
FTFY
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:07 · Score: 0

Innocent until proven guilty? Maybe the question here is: are people putting fingers in the Wendy's chili bowl?
Is it even happening?
Re:So... by confused+one · 2010-03-30 08:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

If NASA cannot find a problem, then Toyota is off the hook.
If NASA does find a problem, then Toyota can say -- "It was such a subtle problem, it took NASA's resources and expertise to find and fix it."
Either way, it can be spun positively by the PR folks.
Re:So... by jwietelmann · 2010-03-30 08:09 · Score: 5, Interesting

This doesn't hurt Toyota; if anything it helps them. Nobody is buying the sticky-pedal, caught-in-the-floormat explanation anyway, so how could this do anything but help restore confidence in Toyota? You get NASA to say that the electronics could use some better shielding, everyone assumes that EMI was the problem, and you get right back to selling Prius'.

What's really wrong? I don't know (I'm sort of 50/50 between it being a software race condition or driver error). But one would think that EMI wouldn't result in several cases of the exact same system failure.
Re:So... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2010-03-30 08:12 · Score: 1

Given the way complex systems tend to work, and the psychology of how people debug them, it seems much more Occam-friendly to suggest that the pedal and floormat problems were real; but, by virtue of being more common and substantially easier to see(debugging of subtle edge cases in embedded code that may or may not happen under certain circumstances but evidence is largely anecdotal, which just isn't too helpful when what you need are the precise parameters the ECU was seeing at the time, is a bitch. Observing wear patterns in a large mechanical part, and pushing it up and down with your hand, and comparing the amount of force needed on a worn one and a fresh one, by contrast, is substantially easier and more intuitive) they masked the much subtler firmware issues until they were corrected.

It is hardly impossible, or even implausible(in more complex systems), for multiple problems to exist; but, for the sake of their sanity, people generally try to debug them in some sort of order, while holding other variables constant. If you find a problem that is easily visible, you don't even need a magnifying glass, much less a debugger and some serious CS skills, you tend to hold to the notion that, pending further evidence, that problem is the problem. If, once you fix it, bad things still happen, you know that you have to look elsewhere.
Re:So... by ircmaxell · 2010-03-30 08:12 · Score: 1

Almost every single piece of non-trivial software written has bugs. What are the chances that over a million lines of code used in the Prius doesn't contain a single bug? 0. The point of my OP was not that Toyota is guilty of this being a bug, but are they using dangerous development practices that aren't catching bugs like this. So even if this is not a software issue, the issue still remains about how many "sleeping" bugs exist in all the cars. My OP was referencing that if this is true, Toyota will be the first to be burned by a major bug, but that doesn't mean that more aren't out there...

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If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Re:So... by Minwee · 2010-03-30 08:14 · Score: 1

Given NASA's experience with writing software that's just gotta work or else, I'd be very hard-pressed to think of no better team of programmers for the job.
And considering that the NHTSA has absolutely no experience with or personnel capable of writing or even reading software, they have to go _somewhere_.
Re:So... by coastwalker · 2010-03-30 08:15 · Score: 1

That is the real question, is any auto business finding the unknown unknown bug that is affecting Toyot?a. This isnt a politics question its a science question.

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Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Re:So... by Mindcontrolled · 2010-03-30 08:16 · Score: 1

Ahh, why do you need NASA when you can simply ask slashdot. Occam's razor is on your side, Jenming. Well played.

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Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Re:So... by khallow · 2010-03-30 08:16 · Score: 1

That's pretty fucking hardcore. I'm surprised the Yakusa hasn't iced them yet, the CEOs that is. You'd expect the CEO of General Motors to be found floating in his jacuzi, the unfortunate victim of a accidental beheading. The CEO of Chrysler will be eaten by by his car, which somehow acquired a demonic spirit hostile to automotive CEOs. Must be cosmic rays.

I wonder if this would have happened, if the gremlins hadn't taken over the NSA?
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:19 · Score: 0

except NASA's manned space flight code is usually bought. They do have some expertise but it is the contractors who really could get it done.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:20 · Score: 0

You're making the assumption that the problem actually exists, or still exists. I'm suspicious that a lot of people all of a sudden are finding fingers in Wendy's food... something smells fishy here.
Re:So... by pegasustonans · 2010-03-30 08:23 · Score: 1

To whoever modded me troll: You're right, the government would *never* play politics on an issue like this.
When US auto-manufacturers experienced a similar issue several years ago, the government did the exact same thing.
Right?

--
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Re:So... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-30 08:25 · Score: 1, Interesting

>>>pedal and floormat "problems" were simply a smokescreen to hide the actual cause of the problem
Yes it's been Toyota's modus operandi since about 2000 - blame the customer not Toyota:
- "My car accelerated out of control, even when I shifted to neutral!". - It was your fault, not ours. - TOYOTA.
- "My car's engine (times about 100,000 other engines) died after only 20,000 miles. It's under warranty and would like a new one." No. It is the fault of the customer for not changing oil. - TOYOTA. "But my dealer did the oil changes. They have records and said they will back me up." No it is the fault of the customer. Warranty denied. - TOYOTA
- "My Prius battery died after only 50,000. Warranty entitles me to a new one upto 100,000 miles." No. Not our problem because our tests show Prius batteries will last 200,000 miles. You abused the battery, so it's your fault. - TOYOTA.
.
Yes Toyota did eventually go back and fix all these problems. They extended Prius battery warranty to 150,000 miles. They replaced or reimbursed customers for their damaged engines. They recalled the cars and reprogrammed the ECU so it would not ignore the brake or neutral commands..... .....AFTER the U.S. DOJ stepped in. Toyota of the 2000s acted like Ford of the 1970s. (Remember the exploding Fords?) Every company screws up, but to deny warranty to innocent customers, and force them to spend $7000 replacing new engines, shows the height of arrogance. What's the point of having a warranty if the corporation can randomly refuse to honor the damn thing?
Source -
I've been following the Toyota mess for almost a decade now, so I have a lot of sources. Here's a good starting point: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_engine.html

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:So... by Dalambertian · 2010-03-30 08:26 · Score: 1

Right, I'm sure NASA has some great FORTRAN subroutines that will sort this whole mess out, pronto.
Re:So... by eth1 · 2010-03-30 08:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

And as a bonus, the US taxpayers get to pay for it instead of Toyota.
Re:So... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-30 08:30 · Score: 2, Informative

Toyota has had problems with:
- engines sludging after only 20-30,000 miles
- prematurely dying hybrid batteries
- out-of-control cars hitting walls or driving off ledges at 100mph
Ford has also had problems since some of their engines/batteries are supplied by Toyota. The KEY difference is that Ford honored the warranty and replaced those items free-of-charge. Toyota stuck their customers with ~$7000 bills to buy new engines or hybrid batteries, and pretended the warranty didn't exist.
Toyota found itself in a class-action lawsuit in 2008 as a result.
Toyota lost.

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:So... by trboyden · 2010-03-30 08:32 · Score: 1

+5 Exactly what I thought when I read the headline...
Re:So... by Bakkster · 2010-03-30 08:33 · Score: 1

Given NASA's experience with writing software that's just gotta work or else, I'd be very hard-pressed to think of no better team of programmers for the job.
Think beyond the code, too. We're talking EMI, possible latch-ups of chips or ASICs, signal integrity issues, or any of a number of digital electronic issues. NASA builds stuff that just has to work, even when passing through the Van Allen radiation belts or outside the Earth's magnetosphere. If there's an intermittent hardware error, they will find it.

--
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Re:So... by CoderJoe · 2010-03-30 08:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

That driver error story goes entirely off of fatality numbers, which could be skewed by the older folks having slower reflexes, being panicky, and possibly having other health problems as a result of the incident, such as having a heart attack. Younger folk tend to have faster reflexes and were taught in drivers ed what they should do in such a case. Older folk may not have.
The story also seems to be "driver error vs mechanical". They completely ignore the very complex electrical systems in newer cars. Many cars are drive-by-wire systems, where none of the controls are mechanically connected to the parts they affect. If there is a problem in the drive-by-wire control computers, hopefully NASA's engineers would find it. Aeronautics companies might be a better choice for a code review, though, since they have been using fly-by-wire for quite a bit longer than car companies. NASA is probably a good choice for checking out shielding and power surge concerns, however, since their stuff has to work without the benefit of the Earth's additional shielding.
Re:So... by Sleepy · 2010-03-30 08:39 · Score: 2, Informative

>And as a bonus, the US taxpayers get to pay for it instead of Toyota.
Except that's not true in any sense.
Re:So... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-30 08:42 · Score: 1

Nice theory, but Toyota's problems predate the Government acquisition of GM (by several years).

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:So... by timeOday · 2010-03-30 08:45 · Score: 3, Informative

Or maybe it's an admission that the NHTS doesn't have experience in embedded computer systems and grabbed some from elsewhere.
They don't:

NHTSA, meanwhile, was woefully unprepared to decide whether engine electronics might be at fault, Waxman and Stupak said. NHTSA officials told investigators that the agency doesn't employ any electrical engineers or software engineers.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:46 · Score: 0

Yes. Toyota decided the least convoluted way of admitting to software issues was to have an owner (US Government) of a competitor (GM) have an agency of a foreign country (NHTSA) call in another agency (NASA) to look for software bugs as part of that foreign country's investigation into the matter.
FTFY.
Re:So... by FlyMysticalDJ · 2010-03-30 08:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

When I see someone say "That's not true." and nothing else, I almost exclusively interpret that as an empty post. If you know for a fact that that isn't true, then please, be more informative. Tell us what IS true. Or at least how you know that that is not true.
Re:So... by Nikker · 2010-03-30 08:52 · Score: 1

The gremlins would have been fine if they didn't align the feeding schedules to metric time

I'll be here all decade, try the veal.

--
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Re:So... by Duhavid · 2010-03-30 08:53 · Score: 1

Na. Make it look like an accident. Give the CEO of GM a free Toyoda!

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emt 377 emt 4
Re:So... by Jarjarthejedi · 2010-03-30 08:53 · Score: 1

You want truth in the comments? Geez! Next you'll be expecting me to read the articles!

--
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Re:So... by Jarjarthejedi · 2010-03-30 08:55 · Score: 1

"Almost every single piece of non-trivial software written has bugs"
"dangerous development practices that aren't catching bugs like this."
You can't have it both ways. Accusing Toyota of doing something wrong because a bug like this slipped through and then saying (correctly) that all software has bugs is just a bit silly, you're effectively accusing them of not being perfect...which isn't much of an accusation.

--
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Re:So... by Jarjarthejedi · 2010-03-30 09:03 · Score: 0, Troll

"Given NASA's experience with writing software that's just gotta work or else, I'd be very hard-pressed to think of no better team of programmers for the job."
You're right! I can't think of a better group of programmers to work on car acceleration issues than the guys who've lost 3 probes to software errors (mariner 1, mars climate orbitor and mars polar lander)!
NASA is not the organization it once was, and implying that their programmers get everything right is not only dangerous, but silly. Everyone makes mistakes, NASA is no exception, and calling them in is more of a PR boost than anything else.

--
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:03 · Score: 0

a software race condition
Pun intended?
Re:So... by ircmaxell · 2010-03-30 09:07 · Score: 1

No, what I'm accusing them of, is not having systems in place (or if they do, not adequate ones) to catch this level of bug before it gets out in the public. I'm not saying that their software needs to be bug free, but it needs to have procedures in place to make sure it's free of major bugs. It's ok to fail, but if you do, make sure you fail safe. There should NEVER be an excuse for this kind of thing to happen. If someone's life is at stake, you make sure there's redundancy built into the system. Where even if an entire computer fails, it would only possibly fail in a way that became safer (idle the engine if something goes wrong, etc)... These are basic engineering principals.

Would people sit this idly if Windows 7 contained a bug that would delete your entire hard drive if you pressed the wrong key? No, we'd raise hell (Well, not me, since I don't run Windows). So why are people taking this so lightly? I'm not saying hang the people involved. What I'm saying is that we need to look into the process more than the code (After all, if it's a systematic issue, then fixing this particular bug will do nothing in the long run. Don't fight fires, prevent them)...

--
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Re:So... by jd · 2010-03-30 09:09 · Score: 1

So the PR folk are protons?

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:So... by dgatwood · 2010-03-30 09:10 · Score: 1

But one would think that EMI wouldn't result in several cases of the exact same system failure.
Depends. It's entirely possible for EMI or other phenomena to cause reproducible errors if component tolerances are insufficient. If you have, for example, two signal lines in a processor that are really close together, you could have leakage from one line into the other that isn't enough to trigger a logic high on the other line, but a power surge caused by somebody shutting off the dome light at the right time could be enough to push it over the edge. In that case, you'd expect it to be highly clustered in a single signal line. A similar power surge could be caused by other things, too, like a nearby lightning strike, induction caused by driving under high tension lines, etc.

--
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Re:So... by DriedClexler · 2010-03-30 09:11 · Score: 1

Okay, now, it would be *pretty* low to try to fob off the whole disaster on a record company. They might be unpopular these days, but even this is pushing it.

--
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:15 · Score: 0

They have no experience at all in embedded systems they are all wrench monkeys. They probability did not know that cars need computers. They have admitted as much to congress. NASA is not who I would have called I would have setup an X- prize and watched the fun...Money would be on MIT but Caltech and some others would be strong contenders.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:19 · Score: 0

What's wrong is that I'm paying for NASA to debug some private commercial entity's code. Then said company can go on a make millions of dollars in profit. Fuck that shit, I don't even own a Toyota.
Re:So... by robvangelder · 2010-03-30 09:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

And afterward, "Safety so good, it was verified by NASA
Re:So... by dubbreak · 2010-03-30 09:29 · Score: 1

If NASA does find a problem, then Toyota can say -- "It was such a subtle problem, it took NASA's resources and expertise to find and fix it."
Of course that's just a media spin. If NASA finds an issue I doubt any amount of PR propaganda will save Toyota's stock prices and sales numbers from plummeting.

Toyota has burned a lot of customer goodwill and has spent a lot of their brand equity in the last few years. My prediction is they will start offering even bigger rebates and incentives than they are now in order to keep their market share.

--
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
Re:So... by DragonWriter · 2010-03-30 09:34 · Score: 1

Nice theory, but Toyota's problems predate the Government acquisition of GM (by several years).
Nice theory, but the recent events which GP claims are a sign off the US government pursuing its interest in protecting its investment in US companies do not predate the Government's investment in US companies.
Re:So... by Red+Flayer · 2010-03-30 09:37 · Score: 1

"Either way, it can be spun positively..."

So the PR folk are protons?
No, silly. Spin is independent of charge. Though one should not use the concepts of "negative" or "positive" with relation to spin.

The key here is that Toyota can make it hard for consumers to quantify their culpability.

--
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Re:So... by Nikker · 2010-03-30 09:47 · Score: 1

Just to add a personal experience a very close family member leased a new Ford Escape a couple of years back and had a similar experience (non hybrid model). She was stopped at a red light with her foot on the break and the engine went full throttle. Lucky for her she had her foot on the break but the suv did jump a foot before it came to a stop.

There is really no excuse for not having a mechanical backup to the system and the more companies that will be going the route of consolidating mechanical functions with electronic means we just have to give way to the possibility of errors becomes greater. Now that HUD's are becoming more popular what's to say a bug in the software won't obstruct your entire view of the road in front of you? Maybe a bug in the NAV system will take certain control over the vehicle to prevent a perceived collision where there is none. Technology is meant to assist the user not supersede them. As this technology becomes more prominent it will just bring the focus to the malicious to tamper with it for what ever outcome they choose. We are also putting a lot of trust in something like a battery. Currently if your engine fails you still have control over the vehicle apart from acceleration, on a fly by wire system once it loses power all those components will cease to exist as well. If we look into real possibilities such as corrosion of the contacts that deliver power, short circuits, blown fuses and battery wear/defects these will make a much larger impact on the driver then ever before. Many people even as we speak may be driving around with some fuses blown but now that the power involved is much greater the systems involved in regulating power flow become much more involved and again more likely to cause a complete system failure.

--
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
Re:So... by Red+Flayer · 2010-03-30 09:48 · Score: 2, Informative

Here's a good starting point: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/toyota_engine.html

It's disingenuous to single out Toyota when so many other major car makers habve a similar track record.

Here's a primer to help anyone who thinks that the arrogance of car manufacturers is limted to Toyota.

Of note, check out numbers 1&2 on the list... exploding Fords again (albeit just spitting a spark plug, not a fuel tank explosion).

--
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Re:So... by Alioth · 2010-03-30 10:25 · Score: 1

I wouldn't have believed that kind of driver error was something that happened...until two years ago, an older driver in a small SUV with automatic transmission did just that and punched a large hole in the side of our building. Even though he actually needed to go in completely the opposite direction to leave his parking space. He put it in drive, then hit the gas instead of the brake when it started to creep forward. (And I thought they all had locking mechanisms on automatics to stop you from moving it out of park without your foot on the brake).

--
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Re:So... by Anachragnome · 2010-03-30 10:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

And all the employees of the US-located Toyota factories might get to keep their jobs.
It annoys the shit out of me when people fail to take into account that many foreign companies actually produce their products HERE in the US.
Why? Two reasons, really. It is cheaper to sell cars that don't need to be shipped half way around the world (a cost that is usually passed onto the consumer), and because we Americans whined and sniveled about foreign entities putting our citizens out of work. In short, they did what we wanted them to do.
Now it is time to help them out and POSSIBLY SAVE LIVES. I cannot think of a more noble reason to get NASA involved, or ANY agency for that matter.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:48 · Score: 0

The original post provided no source, so why criticize the disagreeing post?
The onus is on the original poster to provide evidence for the statement.
You lack basic atheist principles. ;)
Re:So... by SilverEyes · 2010-03-30 10:57 · Score: 1

Because, even with catastrophic failures, computers are way, way better at making reliable decisions than humans.

If we had fully automated personal and mass transportation with well-thought out safety features (ex. doors on the train platform to prevent people pushing others onto the tracks), far fewer people would die. Again, even with catastrophic failures. Period.

As another poster said, there have been 400 000+ automotive deaths in N.A. not related to the Toyota acceleration, which was 56.

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Interesting.
Re:So... by SilverEyes · 2010-03-30 10:59 · Score: 1

"Either way, it can be spun positively..." So the PR folk are protons?
No, silly. Spin is independent of charge. ...
Or is it... Hmm.. what about a spin-charge unified thing of physics! Nobel Prize here I come. After my degree. And then in ten years. And then after being peer-reviewed. And then after my paper is proven correct. Better hope I don't get smacked by a Prius first, they don't award it posthumously.

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Interesting.
Re:So... by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 11:06 · Score: 1

As I tell people regarding software, "there's user error, and then there's user error that could be better handled." If the user error could be better handled, the software vendor should handle the user error properly.
The same goes for cars. If the pedal design in certain Audis was a contributing factor to the accidents, then the pedal design should be changed (and was). If Toyota makes the same mistakes years later it too should be accountable for error-prone designs.
However my guess is it's some sort of cascade failure from elsewhere. Some device fails in a way that is out of spec, a piece of solder cracks, something gets inadvertently grounded out, and suddenly the software is doing the wrong things.....

--

LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 11:19 · Score: 0

I think one of the greatest advantages of using NASA to test the matter is that NASA is quite possibly the best qualified at determining the fault could be that drivers over 60 years of age consistently fail at following through with the engine shut off procedure of holding a button depressed for more than three seconds. In my unprofesional opinion, NASA seems the best suited to not only test code, but is best suited to study user responses and behavior.
The flaw might not be just in the code. The flaw might be in the design of the user interface.
Re:So... by GoodNicksAreTaken · 2010-03-30 11:21 · Score: 3, Informative

A large number of the parts ARE shipped halfway around the world and the cost to ship a complete vehicle likely isn't much more if more expensive. The reason Toyota has a large number of factories in the US (which employ UAW union workers) is because it was a lot cheaper to produce vehicles in the US and Canada and not pay huge tariffs. There is a lot of information on this decision by Toyota in Episode 403 of This American Life.
Re:So... by Anachragnome · 2010-03-30 11:32 · Score: 1

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that Toyota employs a lot of Americans and whatever hurts Toyota hurts those employees.
I am not trying to defend Toyota here, but rather their decision to ask for help. I think it is rather honorable to do so, especially in light of the Japanese culture that puts a heavy burden on those that make honest mistakes.
It takes a certain amount of humility to ask for help, and furthermore, I think it is was an excellent choice to ask US for help rather then keep everything in-house. If nothing else, it displays an openness that most corporations are sorely lacking.
Re:So... by R3d+M3rcury · 2010-03-30 12:16 · Score: 1

I am not trying to defend Toyota here, but rather their decision to ask for help.
If they had, I would agree.
Toyota is claiming that there is no way that it is a problem with the software. NHTSA is investigating to see whether that is true. However, NHTSA does not have any expertise in such areas, so they're calling in NASA.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 12:48 · Score: 0

I disagree.
Re:So... by khallow · 2010-03-30 13:46 · Score: 1

And if the reason it is so cheap for them now is because of inadequate development practices (testing, code review, etc), I'll be all the more happier to pay the extra price. The question isn't did Toyota fuck-up here. The question is how may fuck-ups where there before they got caught. And how many fuck-ups are there in the rest of the automotive industry that just haven't surfaced (because of any one of a number of reasons)...
Personally, I don't know whether Toyota is getting a fair shake here or not. My take is that they're under the microscope because of the big problem with uncontrolled acceleration. That would have happened no matter who's in the White House.

But your attitude of safety at any cost is foolish. There are real problems that the NHTSA can address. But it can also engage in gratuitous theater that drives up the cost of cars without providing benefit.
Re:So... by Scrameustache · 2010-03-30 14:42 · Score: 1

The question is how may fuck-ups where there before they got caught. And how many fuck-ups are there in the rest of the automotive industry that just haven't surfaced (because of any one of a number of reasons)...
Narrator: A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
Narrator: A major one.

--
You can't take the sky from me...
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 15:33 · Score: 0

No. The real cause are the drivers. They simply mistake the accelerator for the brake pedal. END OF STORY! But oh no, it couldn't possibly be an end user fault... especially if they get to sue a huge multi-national. Thank you USA for bringing us the litigation excuse to be a dumb ass driver!
Re:So... by stabiesoft · 2010-03-30 15:50 · Score: 1

I doubt they asked, NHTSA did, and no I don't think toyota asked NHTSA either. I seriously doubt they are even helping. I even wondered when Toyota offered to rent the sw to NY to aid in the investigation, if they whipped a special version that checked
if(VIN==car in ny accident) { acceleratorPosition = down; brakePosition = notDepressed }
so that the sw would report driver error. But then, there goes the tin hat alert again.
Re:So... by TapeCutter · 2010-03-30 16:23 · Score: 1

"No, what I'm accusing them of, is not having systems in place (or if they do, not adequate ones) to catch this level of bug before it gets out in the public.....These are basic engineering principals"

Another basic engineering priciple is to gather the evidence to show there actually is a bug and that it actually is caused by lax procedures.

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:So... by TapeCutter · 2010-03-30 17:11 · Score: 1

"Nobody is buying the sticky-pedal, caught-in-the-floormat explanation anyway"

Toyota is, they are paying for the floor pans to be replaced in 3.8 million cars. If that's supposed to be a cover up why did they choose such an expensive fix as replacing a floor pan? Do people really think they would spend tens (if not hunderds) of millions of dollars to replace floor pans when hiring a couple of random slashdot posters could easily fix the "real problem"? Would Toyota spend that sort of money without strong evidence that they have found a "real problem"?

--
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Re:So... by sl149q · 2010-03-30 17:52 · Score: 1

Who cares. The number of times it has happened either way is so low that fixing it is simply not cost effective. The money should be spent on solving other known problems that kill far more people every year. Just pumping the money into MADD would be more worthwhile. Driver education or training, more traffic lights. Pretty much anything would be a better place to spend money than chasing (probably) non-existent problems that simply are not killing that many people.
Re:So... by fluffy99 · 2010-03-30 17:56 · Score: 1

The smokescreen was that while the cars were in getting the pedals modified, Toyota was also installing updated firmware. The new firmware disengages the throttle if the brake is applied for more than a few seconds. Something that should have been programmed in the first place.
Re:So... by Chrisje · 2010-03-30 20:29 · Score: 1

Everyone keeps on calling it "The Problem". So one dude in California played a hoax, and another man ended up upside down in a small lake with three passengers somewhere.
So, how many cars get acceleration issues?
Out of how many sold?
In what time frame?
And how many of those cause harm, injury or death?
How does all of that data compares to other manufacturers' data?
What is the actual, factual statistical likelihood of you getting killed in a Prius due to the car failing? I wonder if anyone knows in this forum. I sincerely doubt the journalists that feed us this irrelevant crap even know what they're on about except selling the odd paper.
Re:So... by Ginger+Unicorn · 2010-03-31 00:09 · Score: 1

basic skeptical principles

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(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Re:So... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-31 01:46 · Score: 1

Yeah except the U.S. Consumer Protection Agency has been investigating Toyota for *years*..... the investigation predates the GM bailout.

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:So... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-31 01:50 · Score: 1

>>>It's disingenuous to single out Toyota when so many other major car makers habve a similar track record.
No they do not. Yes other carmakers have problems. Like my Dodge with a bad axle. The difference is that Dodge recalled my car and replaced the axle for free. TOYOTA took the opposite position of refusing to admit problems existed, and stuck their customers with ~$7000 bills to replace 20,000 mile engines.
Toyota refused to honor warranty.
For thousands of customers.
Over ten years time.
In contrast Ford also ad some engine problems, and Ford fixed the problem for free. Ford honored the warranty. Ford acted honorably, whereas Toyota did not.

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:So... by Red+Flayer · 2010-03-31 02:04 · Score: 1

TOYOTA took the opposite position of refusing to admit problems existed, and stuck their customers with ~$7000 bills to replace 20,000 mile engines.
You know, I read through about 6 pages of the complaints posted, and you're clearly exaggerating on the number of miles and the cost of the repairs. This is a discredit to your entire argument, and I'm not going to waste my time discussing this with someone who has a very tenuous grasp on facts, figures, and truth.

--
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 03:05 · Score: 0

So what units are they using this time metric or imperial?
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 04:16 · Score: 0

Either way, it can be spun positively by the PR folks.
Here's a newsflash for ya: That's what PR folks are supposed to do.
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 06:09 · Score: 0

And so am I. I have those floormats and it was a problem for me. But only because the dealership relied on the salesman to install a clip to anchor the floor mat so that it wouldn't slide up to where the pedal could stick. That was a huge fail. Salesmen are (sometimes) good at selling cars. They can't be relied upon to install equipment, especially something that turns out to impact safety. Toyota deserves to catch some hell for that. And maybe there are other issues (or maybe not). But I keep hearing people say that the floormat recall was just a cheap smokescreen to cover up a more expensive problem, and that no one buys it and that it couldn't possibly be the problem. That upsets me. It upsets me because it is an example of how powerful group think can be, that it can suppress this simple piece of information and call it a lie when I know it to be true. It makes me wonder how many times I've believed the group think when it was wrong.
Re:So... by Hurricane78 · 2010-03-31 09:40 · Score: 1

And the same is true for all statements that are not based on common paradigms, and connected to them with flawless logic.

--
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Re:So... by stormy_petral · 2010-03-31 14:44 · Score: 1

I did a fair amount of research on Toyota and the Prius when I was buying, and here are my conclusions:
Sludge had been a problem in some engines in the early to mid 2000s, but it is not widespread.
Hybrid batteries have been very reliable, have a 100,000 mile warranty--and very few have been replaced even after that period. Those few that have failed prematurely have been replaced at no cost to the consumer. What more do you want?
And the out-of-control thing (which as not even on the radar when i was researching last summer) is still not sorted out, which is why this discussion is even here.
Just sayin'.

Apparently... by Tinctorius · 2010-03-30 07:46 · Score: 5, Funny

Driving a car is rocket science.

Re:Apparently... by QuantumRiff · 2010-03-30 08:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

In all seriousness, no, its not.
They need to call in the guys at IGT. They make the majority of the slot machines and video poker machines in the world. If anyone knows about ensuring data integrity, and error checking, etc in embedded systems, it is them.
Its amazing how much detail and error checking go into any system dealing with money, but not with human lives.

--

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Re:Apparently... by egburr · 2010-03-30 08:18 · Score: 4, Insightful

They didn't do so well either....
Colorado Woman Celebrates $42 Million Slot Machine Win Until Casino Says Machine Malfunctioned
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/colorado-42-mil-jackpot-winner-jack/story?id=10235836

--

Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:32 · Score: 0

That would explain why so many people seem incapable of doing it properly.
In my town, the kids either think that cars are toys and streets are racing tracks,
or they think cars are portable boom-boxes designed to annoy 5000 people at once.
Re:Apparently... by commodore64_love · 2010-03-30 08:39 · Score: 0

>>>Its amazing how much detail and error checking go into any system dealing with money, but not with human lives.
Humans are self-generating. About 120 million new ones every year. It's not as if we're having a shortage of them (hence the ~10% unemployment rate... there are more humans than jobs).
Money on the other hand is scarce.

--
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:49 · Score: 0

uhmm... "that's what she said"?
Re:Apparently... by brian0918 · 2010-03-30 09:01 · Score: 1

The scarcest of resources is human ingenuity. Fiat currency can be printed indefinitely.
Re:Apparently... by blair1q · 2010-03-30 09:17 · Score: 1

well, that would be funny but not terribly close to true
IGT is of course interested in selling security to those who buy its equipment
but moreso it's bound by laws requiring them to ensure their machinery doesn't contain back-doors or exploitable flaws through which skimming can be effected, nor any means by which the machine can be made to pay out at lower than the rate the machine is set to when the gaming commission inspects it. because gambling, see, used to be an industry run almost exclusively by people who didn't like the idea of playing by the rules (whereas today most of the people running the industry understand that a built-in advantage is still a gold mine if you manage the implementation efficiently; which is a lot of the reason it's not as much fun as it used to be).
and almost anywhere human lives are at stake and there's a regulating authority involved, there are well-defined rules for the processes for engineering the hardware and software. but even the processes for safety-critical systems are more about "best practices," or tracking bugs moreso than ensuring they can't possibly occur. they attempt to limit the places where they can occur, and they can get a little silly about the things they permit and prohibit, but they don't require provability of all safety-critical code, just certain types of testing based on the likely effect on maintaining safety in the event of a failure.
regardless, i'd put a program written under DO-178B up against any slot machine.
Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:27 · Score: 0

Phone calls requesting comment from the slot machine manufacturer, WMS Industries of Waukegan Ill., were not returned to ABC News.

That was a WMS machine, not an IGT machine.
Re:Apparently... by steelfood · 2010-03-30 09:34 · Score: 1

Slot machines don't move at 50 MPH over cobblestones.
Electronics are terrible for crucial components in a vehicle that takes as much pounding as a car. Electronics adds two more points of failure over a mechanical system. Mechanical systems are simple and predictable anywhere above the subatomic level. You pull on something, and the effect is almost always the opposite of what happens when you push on the same thing. Electronic systems are not nearly as predictable. Pushing twice may have the opposite effect of pushing once. Pulling and pushing may result in completely unrelated behaviors under completely different contexts.
So in addition to mechanical failure (physical failure of the electronic components and the connections between thereof), electronic systems introduce software bugs and transmission errors.
While computers may be fine for systems with enough built-in redundancy and take relatively little or predictable abuse, they're nowhere near solid enough to control a car, especially the most crucial aspects, which is braking, steering, and acceleration in that order.

--
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:35 · Score: 0

Such machines don't have to factor in accelerations, heat spikes, electrical noise, lack of a decent ground, vibration, etc. If it's basic error checking, IGT will do just fine like you said. If it relates to any of the other factors, someone who's worked on safety critical rocket (or airplane or, you would think, automobile) systems would be appropriate.
Re:Apparently... by DerekLyons · 2010-03-30 09:38 · Score: 1

Hundreds of thousands of slot 'pulls' an hour across the United Sates - one significant newsworthy error.
Sounds pretty damm reliable to me.
Re:Apparently... by thewiz · 2010-03-30 09:39 · Score: 1

I just hope that the Prius isn't the replacement for the space shuttle.

--
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Re:Apparently... by SilverEyes · 2010-03-30 10:03 · Score: 1

Mugabe, is that you?

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Interesting.
Re:Apparently... by Enzo1977 · 2010-03-30 11:13 · Score: 1

Good point about IGT. But I'd still take NASA over say Diebold.
---
this post does not reflect the views of, nor is in any way affiliated with my employer, my university, or my exwife.

--
I hate all sigs, even this one.
Re:Apparently... by Tablizer · 2010-03-30 11:14 · Score: 1

They need to call in the guys at IGT. They make the majority of the slot machines and video poker machines in the world. If anyone knows about ensuring data integrity...
I can just see the headlines now: "Driving Toyota Same as Gambling!"

--
Table-ized A.I.
Re:Apparently... by egburr · 2010-03-30 11:41 · Score: 1

Tell that to the person it glitched on...
and you have to wonder how many other lesser glitches occur that never get heard about because the casinos decide to pay off anyway to prevent bad publicity.

--

Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Re:Apparently... by DerekLyons · 2010-03-30 11:57 · Score: 1

Tell that to the person it glitched on...
That person's feelings are irrelevant to the statistics.

and you have to wonder how many other lesser glitches occur that never get heard about because the casinos decide to pay off anyway to prevent bad publicity.
No I don't. First, because I don't waste my time making vaguely panicky assumptions. Second, because if glitches that cost the casino money were even remotely common they'd take action.
Re:Apparently... by Anpheus · 2010-03-30 13:50 · Score: 1

One newsworthy error, you mean. Not "one significant". How many slot machines gave out erroneous amounts but were small enough that the casino didn't think twice? 42,000,000 is a lottery level payout, and would be intensely examined whether legit or not. I doubt most casinos would bat an eye at $10,000, and no one would be the wiser if a seven digit payout turned into a three digit one.
Re:Apparently... by Jedi+Alec · 2010-03-30 13:56 · Score: 1

I just hope that the Prius isn't the replacement for the space shuttle.
Hey, I'm sure if you or anyone else can come up with a way for spaceships to brake regeneratively NASA would be very interested ;-)

--

People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 14:54 · Score: 0

People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Not often enough to avoid THIS , HAAAAA hahahahahahahahaaaa!

--
I crack me up.
Re:Apparently... by DerekLyons · 2010-03-30 18:34 · Score: 1

A business that wouldn't bat an eye at a $10,00 loss? You must be on drugs.
Re:Apparently... by Anpheus · 2010-03-30 18:48 · Score: 1

For a large casino, a $10k payout wouldn't seem out of the ordinary and warrant any significant investigation. For every $10k they payout, they take $11k in. No problem.
Re:Apparently... by DerekLyons · 2010-03-30 19:50 · Score: 1

No, a single 10k payout wouldn't be noticed. A pattern of them, certainly would.
In other words, you're on drugs and indulging in horseshit handwaving.
Re:Apparently... by Chrisje · 2010-03-30 20:43 · Score: 1

> they're nowhere near solid enough to control a car
So how is it that I had two total-loss crashes with cheap-ass old cars, completely mechanical at that, back in the 90s (The cars were from the 80s) while all of the company cars I've driven in the last ten years were nice, expensive, electronically controlled vehicles that never so much as hiccupped?
I hate to say it, but my Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan had electronic systems for steering, breaking, traction control, fly-by-wire acceleration and lord knows what other systems, and it's the finest damn car I have driven to date.
So apart from your general musings on the state of technology, what actual facts can you present to me that will convince me a 1920 Ford is a safer drive than a 2010 Prius?
Re:Apparently... by Ihlosi · 2010-03-30 21:24 · Score: 1

A business that wouldn't bat an eye at a $10,00 loss? You must be on drugs.
No, you just have no idea of how a casino works. Paying out $10k to some lucky guy isn't a loss to the casino - it's advertising and will attract lots and lots of gullible folks who won't be winning $10k.
Or do you honestly believe that people would play in a casino that has never made such a "loss", i.e. one where no one has ever won big? If so, then you're on drugs, not the GP.
Re:Apparently... by drinkypoo · 2010-03-30 23:42 · Score: 1

Electronics are terrible for crucial components in a vehicle that takes as much pounding as a car. Electronics adds two more points of failure over a mechanical system. Mechanical systems are simple and predictable anywhere above the subatomic level. You pull on something, and the effect is almost always the opposite of what happens when you push on the same thing.
You're nuts. have you seen the knickknack bullshit that controls throttle on most vehicles? I had a throttle return spring break on my 1971 Dodge Sportsman. On that vehicle the linkage under the pedal isn't connected to it in any way, so the only way I was able to lift the pedal was to first get the side of my heel under the pedal and fold it back to the floor pan, then slip the toe of my sandal under the linkage so that I could raise the throttle. If I'd had closed-toed shoes on I'd have had to shut off the engine to prevent runaway, and without a manual transmission (it had a column-mount auto shift) I'd have had to give up my power steering and brakes. Since the van was loaded with all my worldly possessions, this would have made controlling the vehicle difficult. It happened on the freeway, at 75 per. Maximum throttle, maximum acceleration. And then there's all the shit that can go wrong with the mechanical parts of the the throttle system. On a carbureted vehicle you can get clogged jets, cracked or otherwise damaged acceleration pump diaphragm, bent linkages, flooding, and all kinds of other wacky stuff. You can get grit caught up in the throttle butterfly such that it won't operate and the vehicle always runs rich or lean, if at all, or only operates at partial throttle. You can have endless failures in the vacuum system that handles the ignition timing advance on those old vehicles, too. Or, you could have a system where all actuators are electronic servos with talkback, and all sensors can also detect fault conditions, and the whole system basically becomes self-diagnosing. And since everything is sealed, there's much less chance of a failure to begin with.
Abstracting away all control systems in a vehicle into electronic packages makes total sense, especially if you're chasing efficiency. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense to do it wrong.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Apparently... by Muad'Dave · 2010-03-31 05:16 · Score: 1

...clogged jets, cracked or otherwise damaged acceleration pump diaphragm, bent linkages, flooding, ... grit caught up in the throttle butterfly such that it won't operate and the vehicle always runs rich or lean, if at all, or only operates at partial throttle. You can have endless failures in the vacuum system that handles the ignition timing advance ...
All* of those are fail-safe scenarios; none of them would lead to uncontrolled acceleration. They are less reliable than electronic systems, but not necessarily safer. Huge difference.
*The exception would be grit that held the butterfly wide open.

--
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Re:Apparently... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 05:23 · Score: 0

The only system known to man to be more complex than the space shuttle is the human central nervous system.
Re:Apparently... by Anpheus · 2010-03-31 05:39 · Score: 1

No, I'm saying that suppose there is a fluke error in the slot machines. Very rarely gives incorrect amounts. Well, $42 million is a rather large number and would see prompt investigation, especially if that's not an amount the slot machine should be able to give out (I don't know the particulars of the case.)
But in Vegas at least, if there was a random fluke error that gave someone $10000 instead of $10, the casino probably wouldn't even notice. Like I said, nearly random error. Obviously the $42 million payout is not a recurring thing either. Likewise, if some guy gets $10 when the machine should have connected to homebase and noticed he was the 1,000,000th pull and given him an extra $10000, no one would have noticed. He would never notice, the casino would not notice, and the company would never be notified about that bug.
Re:Apparently... by Hurricane78 · 2010-03-31 09:42 · Score: 1

And what made you think the machine really malfunctioned, instead of the Casino copping out like a HMO?

--
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Re:Apparently... by QuantumRiff · 2010-03-31 15:54 · Score: 1

Not true. In many places, gaming machines have to be regularly audited, mainly to ensure that they aren't working the opposite way, but either way, it would be noticed.

--

What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Re:Apparently... by Anpheus · 2010-04-01 05:43 · Score: 1

But that's the point, this is a really, really rare error that would be difficult to audit for.
Maybe I should give up and realize my point isn't being made well by this back and forth. Let me lay it out:
1. Someone said that a Colorado woman won $42,000,000 from a defective slot machine
2. Someone said well that's just a testament to how good slot machines are, "Hundreds of thousands of slot 'pulls' an hour across the United Sates - one significant newsworthy error. Sounds pretty damm reliable to me."
3. I said that it was just one newsworthy error and that there was a pretty significant selection bias. While that 42,000,000 pull was heavily investigated, an erroneously low or just average win amount would not receive equal attention, and if rare enough would not be easily caught. It would still be an error in the code giving invalid output.
That's all I'm saying. Someone mentioned a real case of a slot machine performing outside of its specification, and someone else said that the frequency of something like that happening is a testament to the quality of the code. I suggested the code could be defective and it could have less noticeable errors with greater frequency and no one would be the wiser.

This reminds me of... by nitehawk214 · 2010-03-30 07:46 · Score: 2, Informative

Working as a developer at a tiny shop just out of college. Any time the CEO had troubles figuring out how to access a website I would be summoned to "just fix it" for him.

--
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust

Re:This reminds me of... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:58 · Score: 5, Funny

That is just a horrible car analogy. I can't even figure out which one of you is supposed to be the car and which one is supposed to be the analogy.
Re:This reminds me of... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:45 · Score: 0

Hee-hee. I just had a stupidvisor chew me out for complaining about all the unsighed SSL certificates my company uses. "Just mark the domain as trusted, don't waste our company time with such complaints." Too bad it irritates our customers, too, and interfers with both internal and external services. But hey, they only pay my salary to provide security guidance: God forbid I actually suggest a change that actually *help* people.

Looking in all the wrong places. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:47 · Score: 0

The movie Herbie was prophetic.

uh oh by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:47 · Score: 5, Funny

Don't forget to tell them the Japanese use the metric system please.

Re:uh oh by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:01 · Score: 0

Don't forget to tell them the Japanese use the metric system please.
So does NASA. You're thinking of Lockheed.
Which will be hired by NASA to handle the investigation, no doubt.

Paid off by the government? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:47 · Score: 0

Considering the government now has a vested interest and billions of dollars invested in the success of GM and Chrysler, who's to say the NASA evaluators won't be influence in relation to their final report?

Didn't Chrysler have a similar problem several years ago that ended up being user error? For some reason, I don't remember Congress and NASA deciding they needed to weigh in on that.

Re:Paid off by the government? by ShadowRangerRIT · 2010-03-30 07:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

You do realize the government could flush every penny invested in GM and Chrysler down the toilet and not miss it, right? Dragging down Toyota to prop up GM and Chrysler might make sense if the federal government was dependent on their success, but it isn't. And even if they took down Toyota, that wouldn't prevent the dozen or so other non-gov't owned brands from rushing to fill the gap (and likely succeeding given the shitty reputation of GM and Chrysler over the past couple decades). Without a motive, inventing conspiracy theories in advance seems rather pointless.

--
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Re:Paid off by the government? by pegasustonans · 2010-03-30 08:00 · Score: 1

Without a motive, inventing conspiracy theories in advance seems rather pointless.
The motive is the government is a major investor and primary share-holder in the competition. If you can't see a conflict of interest here, then you're not looking hard enough.
In addition, it's not "in advance" if the government is already playing headline-grabbing politics on the issue and has been for months.

--
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. --Will
Re:Paid off by the government? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:05 · Score: 1, Insightful

You do realize the government could flush every penny invested in GM and Chrysler down the toilet and not miss it, right? Dragging down Toyota to prop up GM and Chrysler might make sense if the federal government was dependent on their success, but it isn't. And even if they took down Toyota, that wouldn't prevent the dozen or so other non-gov't owned brands from rushing to fill the gap (and likely succeeding given the shitty reputation of GM and Chrysler over the past couple decades). Without a motive, inventing conspiracy theories in advance seems rather pointless.
You are correct if you talking the $$ investment... the votes the politicians get is what matters, they come from the lobbying and support of GM ect...
Re:Paid off by the government? by Jenming · 2010-03-30 08:06 · Score: 1

Chrysler was owned by a German company at the time.

--
Morpheus, God of Dreams.
Re:Paid off by the government? by glueball · 2010-03-30 08:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Motive: Millions of union members of GM and their suppliers depend on the success and will continue to vote for the current government to insure others' lack of success--especially the company that put GM to #2.
Re:Paid off by the government? by tibman · 2010-03-30 08:10 · Score: 2, Informative

wow, i can't even think in that kind of direction. Thank you for sharing but that does sound very unlikely. There was a part in the article talking about other private industry problems that NASA has helped with, but they don't mention Chrysler.. someone will have to research that.
"In 2003, NASA and the NHTSA wanted to research new methods for testing vehicle rollover resistance after a widely reported factory recall of Firestone tires. NASA's High Capacity Centrifuge (HCC) was the answer. Vehicles were spun, using the HCC at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center on a test platform, until inertia and centrifugal force caused them to tip. Results of that test have set standards for rollover technology development."

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http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Re:Paid off by the government? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:28 · Score: 0

... Dragging down Toyota to prop up GM and Chrysler might make sense if the federal government was dependent on their success, but it isn't ...
happily ignoring the sizable chunk of gm the us government owns are we?...
Re:Paid off by the government? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 12:20 · Score: 0

You do realize the government could not afford to lose every vote the union members employed at GM and Chrysler (past or present) represent, right? Dragging down Toyota to prop up GM and Chrysler makes sense if the federal politicians are dependent on union votes for success. It makes sense too if you can imagine that politicians might be vain imperfect creatures that want to exert control over Japan a la keeping troops in okinawa against the Japanese people's wishes.
So there's a couple of motives for you, use your imagination I'm sure there are a few I've missed.
Re:Paid off by the government? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 19:01 · Score: 0

You do realize the government could flush every penny invested in GM and Chrysler down the toilet and not miss it, right? Dragging down Toyota to prop up GM and Chrysler might make sense if the federal government was dependent on their success, but it isn't. And even if they took down Toyota, that wouldn't prevent the dozen or so other non-gov't owned brands from rushing to fill the gap (and likely succeeding given the shitty reputation of GM and Chrysler over the past couple decades). Without a motive, inventing conspiracy theories in advance seems rather pointless.
But if Toyota is representative of more frugal spending, and this can be spun as an example of the perils of buying cheaper, people may be persuaded to pay more for better quality (buy American, etc). So there is a motive.

Hmmm... by Mindcontrolled · 2010-03-30 07:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

Wait, so when a private corporation fubars something, you gotta roll in the government funded engineers to fix it? Interesting, interesting...

--
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Re:Hmmm... by chord.wav · 2010-03-30 08:00 · Score: 2, Informative

Government has been helping car manufacturers, banks, wall street execs, etc, etc. for a long time now. Hope you aren't just realizing this now. Otherwise, put the shotgun and the shaving blades in a locked compartment and throw the key away, cause you are in for a depressing ride...
Re:Hmmm... by Mindcontrolled · 2010-03-30 08:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

Seems I forgot the sarcasm tags up there - I beg your pardon. Well, took no more that 10 minutes for the troll mod anyway. My non-sarcastic point - inefficiency and failure is not a function of government vs. private. Such oversimplifications kill rational debate. Inefficiency is mostly a function of size. Have you seen the amount of bureaucracy large corporation develop? I had some glimpses into the inner workings of multinationals - can't distinguish that from any government.

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Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Re:Hmmm... by Tubal-Cain · 2010-03-30 08:27 · Score: 1

Nah. When a private corporation fubars over something as important as cars, there is usually an investigation by a government organization. The news here is that this one organization needs to borrow engineers from another to do it properly.
Re:Hmmm... by jwiegley · 2010-03-30 09:00 · Score: 1

Yes, it is partially a function of government vs private.
There is no reward, profit or other motivation to cause a government to be efficient. In fact, the opposite is true. A government which fails to be efficient is rewarded with an increase in size in order to cope with its assigned workload. Being wasteful is rewarded by being able to tax/collect/acquire more resources.
Private sector on the other hand is required by definition to be self-sufficient. They cannot acquire more resources without paying for it. They must trade one resource for another. In order to grow they must add value to the resources they already have (which can be argued a trade of effort, time or creativity) or become more efficient with what they already have.
Thus, it IS a function of government vs private. Your example of multinationals or large companies only serves to show that some private operations also fail to be efficient. If they were government entities then they would prove to be even less efficient.

--
I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:21 · Score: 0

On the one hand, you get economies of scale if a project is big enough. On the other, inefficency is a function of size.
While there are certainly enough examples of inefficency in private enterprise, I could point to something like Walmart who were noted as keeping infation at bay simply because of size and efficency.
So no, I don't really buy it. All governments and most companies have options in how they organize, which really defines inefficency. I also note it is far easier to skim vast sums of money if a structure is convoluded enough.
Some of this is by choice.
Re:Hmmm... by DriedClexler · 2010-03-30 09:40 · Score: 1

Really? You can't distinguish how it takes a revolution and a long time to opt out of one, while it's trivially easy to dissociate yourself from the other?

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Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Re:Hmmm... by Mr2001 · 2010-03-30 15:12 · Score: 1

There is no reward, profit or other motivation to cause a government to be efficient. In fact, the opposite is true. [...]
Private sector on the other hand is required by definition to be self-sufficient. They cannot acquire more resources without paying for it. They must trade one resource for another. In order to grow they must add value to the resources they already have (which can be argued a trade of effort, time or creativity) or become more efficient with what they already have.
An interesting theory, but it fails to explain why Medicare has so much less overhead (i.e. runs more efficiently) than private insurers.

--
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Re:Hmmm... by Mr2001 · 2010-03-30 15:15 · Score: 1

Changing government policies is much easier than changing corporate policies. I can vote for my representatives in government; I can't vote for the heads of the corporations I patronize. And organizing enough people to influence a campaign or an election is far easier than organizing enough people to stage an effective boycott.

--
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Re:Hmmm... by DriedClexler · 2010-03-30 15:33 · Score: 1

The proper comparison isn't to changing corporate policies; it's to dealing with *different businesses*. Which is easier. Much, MUCH easier than changing any given law.
Still can't tell the difference between the effects of dumb government vs dumb business? Meh, figures.

--
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
Re:Hmmm... by Mr2001 · 2010-03-30 15:50 · Score: 1

The proper comparison isn't to changing corporate policies; it's to dealing with *different businesses*. Which is easier. Much, MUCH easier than changing any given law.
No, that's not a proper comparison. Here are some proper comparisons:
changing laws <=> changing corporate policies
moving to a different state/country <=> dealing with a different business
Changing laws is easier than changing corporate policies, and in many cases, moving to another jurisdiction is easier than finding a competing business that has better policies.

--
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Re:Hmmm... by drinkypoo · 2010-03-30 23:49 · Score: 1

An interesting theory, but it fails to explain why Medicare has so much less overhead (i.e. runs more efficiently) than private insurers.
It does less to prevent fraud, of course. And much of the fraud-prevention that is done can be pushed off to law enforcement.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Hmmm... by Mr2001 · 2010-03-31 05:09 · Score: 1

It does less to prevent fraud, of course.
Private insurers are just as susceptible to fraud, so that can't explain it.

--
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.

Willis!? by indre1 · 2010-03-30 07:47 · Score: 4, Funny

Bruce Willis? They'd better call Chuck Norris to fix the pedals with a roundhouse kick or I'm selling my Toyota!

Re:Willis!? by Bobfrankly1 · 2010-03-30 07:53 · Score: 1

Well if Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks the pedals, they'll definitely stick. That takes the "unexpected" out of unexpected acceleration, but doesn't really solve the issue...
Re:Willis!? by indre1 · 2010-03-30 08:15 · Score: 1

You can't say that, because:
* Nobody knows what's actually wrong with the pedals
* Chuck Norris can fix anything
Re:Willis!? by waitwonder · 2010-03-30 09:48 · Score: 1

Call Jack Bauer and he'll figure it out in 24 hours.

Floor Mats by sycodon · 2010-03-30 07:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

If the problems with the shuttles were related to floor mats then perhaps NASA could help. Otherwise, it's just another set of computer scientists looking over a few million lines of code they didn't write, trying to find a defect that has supposedly manifest itself less than a few hundred times out of million of cars and probably billions of miles driven.

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:Floor Mats by Bobfrankly1 · 2010-03-30 07:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

If the problems with the shuttles were related to floor mats then perhaps NASA could help. Otherwise, it's just another set of computer scientists looking over a few million lines of code they didn't write, trying to find a defect that has supposedly manifest itself less than a few hundred times out of million of cars and probably billions of miles driven.
Which means the newest guy at NASA will find it in the first week, and solve it by adding a semi-colon.
Re:Floor Mats by c++0xFF · 2010-03-30 07:56 · Score: 4, Interesting

There's other theories, too, that NASA could help with. Such as current spikes or other hardware problems.
In reality, NASA may be a perfect choice given their experience with designing fault-tolerant systems. That means everything from protecting the system from the environment to software validation. The control systems in a car have become very complex, approaching that of airplanes and rockets. I think NASA is a good choice, although I might have gone with an aerospace company instead, such as Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, EADS, etc.
Re:Floor Mats by ShadowRangerRIT · 2010-03-30 07:57 · Score: 1

I doubt it will boil down to a code review. Code used for special purpose stuff like this is usually very different from the code used in a general purpose computing device. Very few conditional branches, very straight line execution. This should make it possible to test every possible code path thoroughly, unlike, say Windows or Linux, where a complete test of every possible code path would take longer than it would take for the Sun to burn out.

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Re:Floor Mats by ShadowRangerRIT · 2010-03-30 07:59 · Score: 1

Of course, that said, the reason this type of code is usually (effectively) bug free is because it *is* tested that thoroughly. So either Toyota cut corners, their code coverage module was incorrect, or something is happening that 100% code coverage couldn't catch (e.g. the cosmic ray explanation advanced previously).

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$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Re:Floor Mats by ArsonSmith · 2010-03-30 08:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'd say the control systems have become far more complex in cars than in airplanes or rockets. The problem being that they don't need to have all the redundancy under most circumstances. This is one of the few places though where it's similar to an airplane falling out of the sky. 99% of the time though if something fails in a car's control system it just means sitting on the side of the road waiting for AAA.

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Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:Floor Mats by HarvardAce · 2010-03-30 08:05 · Score: 4, Interesting

Otherwise, it's just another set of computer scientists looking over a few million lines of code they didn't write, trying to find a defect that has supposedly manifest itself less than a few hundred times out of million of cars and probably billions of miles driven.
You're confusing "electronic" with "software." One possible theory is that interference (internal or external) is causing signals between parts to become corrupted. My understanding (having RTFA) is that they are focusing on the electrical engineering aspects of it. I would imagine that NASA, needing to design and test equipment in the harsh environment of space, is pretty darn good at exactly that.

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Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
Re:Floor Mats by dimeglio · 2010-03-30 08:31 · Score: 1

It probably will be subcontracted to Lockheed Martin by NASA. After all, "Martin's stuck heel" and Lockheed Martin do sound similar enough.
This however does provide some insight in the existence of alien technology. If government needs NASA to reverse engineer and attempt to resolve the problem, maybe, just maybe, NASA also was provided the task to reverse engineer alien technology. They might have in their posession a stockpile of alien technology which they have yet to decipher how they operate. Otherwise, why would they have gone there?
The NTSB is the real expert here. They have a lot more in common with the study of forensics, especially when dealing with catastrophic transportation events. Should they not be able to find the issue, then the problem might be outside the vehicle.
Most cars zooming by my neighbourhood are not Toyota Prius'. They are typically muscle cars driven by teens.

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Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
Re:Floor Mats by jwiegley · 2010-03-30 08:52 · Score: 1

And this theory is utter crap. An error rate of 1:10,000 (yes, that's the rate given about 200 complaints in 2M cars) is way too high to be caused by random electromagnetic interference. When was the last time you saw your processor kick out a wrong bit? Yes, it could be happening but not by EMF. But let us assume EMF is changing bits... The entire automotive industry uses CAN bus for inter-process communication and CAN bus has CRC built into it's frames. In fact it has a Hamming distance of 6 and so can detect up to 5 erroneous bits in a packet. So the chances of acting upon "corrupt data" is rediculously low. Much, much lower than 1:10,000. If they don't use CAN in this particular instance then are certainly using a similar protocol and they ALL have CRC capabilities.
This problem is a simple "software making the wrong decision" problem. It's a software bug. period.

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Re:Floor Mats by nitehawk214 · 2010-03-30 08:57 · Score: 1

A software bug caused the first Ariane 5 to crash. Basically it boiled down to lazy coding ignoring a background thread from the previous version of the software that was no longer needed.
Official Report.

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I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Re:Floor Mats by CoderJoe · 2010-03-30 08:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

So the software producing and acting upon those CAN frames keeps the data in CAN frames internally, and has some sort of integrity check at EVERY layer? This could still be a hardware EMI problem. One that is usually caught by the CRC in each CAN frame, but in a few cases is affecting portions of the system that do not have an integrity check on them.
Re:Floor Mats by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:59 · Score: 0

I think NASA is a good choice, although I might have gone with an aerospace company instead, such as Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop, EADS, etc.
Defense contractors? they may as well put a remote backdoor to the accelerator and sell it to the government as a feature. NASA is fine :P
Re:Floor Mats by jd · 2010-03-30 09:12 · Score: 1

Oh, c'mon. You think Toyota is going to write their embedded controller software in C? (Or Algol, that uses semicolons too.) It'll be in COBOL, surely.

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Floor Mats by DerekLyons · 2010-03-30 09:36 · Score: 1

One possible theory is that interference (internal or external) is causing signals between parts to become corrupted. My understanding (having RTFA) is that they are focusing on the electrical engineering aspects of it. I would imagine that NASA, needing to design and test equipment in the harsh environment of space, is pretty darn good at exactly that.
The harsh environment of space has roughly nothing to do with the electrical engineering aspects however... Boeing (and pretty much any other major aircraft manufacturer) has to deal with the same issues in their electronic controls and glass cockpits. Any one of a dozen or more big companies (like IBM), and a couple of hundred smaller ones have to deal with the same issues when providing equipment to Boeing (and pretty much any other major aircraft manufacturer), or to the DoD, or even for the consumer market. The same goes for even places you might not think of - like Electric Boat.

Then there's the various government bodies... NASA, NIST, the USN's weapons geeks out at China Lake, whatever the USAF's counterpart to China Lake is, LANL, LLNL, Sandia...

Dealing with EMI is part-and-parcel of modern electric and electronic engineering and has been for a couple of decades now.

If NASA is being brought aboard, it's likely for the cachet of having "real rocket scientists" helping with the problem as much as anything else.
Re:Floor Mats by Zxern · 2010-03-30 09:55 · Score: 1

Or more likely drivers are simply mistaking the brake pedal for the gas pedal as they did back in the 80's. Media hype + mass delusion = $millions spent while investigators chase down imaginary gremlins just so a few drivers don't have to take responsibility for their own mistakes.
Re:Floor Mats by HarvardAce · 2010-03-30 10:36 · Score: 1

And this theory is utter crap. An error rate of 1:10,000 (yes, that's the rate given about 200 complaints in 2M cars) is way too high to be caused by random electromagnetic interference. When was the last time you saw your processor kick out a wrong bit?
Ok, so maybe true interference isn't the culprit, but I've had a number of processors kick out a ton of wrong bits. It could be that my power supply is bad, a memory chip is bad, or I overclocked my processor too much. If you look at a computer as a whole, I'd agree that software accounts for the majority of issues I see, but I've also seen a number of hardware issues as well. I would guess (and it's really just a guess, I could be way off) that the software itself is less complex than the stuff running on my PC (I would hope so, at least, because fool-proof testing on my PC would be impossible), and that the software is tested a lot more rigorously than the vast majority of the software that ends up on my PC. I'm sure the hardware is also tested, but my guess is that the hardware isn't as thoroughly tested as the software, because you can test the software once and sign off on it -- it (should) be identical in every car. The hardware, on the other hand, is something that would have to be tested on each car.

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Note to self: Stop putting jokes in my insightful comments so I can get something other than +1 Funny!
Re:Floor Mats by Bobfrankly1 · 2010-03-30 11:23 · Score: 1

Well as a non-programmer myself, I was taking a stab at making a funny. The deepest I've been into programming was a perl app that asked questions and turned the answers into an insult.
Re:Floor Mats by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 11:25 · Score: 1

This is what I have been getting at. You can't just say "it's software." I think you can say "it's software related" though. When we look at similar problems that airplanes and other automated vehicles have had one thing that crops up again and again is some erroneous input that is inappropriately acted on. For this reason I am actually surprised they went with NASA instead of the NTSB's aircraft incident branch.....
This could be anything like the possibility that a faulty sensor is causing a cascade error elsewhere in the system. This is why symbolic validation of safety-critical code is so important: You can validate what happens when every sensor fails in every expected way.
Of course, if a sensor is failing in an unexpected way you may have a problem......

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Re:Floor Mats by jd · 2010-03-30 11:43 · Score: 1

*watches as the whoosh flies past*
What you posted was fairly funny -- especially as it might very well turn out to be the right answer.

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Floor Mats by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 14:57 · Score: 0

If lockheed were to make you a toaster, it would cost more than your house and you wouldn't get it for ten years.
Re:Floor Mats by HeadlessNotAHorseman · 2010-03-30 16:41 · Score: 1

So Toyota needs a semi-colonoscopy?

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I like my coffee the way I like my women - roasted and ground up into little tiny pieces.
Re:Floor Mats by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 17:41 · Score: 0

There is a reason they call it space radiation. It's because the atmosphere shields a good portion of it. In short, you are wrong.
Re:Floor Mats by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 19:55 · Score: 0

Well Lockheed is certainly familiar with "unintended acceleration".

Realigning NASA mission to automotive by nathanielinbrazil · 2010-03-30 07:50 · Score: 5, Interesting

The budget cuts at NASA apparently keep them earthbound and working on earth crawlers

Re:Realigning NASA mission to automotive by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:04 · Score: 0

NASA's budget was increased, not cut. Only certain high-profile programs were scrapped to make way for more funding in other areas.
Re:Realigning NASA mission to automotive by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:47 · Score: 0

They're draining money from the fight against Gigas.
Re:Realigning NASA mission to automotive by FleaPlus · 2010-03-30 08:52 · Score: 1

The budget cuts at NASA apparently keep them earthbound and working on earth crawlers
Uh, NASA's FY2011 budget just got a substantial boost, not a cut. At least, it'll be a boost if the President has his way, and Congress doesn't end up cutting it down.
Re:Realigning NASA mission to automotive by bsdewhurst · 2010-03-30 18:29 · Score: 1

National Automotive Safety Advisors?
Re:Realigning NASA mission to automotive by nathanielinbrazil · 2010-03-31 07:58 · Score: 1

I just saw this. This is not only original but funny. I gotta figure out a way to give you props.

Have Them Clean Out The Sewage Pumps Too by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:52 · Score: 0

It must suck to be a NASA engineer nowadays. You used to work on systems to send men to the moon. Now you're wiping grease off of oil-soaked brake disks and sticking your probes into 12v automotive stuff to find some crappy car problem that other people are too stupid to figure out.

Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by p51d007 · 2010-03-30 07:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

and when it is all said & done, they will conclude people are hitting the GAS instead of the BRAKE.

Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by ArsonSmith · 2010-03-30 08:00 · Score: 0, Flamebait

As long as there's an excuse to pay off the people that got you into office. It really doesn't matter what that may be. This gets a bump to NASA. A bump to the Auto Unions. A look over here to the power grabbers. And many other ways to distribute favors under the guise of public service.

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Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-30 08:08 · Score: 1

Yeah, I'm sure that John Saylor who was trained as a CHP officer for driving in adverse conditions at high speeds was totally just hitting the wrong pedal when he and his family were killed.

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I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by maxume · 2010-03-30 08:29 · Score: 1

So do you think that the transmission and ignition switch failed at the same time as his throttle?
If he tried to switch into neutral and tried to turn the engine off, there is a huge problem with the cars. If he didn't, his training wasn't helping him much.

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Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by coastwalker · 2010-03-30 08:30 · Score: 1

So your bitterness suggest that we do what? ignore the data and find someone to blame and destroy them, or do a careful study to find the root cause and fix it so that no one else dies. NASA have killed their own quotient of people through complacency and I think they are the ideal investigative organisation to discover the problem. Are you suggesting that we should rely on Witch finders in the press to do the job? Do you know the difference between the scientific method and the Catholic church who wholly approve of buggering children so long as it can be covered up in the interests of a political ideal to destroy all other religions? Make your mind up, either go for your political ideal and bugger the children or use the data to make your decisions with.

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Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by fatalwall · 2010-03-30 08:32 · Score: 2, Informative

if this was the case wouldn't you then need to look into how the peddles are placed?
I remember one of my parents old cars where you could easily get your foot stuck under the opposite peddle while moving your foot from one to the other. My dad had always told me to be careful of that and I thought he was just pulling my chain until the day it happened to me.
Either way there appears to be an issue, weather its hardware, software, or training. If its training then the question must then be why does this car require special training compared to others and what is said training.
Although I kind of wonder if this wouldn't be better for Myth Busters...
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by Volante3192 · 2010-03-30 08:36 · Score: 1

You're sure? You were in the car looking at his feet when it happened? ...What kind of shoe was he wearing?
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-30 08:43 · Score: 1

I am extremely confused as to what you're trying to convey... all I said that the all the Toyota issues were almost certainly not simple 'human error' as implied by the original poster... and you jump in with some cryptic nonsense about church abuse? I really have no idea what kind of point you're trying to make.

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I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-30 08:45 · Score: 1

He was wearing army boots, just like your mother. Nyah!

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I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by CoderJoe · 2010-03-30 08:53 · Score: 1

I don't know if his car had a real ignition switch, or just a button that sent a signal to the control computer. However, the transmission lever most likely just sends a signal to the control computer. The same control computer that may have been stuck telling the engine to go faster.
Newer cars are increasingly going to drive-by-wire systems, where the driver controls aren't mechanically connected to the systems they are supposed to control.
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by Ogi_UnixNut · 2010-03-30 09:08 · Score: 2, Informative

The cars do not have a Manual gearbox or ignition as such. Both are computer controlled. You only get a "start" button for the ignition, and thats about it, the rest is not in your hands. You can't just "shift into neutral" like in existing cars, or just turn a key to cut power to the engine.
For more info on the system, you can read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Synergy_Drive
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by maxume · 2010-03-30 09:15 · Score: 1

It's rather incredible that the car would fail in a way that it simulated a fully depressed throttle and also ignored input from the ignition button (it can be used to signal the controller to turn off the engine!) and shift lever.
If he didn't know how to operate the ignition or shift lever, his training was failing him. If the car failed such that both inputs were ignored, the problem is even bigger than anybody is talking about.

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Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by ptbarnett · 2010-03-30 11:27 · Score: 1
The cars do not have a Manual gearbox or ignition as such. Both are computer controlled. You only get a "start" button for the ignition, and thats about it, the rest is not in your hands. You can't just "shift into neutral" like in existing cars, or just turn a key to cut power to the engine.
According to Toyota:
- The Prius can be shifted into neutral.
- The power button shuts off the ignition if you hold it down for 3 seconds.
- Pressing the brake pedal and the accelerator at the same time will cause the throttle to be disconnected.
Re:Spend MILLIONS of dollars.. by SilverEyes · 2010-03-30 11:31 · Score: 1

I was going to respond earlier and say it could be shifted into Neutral. I think what the GP means is that it isn't a manual action. The shifter is an electronic control.

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Interesting.

Gotta love it... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 07:53 · Score: 0

First, the government kills 13,000 NASA jobs and destroys any hope for future progress with the American space program.
Then, the government relagates NASA's duties to exclusively focusing on global warming.
Now, the government further belittles NASA by making them fix a non-american-company's private affairs.

I can haz NASA engineers to re-roof my house?

Re:Gotta love it... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:06 · Score: 0

why do nasa people deserve gov't jobs, aka welfare, if they ain't needed ? the shuttle has been a boondoggle from day one, exceeded only by the space station. i feel sorry for the nasa people, but why shold i take money out of my pocket to pay their salaries ? are they really worth it ?
Re:Gotta love it... by Iamthecheese · 2010-03-30 08:23 · Score: 1

Yes.

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If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.

So I guess.... by Eggplant62 · 2010-03-30 07:54 · Score: 1

this *IS* one of those problems that requires a rocket scientist to figure out. I never thought I'd see the day. My life is now complete.

Re:So I guess.... by ArsonSmith · 2010-03-30 08:08 · Score: 2, Funny

Toyota testified in front of congress, "We're automotive engineers not rocket scientists."
Congress said, "I know a guy, that knows a guy. Let me make a phone call."
now this.

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Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:So I guess.... by swanzilla · 2010-03-30 08:11 · Score: 1

this *IS* one of those problems that requires a rocket scientist to figure out. I never thought I'd see the day. My life is now complete.
Toyota doesn't utilize rocket propulsion on the Prius, unfortunately.
Hang in there.

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0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)

a public relations stunt by roman_mir · 2010-03-30 07:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think this is a stunt on 2 levels:

1. Public relations need to be fixed somehow, so calling in NASA shows that the company is 'dead serious' about fixing this problem and they are going for the best people to do it, right?

2. A small token of appreciation to the government of USA by hiring NASA people, creating some employment, probably this is done with an involvement of a senator or two, some governor maybe, whatever, some politicians will get involved and this is probably important for Toyota now.

3. Something else, again not really related to the actual car problem, but trying to save the company's ass.

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You can't handle the truth.

Re:a public relations stunt by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:08 · Score: 0

I think this is a stunt on 2 levels:
Good at math are you?

1. Public relations need to be fixed somehow, so calling in NASA shows that the company is 'dead serious' about fixing this problem and they are going for the best people to do it, right?
NHTSA requested NASA involvement, not Toyota

2. A small token of appreciation to the government of USA by hiring NASA people, creating some employment, probably this is done with an involvement of a senator or two, some governor maybe, whatever, some politicians will get involved and this is probably important for Toyota now.
NASA engineers will continue to draw a salary from NASA while "on loan" to NHTSA

3. Something else, again not really related to the actual car problem, but trying to save the company's ass.
so... the NHTSA is asking for assistance from NASA in order to save Toyota's ass, but it has nothing to do with the supposed problem that has been receiving so much publicity of late?
Fail, fail, fail
Re:a public relations stunt by confused+one · 2010-03-30 08:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

I said this earlier:
If NASA does find a problem then Toyota can spin it as it being so subtle that it took the resources of NASA to find it. They can then use this, with PR spin, and an agreement to contract with NASA for "consulting" as a win.
If NASA finds nothing, then Toyota is off the hook wrt the drive by wire system, again a win.
Re:a public relations stunt by natehoy · 2010-03-30 08:26 · Score: 1

Except that Toyota is not hiring NASA. A US Government office is.

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Re:a public relations stunt by winomonkey · 2010-03-30 08:36 · Score: 4, Informative

Did you RTFA? Toyota is mentioned twice, and only in the context of Toyota the vehicle make, not Toyota the company. NASA is not being hired by Toyota. NASA is being called in by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of the USDOT to look at the vehicles, because the NHTSA apparently does not have the expertise to handle the investigation as to why the vehicles are suffering from the uncontrolled acceleration. The US government, not Toyota, is paying scientists from another federal program 3 million dollars to investigate the problem, which is actually bad PR for Toyota. This makes it look like they cannot explain their own problem, let alone fix it, and the US government has to do clean up work to get to the root of these failures.
Re:a public relations stunt by timeOday · 2010-03-30 08:52 · Score: 1

If NASA does find a problem then Toyota can spin it as it being so subtle that it took the resources of NASA to find it. They can then use this, with PR spin, and an agreement to contract with NASA for "consulting" as a win.
If NASA finds a problem after all Toyota's assurances, the public will conclude that Toyota doesn't know what they're doing, and their cars are too complex to be trusted.
Re:a public relations stunt by roman_mir · 2010-03-30 08:57 · Score: 1

Did you RTFA?
- are you insane? This is /.!

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:a public relations stunt by DragonWriter · 2010-03-30 09:43 · Score: 1

I think this is a stunt on 2 levels:
1. Public relations need to be fixed somehow, so calling in NASA shows that the company is 'dead serious' about fixing this problem and they are going for the best people to do it, right?
2. A small token of appreciation to the government of USA by hiring NASA people, creating some employment, probably this is done with an involvement of a senator or two, some governor maybe, whatever, some politicians will get involved and this is probably important for Toyota now.
3. Something else, again not really related to the actual car problem, but trying to save the company's ass.
First, That's three, not two.
Second, with regard to #1, the company didn't call in NASA, the NHTSA did. So, it can't possibly be a PR stunt to show that the company is "dead serious", since the company didn't do it. (Unless its a really subtle stunt that involves manipulating the NHTSA to call in NASA with the hope that people won't notice who called in NASA and will just assume that Toyota did. But, I mean, if Toyota wants people to think they called in NASA, it would be a lot simpler for them to overtly do so.)
Third, with regard to #2, again, Toyota isn't "hiring NASA people", and no one is "creating some employment". NHTSA is getting help from people employed by NASA that already have jobs.
Your #3 also doesn't make sense because, like #1 and #2, it seems to rest on the assumption that Toyota, not the NHTSA, is initiating this. Unless, again, you assume that the NHTSA is doing so because of some under-the-table manipulation by Toyota, for which no evidence is provided.
Re:a public relations stunt by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 03:09 · Score: 0

Wait, what? You post the same comment TWICE and you get modded up TWICE.
What part of "i said this earlier" don't you understand, Slashdotters?

This isn't by Redlite · 2010-03-30 07:54 · Score: 1

rocket science...

Fate it seems... by Jon+Abbott · 2010-03-30 07:55 · Score: 3, Informative

What is truly ironic here is that NASA regularly summons external panels to fix their problems.

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Re:Fate it seems... by Glendale2x · 2010-03-30 08:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

Three of those that you cited were incidents that caused loss of crew and vehicle, some quite dramatic. Had they kept the resulting investigation internal for those were very public events, they could have been accused of covering something up. Or maybe they wouldn't have truly found the fault, or deluded themselves into thinking it was just an accident. What if we never knew that engineers were requesting imaging of Columbia? Or that engineers were trying to say "no go" to Challenger? Whatever they were doing with their own internal review processes apparently weren't working quite right, so get someone else to look at it and give them a kick in the ass if needed. It's not really ironic at all.

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this is my sig
Re:Fate it seems... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 01:26 · Score: 0

No. NASA has a history of going outside the agency to make sure they're not just getting self-generated back-slapping.

NASA does have experience by rossdee · 2010-03-30 07:58 · Score: 1

With electric vehicles (Mars and Lunar Rover)

Re:NASA does have experience by gknoy · 2010-03-30 08:06 · Score: 4, Informative

Moreover, their vehicles operate in adverse conditions (radiation, temperature extremes, chance of collisions with fast moving things). They might actually be fairly adept at looking at systems which are supposed to be robust and failsafe, and identifying ways in which they are NOT failsafe.

Credibility... by DoofusOfDeath · 2010-03-30 08:00 · Score: 1

I've heard a lot of rumors in recent years about poor technical abilities at NASA. I wonder if this is primarily meant to give NASA some street cred.

Re:Credibility... by coastwalker · 2010-03-30 08:43 · Score: 1

I am sure that they are attracting the best graduates of your education system. If NASA cant hire self motivated accomplished scientists then I suggest you hire Chinese Indian or Brazilian scientists, because they want to win unlike you pathetic media celebrity motivated beer, copulating, burger and sport obsessed wimps. Come on, if NASA is crap then your whole country is crap, do you really believe that?

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Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Re:Credibility... by DoofusOfDeath · 2010-03-30 10:09 · Score: 1

I am sure that they are attracting the best graduates of your education system. If NASA cant hire self motivated accomplished scientists then I suggest you hire Chinese Indian or Brazilian scientists, because they want to win unlike you pathetic media celebrity motivated beer, copulating, burger and sport obsessed wimps. Come on, if NASA is crap then your whole country is crap, do you really believe that?
I want someone to mod your post, but I have no idea in which direction or with which tag.

The Woz by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:02 · Score: 0

I swear I heard Steve Wozniak say in an interview abut his book a while back that he knew of this problem and could reproduce it in his own prius? I can't find the video on it anymore, but would any of you now of it or where to find it?

Re:The Woz by coastwalker · 2010-03-30 08:55 · Score: 1

Look I like the fact that you got up and posted something in this discussion but for goodness sake sober up long enough to back up your vague assertion. The Woz said http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/04/steve-wozniaks-prius-prob_n_448778.html that he was pissed that he couldn't get a sensible answer from Toyota about his knowledge about accelerator problems. I didn't look for a video but thats the first google item for "Steve Wozniak prius". Shape up dude, people all over the planet are reading your post and you can influence what they think with just a bit more effort.

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Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.

NPR by kneemoe · 2010-03-30 08:03 · Score: 0

How is it that NPR had the last two stories (NASA & Prius as well as the Magnet influencing morality) on LAST NIGHT'S broadcast, and they're *just now* showing up here? Slashdot has lost its way.

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My Sig Sucks

Slashdot fail? by Manip · 2010-03-30 08:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

This is Slashdot and we suggest the most insane stuff be Open Source (e.g. "Why isn't my Microwave under GPL?"). But yet when we have an absolutely perfect opportunity to suggest that cars should be REQUIRED to be Open Source for public safety we drop the ball. Come on guys, we can use the power of Open Source and "many eyes" to literally save lives. You could be the geek that finds that piece of code!

Re:Slashdot fail? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:17 · Score: 0

> "Why isn't my Microwave under GPL?"
That's easy. The GPL is based on copyright law and microwaves, being a basic physical particle, can't be copyrighted.
Re:Slashdot fail? by Rockoon · 2010-03-30 08:24 · Score: 1

Maybe because we dont want geeks updating their cars firmware so that when accelerating, the pitch of the engine matches the "Final Countdown" melody, on the theories that "it would be cool", "that sequence kicks ass", and "because I didnt like the fork that locked and unlocked the breaks in time with "BOOM-BOOM-TSK"

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"His name was James Damore."
Re:Slashdot fail? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 21:23 · Score: 0

Exactly, if your car goes out of control just tell you parents to RTFM, all you have to do is edit Accelerator_Control_Conf using your favourite editor!! Anyone can do it.
Re:Slashdot fail? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-04-01 07:09 · Score: 0

Except no. Because every other auto manufacturer has done throttle-by-wire for 10-20 years without issue. As soon as the Asian econo boxes try they fail horribly. The tech is solid and good. Stop buying japcrap people.

What If by Frosty+Piss · 2010-03-30 08:06 · Score: 0

Yes. Toyota decided the least convoluted way of admitting to software issues...

What makes you think these "corner events" are software related? With the scale and precision of the chips today, who knows. Electromagnetic interference? Sun spots? Something as simple as a 0 turning into a 1...

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If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.

Re:What If by moogied · 2010-03-30 08:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

No its not that simple.
CAN Protocol(the de-facto automotive protocol) contains error checking. So if a node in the system sends out 00000001 but the "sun spot" turns it to 01000001, it finds that error. So unless it changes that to a 01000001, while also changing the parity bit(or whatever they use for error checking) to 0 as well(as compared to 1), WHILE ALSO somehow disabling the entire safety section of code that reduces the throttle input when brakes are applied... then I seriously doubt it.
Everyone involved in this knows the above facts, what they have to do is prove the above facts. The reason they called in NASA is because they lack the right type of experts, NASA does not. Case closed.

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So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
Re:What If by CoderJoe · 2010-03-30 08:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

CAN protocol may be used between modules, but how about within the modules themselves, either to create the CAN messages, or after decoding the messages to act upon them?
Re:What If by phoenix321 · 2010-03-30 08:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

Depends on what the bit error rate is. And the bit rate per second.
One error in 10^-15 bits could mean "a few months after the sun died" or "next friday somewhere on a rural road in western virginia" depending on that.
Re:What If by Bakkster · 2010-03-30 09:26 · Score: 1

Exactly, if it happens in hardware all bets are off. Latch the throtle input hardware to VCC, and the chip that converts that analog message to CAN may find it reasonable and output equally coherent CAN messages.

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Re:What If by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:58 · Score: 0

WHILE ALSO somehow disabling the entire safety section of code that reduces the throttle input when brakes are applied... then I seriously doubt it.

Toyota added that code as part of the recall, it was not present in the vehicles which had serious accidents.
Re:What If by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 10:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

I think they are clearly software-related. But the question is what the root cause is.
You don't always know what the error condition is. It could be: "Well if the solder is cracked on this connection and this other sensor fails in this way, the following feedback loop is created and the software responds to the erroneous input by accelerating the car."
This is almost certainly some sort of cascade from the root problem. The cascade is software related. The root problem may well be hardware related. However I don't think you can just blame cosmic rays, etc. since the behavior described is too narrow. Why not uncommanded braking or power steering errors?

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Re:What If by Anachragnome · 2010-03-30 10:18 · Score: 1

I think that the "sunspot" inference is more smokescreen.
Based on various inputs (throttle position, manifold absolute pressure, vehicle speed sensor, etc), an automotive computer assigns various "cells" of response. That is to say that the computer responds with PROGRAMMED responses. These "cells" are created by engineers to be used by the PCM to respond to specific INPUTS, i.e. throttle position=0%, vehicle speed sensor=accelerating--the PCM assumes the vehicle is going down a hill and thus responds with dialed back fuel injector pulse width as per instructed by the pre-programmed cells stored in memory.
All that being said, if the cells are programmed wrong to BEGIN with, the results will be wrong as well.
Garbage in, Garbage out...or more accurately in this case, non-garbage in, Garbage out.
I suspect there are cells that are inappropriate for the conditions, or simply wrong. That would put the fault squarely on the shoulders of the programmers and the testers...and whoever authorized their use.
Re:What If by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 11:11 · Score: 1

Garbage in, Garbage out...or more accurately in this case, non-garbage in, Garbage out.
You are assuming you get non-garbage in. One possibility is that some set of garbage input is not properly handled properly and the result is unsafe garbage out. This would be similar to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 124's issues (faulty altimeter readings inappropriately used by ADIRU due to software error).

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Re:What If by oji-sama · 2010-03-30 11:32 · Score: 1

You are quite sure the problem doesn't exist between the chair and the pedals?

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It is what it is.
Re:What If by sjames · 2010-03-30 11:36 · Score: 1

Unless, of course, the error checking code was disabled for performance reasons (because, like, when was the last time a corruption was detected...). That particular trick bit a few Sun users years ago.
Re:What If by SilverEyes · 2010-03-30 11:37 · Score: 1

You are quite sure the problem doesn't exist between the chair and the pedals?
Depends on the height of the person.

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Interesting.
Re:What If by cadience · 2010-03-30 14:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

Correct for CAN. Though as for any protocol - garbage in; garbage out. The value(s) transported in CAN's payload may have been corrupted in memory or even in the CAN driver hardware* Actually, the "cosmic magic" is more likely to corrupt bits in static locations than represented as a voltage potential traveling along a differential bus with an active low being the dominant state. Of course, I have nothing to base this on, but I am posting here - *shrug*. * I designed both hardware and software for redundant CAN implementations.
Re:What If by strider200142 · 2010-03-30 17:05 · Score: 1

Seriously, calling in the right people is a sign of humility and intelligence. If they can't figure it out and are WILLING to publicly humiliate themselves by asking a foreign agency for help.... then I say GO TOYOTA! This speaks to their commitment to excellence instead of a commitment to the bottom line.
Re:What If by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 17:44 · Score: 1

You are quite sure the problem doesn't exist between the chair and the pedals?
Ok, so I suppose you could add as a possibility: non-garbage input because of bad interface design leads to undesirable results. If the problem is driver error it is clearly an interface design problem (as it was in the 1980's with Audi). However, in this case, I don't think it is. A lot is made of the demographics of the people making these complaints. However without knowing more it is hard to know much. However, the Prius has had other issues with key control systems. For example last month we saw another recall but this one was aimed at an ABS flaw that caused the brakes to delay their engagement on rough roads.
The problem is a design one. Occam's razor suggests software involvement given the complexity of that part of the system. It could be a human interface design error though, I suppose.

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Re:What If by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 17:47 · Score: 1

Also I just came across something about the cruise control input system. Apparently it is easy to increase the accelleration through the cruise control system much further than intended. Is this user error? Or software error? Either way it's bad design :-)

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Re:What If by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 01:19 · Score: 0

At least one argument I saw suggested the problem was related to energetic particles ("cosmic radiation") and single event upsets. The likelihood of a HEP SEU at the bottom of the atmosphere is pretty limited, even with the devices we have now. If it wasn't so rare, we'd see a lot more random errors in memory, and a lot more permanent single-bit failures.
And NASA has a lot of experience with SEU on-orbit, so they're likely to debunk THAT argument pretty quickly. I agree that they're a good fit for the evaluation, especially since NHSTA doesn't have the cadre of geeks (in this discipline) to do the job.

Bruce Willis? by jj00 · 2010-03-30 08:07 · Score: 1

Bruce Willis? The bigger issue is that they'll have to break Steven Tyler out of rehab.

Re:Bruce Willis? by Chris+Burke · 2010-03-30 11:01 · Score: 1

Hehe.
"Remember, you can't slow the car below 55 mph"
"Or it'll explode?"
"No I mean you can't slow the car!"

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The enemies of Democracy are

$3 Mil? by MrTripps · 2010-03-30 08:10 · Score: 3, Funny

"The total cost of the two studies is expected to come to approximately $3 million, including the cost of purchasing cars that have allegedly experienced unintended acceleration to be studied." I guess they don't have to bother looking at the Car Fax. What does "unintended acceleration" do to the KBB value?

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"I'm not a quack, I'm a mad scientist! There's a difference." - Dr. Cockroach

Re:$3 Mil? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 01:27 · Score: 0

What does "unintended acceleration" do to the KBB value?
Depends how much life insurance you put onto your wife.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:11 · Score: 0

I guess today's NASA is a good call...

I don't know if I want NASA to fix my Toyota problem...NASA has a reputation for crashing and burning.

Competition is good by MrEricSir · 2010-03-30 08:14 · Score: 4, Funny

Toyota's engineers needed a challenger.

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There's no -1 for "I don't get it."

Re:Competition is good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:18 · Score: 0

I think you forgot to capitalize that.
Re:Competition is good by jd · 2010-03-30 09:08 · Score: 1

Oh yeah, that had runaway acceleration too.

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It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Competition is good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:32 · Score: 0

Or, as most would say, "A challenger appears!"
Re:Competition is good by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2010-03-30 10:05 · Score: 1

They might soon make the discovery that to challenge NASA is not a wise endeavor.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Re:Competition is good by Jeian · 2010-03-30 12:16 · Score: 1

And behold... a challenger appears!
Re:Competition is good by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 15:26 · Score: 0

Hey, if you read Feynman's Appendix F in the challenger report you see that the embedded software systems were what NASA did right in the challenger.
Re:Competition is good by wooferhound · 2010-03-30 16:20 · Score: 1

First the government kills the manned space program
so now the NASA people don't have anything to do
So the government gives them Accelerator problems to fix

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We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
Re:Competition is good by anarking · 2010-03-31 07:31 · Score: 1

Wait so now in addition to monetarily bailing out companies, we're going to do their work for them also?

Bruce Willis? by ionz · 2010-03-30 08:14 · Score: 4, Funny

I think this more appropriate for Keanu Reeves... Speed 3: Hybrid Control

Oooh.... by roc97007 · 2010-03-30 08:14 · Score: 1

> We're really in trouble when NASA has no choice but to call Bruce Willis.

Oooh... do we get to see him blow up a Prius? With him inside?

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Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.

Re:Oooh.... by argent · 2010-03-30 08:37 · Score: 1

MacGuyver. Or Chuck Norris.

This will be interesting. by seebs · 2010-03-30 08:15 · Score: 4, Interesting

I'd really like to see how the computer in the car manages to consistently only enter this mysterious state when the driver is 60 or older (or maybe in the late 50s). Because normally, if you have a ton of examples of something failing, all of which involve people of an age famed for acquired inattentiveness or confusion, and which look just like many other reported and documented cases of elderly folks getting confused and hitting the gas pedal thinking it's the brakes, you'd not assume it was the computer.

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Re:This will be interesting. by smegmatic · 2010-03-30 08:50 · Score: 1

please look at the data again... yes it is biased towards old people, but it is not exclusively old people.
Re:This will be interesting. by tsstahl · 2010-03-30 11:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

Because young drivers go to jail when their Toyota kills people: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/02/25/man-given-8-years-for-vehicular-homicide-in-2007-may-be-freed-using-toyota-defense/
Re:This will be interesting. by brad3378 · 2010-03-30 16:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

maybe younger drivers are more likely to notice the problem sooner and shift into neutral faster than older drivers?

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Re:This will be interesting. by zdickinson · 2010-03-30 23:39 · Score: 0

I would think this is because most people who own the cars having the problems are over 50. They tend to be more expensive and not exactly play to the younger crowd.

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I hate ethics, I avoid them on principle.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by binarylarry · 2010-03-30 08:15 · Score: 1

So does Toyota, maybe it'll cancel out?

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Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!

What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:16 · Score: 0

So none of Toyota's engineers could figure out what the problem is?
Toyota's reputation just took a nose dive.

Sup Dawg by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:16 · Score: 0

Toyota: "Yo, I hear NASA ppl R smrt!"
US: "Ya they R clevr! lets get they're help!"
NASA Rocket Scientist - Xzhibit: "Yo dawg, we heard you like stopping, so we put retro rockets in your Prius, so you can stop while you accelerate!"

Waste of tax dollars (thankfully not mine) by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:18 · Score: 0

G.D. on a popsicle stick!

NASA can't fix stupid drivers.

There is nothing wrong with these cars. It is driver error.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by squidfood · 2010-03-30 08:20 · Score: 1

NASA has a reputation for crashing and burning.

Does Toyota work in metric or imperial? Because we might all be screwed.

Now we are in trouble by kpainter · 2010-03-30 08:23 · Score: 1

A billion dollars later and my Prius will be a Chevy pickup.

And NASA will have to call in... by Schickeneder · 2010-03-30 08:28 · Score: 3, Funny

...Richard Feynman. Oh wait.

NASA - new cars -- aha by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:28 · Score: 0

I think NASA wants a few dozen cars to test drive ... engineers like new cars to take home after the experiment too!

NASA involved because of aviation incidents by perpenso · 2010-03-30 08:29 · Score: 1

I believe NASA is the government agency that handles "incidents" in the aviation world. Incidents are wrong things that happened that do not rise to the level of accidents. The sudden acceleration reported in cars is very much the auto equivalent of what they have looked into for decades on the aviation side.

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Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN

Re:NASA involved because of aviation incidents by natehoy · 2010-03-30 08:45 · Score: 2, Informative

Hence the name "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", eh? ;)
Seriously, yes, you are correct. The FAA regulates, but NASA is responsible for a lot of the research.

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"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Re:NASA involved because of aviation incidents by ptbarnett · 2010-03-30 11:21 · Score: 1

I believe NASA is the government agency that handles "incidents" in the aviation world.
NASA administrates the Aviation Safety Reporting System.
This is nothing more than a compilation and reporting system. NASA doesn't investigate "incidents". They just compile and report the data in aggregate.
The original reports are confidential. Pilots are encouraged to file them, and fines and penalties are even waived for unintentional violations of aviation statutes and regulations, if the pilot files an ASRS report.
Re:NASA involved because of aviation incidents by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 19:31 · Score: 0

If this keeps up, NASA can become the National Automobile Safety Administration.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:32 · Score: 0

They should have called Microsoft instead.

Re:bring in NASA to check for extra-terrestials by rickb928 · 2010-03-30 08:33 · Score: 1

Hell yeah. Everbody knows putting the engine on TOP of the rocket works so well. They abandoned that when no one could get launch rights from China.

Dumass. You gonna complain that they also put lots and lots of burnable stuff under them too, right?

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

What else is NASA going to do? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:34 · Score: 0

Since they aren't going to the moon any more.

Only going to get worse by Twillerror · 2010-03-30 08:34 · Score: 1

As we move to electric cars and other advances cars will be more like a 80mph laptop.

We will need to have safe guards at all level. Another computer should have been watching the system and saying...what the hell are we accelerating for anyways.

Why the hell can cars run this fast anyways. Do we really need a car that will run over 90mph for more than a few seconds during a pass. Are we all so brainwashed by action movies we pretend we might need to run away from a maniac we probably couldn't outrun anyways.

Re:Only going to get worse by Black+Gold+Alchemist · 2010-03-30 08:57 · Score: 1

I think it will actually get better with electric cars. If the complicators are kicked out, all you need to run an electric car's motor is one monster transistor, and one pwm signal. In Australia, it's mandated that all electric cars have a big huge mechanical switch on the dash between the motor and the speed controller. We should mandate this on EV's here.

--
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Re:Only going to get worse by Dare+nMc · 2010-03-30 09:39 · Score: 1

Are you going to require the same on every other car as well? Every car sold today with a automatic, cruise control, and ABS has only one purely mechanical system (that can't be completely over-ridden by a computer) to affect it's acceleration. That's the Parking Brake. Since no one in these stories is applying the Parking Brake (except when requested by a COP on a loud speaker.) A mechanical switch would be a waste of time. Besides, just require the E-Brake to overcome the motors, since current electric cars have no-where near the peak rear wheel torque of the Internal Combustion Engine systems of today, the E-brake should have a much easier time bringing them to a stop anyway.
Re:Only going to get worse by Blakey+Rat · 2010-03-30 10:04 · Score: 1

As we move to electric cars and other advances cars will be more like a 80mph laptop.
I had a 565 mph laptop last time I flew cross-country. It worked fine, didn't even jog the DVD in it. :)
Another computer should have been watching the system and saying...what the hell are we accelerating for anyways.
So they just need to install the backseat driver disk. (Get it? Driver disk? Backseat driver? That's comedy gold, people!)
Why the hell can cars run this fast anyways. Do we really need a car that will run over 90mph for more than a few seconds during a pass.
Are you American? You should have your citizenship revoked immediately. Hell, my state has freeways where the *average* speed is around 85. I'm guessing you live in a cramped, tiny east coast state?
Are we all so brainwashed by action movies we pretend we might need to run away from a maniac we probably couldn't outrun anyways.
We could if our cars could do 90 for more than a few seconds.

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Comment of the year
Re:Only going to get worse by Black+Gold+Alchemist · 2010-03-30 10:19 · Score: 1

A mechanical switch is not a waste of time. It is just another (quite cheap) back up system that protects the driver. The old Camry I drive can easily overcome the parking brake with the engine.

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Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Re:Only going to get worse by raymansean · 2010-03-30 10:20 · Score: 1

Why the hell can cars run this fast anyways. Do we really need a car that will run over 90mph for more than a few seconds during a pass. Are we all so brainwashed by action movies we pretend we might need to run away from a maniac we probably couldn't outrun anyways.
And if we outlaw guns, people will stop being killed by guns...

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insert inflammatory comment here!

It's a win-win situation by Cro+Magnon · 2010-03-30 08:35 · Score: 3, Funny

Toyota will learn what went wrong with its software, and NASA will find out how to get a vehicle into space.

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Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.

It's a code problem... by jwiegley · 2010-03-30 08:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, I think people are idiots. lots of accidents are cause by poorly maintained floormats, doing your lipstick, texting, etc. This isn't the problem here. There are way too many incidents of various natures to be accounted for by this.

Yes, I think electromagnetic radiation exists. Yes, it can produce measurable effects. This, is also, not the problem here. EMF does not cause motors to turn with any appreciable torque. Modern electronics are sufficiently robust to this type of sporadic interference to account for this.

The problem here is in the code. I have written embedded software. It is WAAAY too easy to make a subtle mistake in an embedded environment that has limited processing power, highly asynchronous processing and a multitude of cooperating software and hardware modules. Further more, it can be a total bitch to debug these environments and the faults that they can exhibit can be nearly impossible to reproduce. And in EVERY case where I've seen "Hey, it shouldn't do that. The code doesn't have it doing that!" it turns that yes, it was doing exactly what the code had it do under those circumstances.
So, Want to save time and money? Ignore looking at anything other than code. Analyze the hell out of the software and you will find the culprit lurking there. You can put me on record for predicting this. (if they even 'fess up to the cause once found.)

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I will never live for sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Re:It's a code problem... by DerekLyons · 2010-03-30 10:18 · Score: 1

EMF does not cause motors to turn with any appreciable torque.
True, but EMF *can* interfere with the electronics controlling the motor and cause them to issue to commands for the motor to turn with appreciable torque. (I.E. you seem to forget that there's more to the system than just the motors.)

The problem here is in the code.
Thank goodness! Once again a Slashdot poster with almost none of the relevant information in hand has solved a problem that's stumped the real experts.
Re:It's a code problem... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 12:26 · Score: 0

Really way to many cases? Are you sure?
I've only ever heard of one single case that didn't sound fishy, and with 1 case, well anything could have happened, then rest seem fairly obvious as older driver confusion/errors and out right fraud.

Who has the better track record? by jwl17330536 · 2010-03-30 08:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

Honestly, given the miles that Toyota has on land vs. the miles NASA has in space... Toyota might have the most 'accident free' record of the two. (Not including drivers who are just ignorant)

Re:Who has the better track record? by rickb928 · 2010-03-30 08:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

Yes, and if NASA let you or me drive their vehicles, their accident rate would be a bit higher...
I'm now interested in how many astronauts and NASA engineers drive Toyotas, and if any have had this problem... Curious...

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:Who has the better track record? by jandrese · 2010-03-30 09:41 · Score: 1

You know, that's a risk I'd be willing to take if it meant I could drive a Space Shuttle...

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I read the internet for the articles.
Re:Who has the better track record? by rickb928 · 2010-03-30 10:30 · Score: 1

Ditto. In a blaze of glory.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Re:Who has the better track record? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 14:22 · Score: 0

Yes, and if NASA let you or me drive their vehicles, their accident rate would be a bit higher...
I wouldn't break it. Promise!
Re:Who has the better track record? by rickb928 · 2010-03-30 15:32 · Score: 1

That's what we all say.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

evolution in action by dltaylor · 2010-03-30 08:41 · Score: 1

He never put the transmission in neutral.

IF there was an real problem, his lack of competence as a driver turned a mechanical/electronic glitch into an evolutionary failure.

Re:evolution in action by mschuyler · 2010-03-30 08:51 · Score: 1

Here's the solution to that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ4PtafRB9c&feature=player_embedded

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How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Re:evolution in action by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-30 08:55 · Score: 1

According to testimony in the trial of Guadalupe Gomez, he was unable to shift his Camry into neutral or turn off his engine. His experience was symptomatically quite similar to John Saylor's, except that he managed to survive the eventual impact (though those he hit did not, hence the trial). It's likely that the same thing happened to John Saylor, but he didn't live to provide an account.

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I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Re:evolution in action by maxume · 2010-03-30 09:23 · Score: 1

His experience was also symptomatically quite similar to all those people that were pressing the wrong pedals in their Audi's. He says he tried to control the car by switching it off and switching into neutral, but he has every reason to make that claim, regardless of whether it is true, so his story is only worth so much.
Toyota should certainly be investigating their control systems, there have been enough incidents to warrant that, but there really isn't enough information available to make any conclusions.

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Nerd rage is the funniest rage.

NASA isn't without bugs by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:42 · Score: 0

Hasn't NASA's Mars Rover etc been subject to near fatal bugs? What good will bringing them on board really do?

AI by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:44 · Score: 0

Don't you see whats happening here?
The computer in the car is evolving "AI" !
I think therefor I accelerate.

N.ational P.ablum R.adio by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:48 · Score: 0

IS commercial radio !

In one hour:

35 minutes of pundits talking drivel
15 mintues of band "news" about bands you've never heard about and will never want to hear.
10 minutes of "this segment" sponsored by Spork, Spark, and Spirk Law Firm.

Yours In Ulyanovsk,
Kilgore T.

Re:N.ational P.ablum R.adio by kneemoe · 2010-04-01 05:05 · Score: 1

Kilgore A Trout I presume

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My Sig Sucks

Call MythBusters by RevWaldo · 2010-03-30 08:48 · Score: 1

If Jamie and Adam can't figure out what's going wrong, who can?

And if they can't figure it out, they'll pack the test Prius with C4 and hurl it into a quarry. Win-win.

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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!

Re:Call MythBusters by blair1q · 2010-03-30 09:26 · Score: 1

uh...as much fun as that show is...their grasp and/or communication of the science involved in many of their stunts is generally appalling
i take it the producers see that as a feature, not a bug
even bringing in grant imihara, an actual science geek and not just a repurposed movie-prop hacker, didn't really help
and, if you haven't noticed a pattern to their presentations, the prius will end up packed with c4 and hurled into the quarry no matter what else they find
which is just compensation to the viewer for the aforementioned appall-making of the science
Re:Call MythBusters by CoderJoe · 2010-03-30 12:50 · Score: 1

I hear that they actually do a decent amount of science stuff in their testing, but that it winds up on the proverbial cutting room floor, due to trying to pack too much into a 42 minute program.
Re:Call MythBusters by CoderJoe · 2010-03-30 13:00 · Score: 1

Though I must add: they have had a number of stupid problems. For example, their toothbrush myth testing is invalid, as they cross-contaminated their toothbrushes with the tube of toothpaste. They rubbed the mouth of the tube against the bristles while applying the toothpaste.

Structured S/W Testing by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 08:55 · Score: 2, Informative

First, having worked in safety critical software systems (aviation) for a number of years, and Level A at that (the highest level the FAA requires), the thing that many of these posts fail to recognize that automotive software systems ARE getting incredibly complex. When these problems first arose, my gut reaction was that if we keep seeing issues like this, the NTSB was going to investigate imposing FAA like standards. In my opinion, that isn't a bad thing. But I don't think it will happen any time soon, as the cost per car will increase to account for all the extra software testing that must be done.

Second, just because a piece of software has complete code coverage does not mean that if an error is there, it is because of some "cosmic" effect. You also have to define what level of code coverage you are talking about. Statement coverage, decision coverage, modified condition/decision coverage, condition coverage? Even in the eyes of the FAA, this is a tricky area. You may have 100% MC/DC (the requirement for Level A software), but you can and will still have bugs. Anyone hear of bad requirements? That is one reason you have reviews for all areas, not just code (requirements, design, code, test, coverage, test results, etc).

Third, of course you should have an independent team look into the bug. Why so many people think that having a set of eyes look at code when they have never seen it before have never had to have independent verification. When you are dealing with structured software development for the FAA, the testers are never the ones who wrote the code. They (should) only know requirements and functionality. Design and code mean nothing at that stage. The tests are then written to robustly test those requirements, and then only done once you feel you have 100% requirement based testing complete, you look and see what your coverage is. If you have reached 100% coverage, then you can probably feel confident that your requirements were good and your tests were good. But even then, you still need to have reviews done (ideally by an independent team).

Lastly, just because this is "special" code, does not mean that there will be very few conditional branches in the code. Only with special code compilation tools can you create code that is linear. And as with avionics, automobiles are complex machines. They have many inputs to determine what should be done in a circumstance (right tire slipping, brakes applied, what should the engine do?). Therefore, not only will you have many conditional branches, but you will have complex conditional branches, which makes the software that much more difficult to test and debug.

In the end, just as with avionics, safety should be the number one concern. If it requires us as a society to say that software in cars that keep you safe (brakes, acceleration, engine control, etc) needs to be regulated, and that the NTSB will create FAA like standards (just like nuclear and railroads have done), so be it. If we didn't have FAA standards, the planes would be cheaper, tickets would probably be cheaper, etc...but do any of us really want that?

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by Coren22 · 2010-03-30 08:55 · Score: 2, Informative

All the bolts I have dealt with on my Toyota are in metric...this can only end badly.

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APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?

units by spoonist · 2010-03-30 09:03 · Score: 1

NASA don't forget imperial vs metric in your analysis.

Where can I get that firmware update?!?! by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 09:10 · Score: 0

Where can I get that firmware update?!?! Does it work on '96 toyotas?

(You sir, are a genius!)

'Best Engineers?' by Hasai · 2010-03-30 09:24 · Score: 1

All the 'best engineers' left NASA after the Apollo program was canceled by the bean-counting Bozos of Congress.

Nothing's left but third-stringers and bureaucrats. Mostly the latter.

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Regards;

Hasai

other than the obvious problem.... by slew · 2010-03-30 09:30 · Score: 1

Of Feynman's passing, Feynman's main contribution was to explain that engineers knew of the problem, but the management misunderstood the seriousness of the problem. In fact, Feynman speculated that he was fed the all of the information from a whistleblower via General Kutyna.

This may be the biggest issue for finding out what really happened. Someone really needs to seek out the disgruntled whistleblower inside of Toyota that knows what the real problem is and feels good about feeding it to someone with enough stature who can "discover" the problem. I doubt anyone at NASA-Langly has that level of independence that a Toyota whistle blower will trust them to not be political. And then you have the language problem and the fact that the most of the real NASA engineers are actually sub-contractors.

It would probably be better to send this problem to Argonne or Sandia, than NASA. But even if you chose NASA, it would have probably been better to pick NASA-IV&V (which specializes in mission critical software and was setup after the challenger disaster) instead of NASA-Langly (based in virgnina near all the pork barrel politicians in DC). This just smells of politics and that's why they may never get to the real answer (maybe they don't want to)...

Note to NASA... by WidgetGuy · 2010-03-30 09:52 · Score: 1

The Japanese use the metric system. We don't want a repeat of that Mars Climate Orbiter fuck up...

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One "Aw, Shit!" is worth 100 "Ata boys!"

There are no speed limits on the autobahnen[1] by Colin+Smith · 2010-03-30 10:13 · Score: 1

Why the hell can cars run this fast anyways. Do we really need a car that will run over 90mph for more than a few seconds during a pass

Yes, we do. Here, you may if you wish take your car up to whatever it'll manage. The passing lane is commonly, 150mph+.

Funnily enough, accidents are no more common than on motorways of any other country, not only that, accidents are no more common on the unrestricted sections than the various restricted sections, and the lane discipline is a damned sight better. Why would you want to do 150mph? Well, your journey takes half the time going at 70mph, why don't you try 30mph or 15mph instead, why not walk.

[1] About 1/4 of the motorways are unrestricted.

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Deleted

Everything is a mess by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:18 · Score: 1, Informative

Speaking as an ex-engineer at GM's proving grounds:

Auto companies are basically systems integrators. It is almost always cheaper to outsource the parts design and spend your labor on making everything play nice. GM literally does not have an analog electronics department. Can't speak for Toyota, but they probably don't even have a guy on hand qualified to say whether EMI could be the culprit. Hence the NASA.

Reliable EMI failures are not new to the auto industry. There was a Cadillac that would shut off the engine if you drove under power lines at a certain speed. There was a rash of cars exploding at gas pumps because the gas tank WASN'T GROUNDED and static discharge igniting gas vapors.

Meanwhile, the code is a mess to look through and nobody knows the whole system. Almost none of the final code is actually written by hand. Everything is optimized automatically with autocode. This turns the code into unreadable spaghetti. If it passes the test bench, you call it good, and those test benches are definitely not exhaustive. I'll betcha nobody is waggling the windshield wiper voltage and seeing if it causes an acceleration upset.

IMHO, could be either.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:24 · Score: 0

Actually, they probably should be calling in old Bell Labs people who pioneered fault tolerant design. I, myself, worked on numerous EMI/ESD/Power idiosyncrasies that impacted complex switching systems. I even wrote software to de-bounce a switch until opto-isolator hardware was designed to eliminate some ESD effects. This may sound biased ... but many Asians had trouble working on fault tolerance. Many could not accept the simple fact that "we design systems to fail" and how they fail is what we can control. A lot of people have trouble accepting "hardware glitches" and software bugs. A simple ground wire making poor contact can drive some hardware bananas! The results are not predictable; often, not repeatable.

Re:bring in NASA to check for extra-terrestials by rickb928 · 2010-03-30 10:27 · Score: 1

Columbia was destroyed on re-entry when wing damage allowed hot gas to compromise the wing structure leading to structural failure of the vehicle. The damage was caused on launch by a piece of external fuel tank insulation broke away and damaged the wing leading edge. This was not a main engine failure.

There are three Shuttle Main Engines. These are directly mounted to the aft sectTion of the Shuttle. Also 2 Solid Rocket Boosters used for launch only, mounted alongside the external tank.

The Challenger accident was caused by a failed o-ring in one of the SRBs caused apparently by low temperatures and failed to properly seal. This permitted hot gas to burn a hole through the external fuel tank and cause an explosion, with the resultant high-speed accleration of the crew compartment and eventual crash to the ocean with significant g-force, causing the death of the crew at some point during or after the explosion.

Neither of these accidents were caused by the 'main engine (sic)'.

It is unlikely that even mounting the Shuttle atop a launch vehicle would have saved it from an accident similar to that of Challenger. The explosion would likely either envelope the vehicle, or accelerate it beyond crew survival. Needless to say, vehicle stack has nothing to do with failures on re-entry, save that in a fully stacked configuration the wings would not be subject to damage from external fuel tank insulation loss.

Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo escape systems all would have probably been unable to save the capsules in the event of a catastrophic launch vehicle failure. If launch control was able to detect an impending failure they might have been able to get the abort off in time to get the capsule away from the explosion, but that's not assured.

Indeed, the escape systems were intended to (obviously) save the capsule from launchpad failures, facilitate aborts under fairly manageable conditions - launch vehicle off-course, loss of thrust beyond minimums for even emergency splashdowns, and of course other failures that permitted time to make the decision. There were onboard systems to detect a launch vehicle failure and trigger an escape on Mercury test launches, so I suspect they were on manned launches and probably similar systems on Gemini and Apollo. I wonder if they would have saved an Apollo capsule. That Saturn V is a lot of fuel. Maybe Gemini with the service module in the way. Mercury was truly spam-in-a-can, and I bet it was considered a gamble, but they did make an effort to save the astronaut, which is good sense. Astronauts are the most expensive part of the mission, usually. (Intentional understatement)

I'm actually standing by the 'dumass' remark. So far, the Shuttle Main Engines are not at fault for any accident, though by extension the external tank has been the contributing factor in both, weather and the SRB in one, and fragile (relatively) wing edges in another, sort of. But I didn't mean to be so harsh. Sorry. Maybe make that into 'not'. Better?

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

Government in a pickle by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:31 · Score: 0

They can't stop Toyota from selling the cars because from my understanding the latest issue has not been re-producible. So The NHTSA is trying to find out what is wrong, for the sake of those that have purchased this car since highway safety is their job, so that they can tell Toyota and make Toyota stop selling the defective cars, until the issue is resolved. However, I would hope that they do not release the technical information to Toyota until they pay the bill plus interest for doing their leg work.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 10:48 · Score: 0

Couldn't just use a bunch of resistors and transistors to de-bounce your switches?

How would you by einhverfr · 2010-03-30 10:52 · Score: 1

make the acceleration on the Prius purely mechanical? I mean you have all this fancy electronic stuff that has to go on to make the hybrid work correctly. How do you use traditional accelerator designs in such a thing? I don't think you can.

Of course, that doesn't mean traditional cars which are purely gas-powered should have DBW systems....

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

Re:How would you by Chuck+Chunder · 2010-03-30 18:52 · Score: 1

How would you make the acceleration on the Prius purely mechanical?
Fred Flintstone style?

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Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Re:How would you by z0mb13e · 2010-03-30 21:20 · Score: 1

I was wondering this - I figured people were proposing to do something with a bunch of resistive loads and a slider arm, like the things that used to pass for speed controllers on old electric radio controlled cars... They weren't very reliable, efficient or compact.
Re:How would you by einhverfr · 2010-03-31 03:15 · Score: 1

It's more complex than that. In addition to controlling the electric motor, it ALSO has to determine whether to engage the internal combustion engine...... I can't think of a way of doing this purely mechanically.....

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LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

This is absolutely insane by KharmaWidow · 2010-03-30 11:12 · Score: 2, Interesting

Why are we wasting American tax dollars to solve a foreign auto company's technical error!? To further drive American auto industries out of business? We should just ban Japan's defective lead-foot autos like we ban China's lead-filled products.

I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't coming from NASA's already diminished budget.

me thinks we're really in trouble when by porky_pig_jr · 2010-03-30 11:58 · Score: 1

NASA has to call Chuck Norris.

Woz thinks it's software by garyebickford · 2010-03-30 12:49 · Score: 1

Steve Wozniak sez he can repeat the problem at will. Article:

Wozniak's 2010 Toyota Prius can unintentionally accelerate to as much as 97 miles (156 kilometers) per hour when he uses cruise control to increase his speed, he said in an interview yesterday. Toyota and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration haven't responded to his complaints in the past two months on what may be a software-related glitch, he said.
"It's scary when it happens," Wozniak, 59, said from San Jose, California. "I've had trouble getting both the government safety agency and getting Toyota to listen to me."
"Toyota has this accelerator problem we've all heard about," Mr. Wozniak said last week at Discover Forum 2010 in San Francisco, reported CNET.com (via Autoblog). "Well, I have many models of Prius that got recalled, but I have a new model that didn't get recalled. 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."

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It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/

Ummmm by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 12:51 · Score: 0

I'm not too sure they called the right folks to *fix* a "sudden acceleration issue". I mean, doesn't NASA try to cause sudden accelerations?

Anonymous Coward by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 14:05 · Score: 0

Great....so the US government has to flip the bill and fix the problem instead of Toyota.

Re:Anonymous Coward by cafelatte · 2010-03-30 14:38 · Score: 1

Actually, they're going to foot the bill.

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by CrimsonAvenger · 2010-03-30 14:14 · Score: 1

NASA has a reputation for crashing and burning.

An undeserved one, really. Soyuz has had as many crew-loss incidents as Shuttle, with considerably fewer flights than Shuttle.

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"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Unintended Acceleration Outside the USA by RAMMS+EIN · 2010-03-30 19:08 · Score: 1

In all this commotion, there is one thing I have been unable to find: numbers on sudden unintended acceleration from outside the USA. I know that Toyota has recalled vehicles around the world, but I haven't seen data on incidents outside the USA. Can anyone provide links to such, just to satisfy my curiosity?

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Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.

Makes me think of Richard Feynman by nuckfuts · 2010-03-30 19:48 · Score: 1

and the role he played in investigating the Challenger disaster.

It's too bad he's not around to help out with the Toyota mystery.

I haven't seen evidence of a toyota problem YET by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-30 22:01 · Score: 0

All I have seen is some unknown acceleration CLAIM, and a lot of evidence (including study over many hundred of people) that OLD Folk tend to confuse acceleration pedal and brake. heck I nearly got killed that way : some old folk wanted to aprk and instead of hitting the brake on their expansive audi, they hit the freaking acceleration pedal. Thanks god, there was a tree between THEM and ME. I have yet to have evidence that this is not the same shit, and that some other which lost control of their vehicule just decided to assign it on toyota, and ride the blame wave.

Well what do you know by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-31 01:55 · Score: 0

I guess Prius tapped into dark energy field..

Yeah, but.... by stonewolf · 2010-03-31 02:11 · Score: 1

NASA, and the DOD, do buy a lot of the code, not all by any means. But, they do have a huge amount of experiencing *managing* the development of extremely reliable code and the computers that are needed to run them.

No matter who writes the code it is the management structure, including how specs are written, how testing is done, what methodology is used... you know the list,,, that result in reliable testable code.

Yeah, good programmers make it easier to get good code, but with out an excellent management system in place you do not get reliable code.

I just realized that the first flame I'm going to get is some thing "oh yeah? Then why is open source software so reliable? There's no management controlling that. You insensitive jerk." The answer is that every open source project I have looked at, or done, use peer review, or the fear of peer review as the way to insure good code. That is coupled with the use of trusted committers who ensure that even excellent code only goes in to the code base if it meets the specifications for that section of code. The specification may only exist in the committers head and a few emails or //FIX ME lines in the code. But the committer system, coupled with peer review, results in reliable code.

What this management system isn't very good at is keeping to schedules. While I've brought in software development projects within hours of the original schedule I could only do that because I was able to write the schedule for each section of the project only after completing, and evaluating the previous section. And, I had a usable data base of time-to-complete data for functions of different complexity levels. That and upper level management that allowed us to do a detailed function level design.

Stonewolf

Woz's problem is different by jwietelmann · 2010-03-31 03:36 · Score: 1

It's important to note that this is not the same problem upon which the fatalities are being blamed. Woz basically indicated that he could reproduce a problem wherein the cruise control flips out and continues to accelerate when it shouldn't. But in his scenario, when he hits the brakes, the car appropriately disengages the cruise control and the car stops accelerating.

I just wanted to make that clear, but yes, that would seem to indicate at least one instance in which Toyota's software caused a vehicle to malfunction. It wouldn't be completely unfair to expect that there are more bugs.

Re:Woz's problem is different by garyebickford · 2010-03-31 05:09 · Score: 1

Thanks, good point.
A number of years ago Dr. Rodney Brooks at MIT went against the common top-down AI approach to robotics, and demonstrated that a bottom-up design was much more robust. For example, he discussed the problem of preventing a robot from hitting a wall as it moved. The traditional method required the main processor to handle this task as a function of its entire processing job. If the processing load got too high for the processor (a common problem back then, and even today), it was possible for the collision avoidance to run too slowly to actually avoid the collision.
Dr. Brooks demonstrated that by means of a simple crossover network and a few sensors, nearly all the work of collision avoidance could be done in hardware close to the 'problem' - and by 'wiring' this to the motion control, he could stop the machine regardless of what the processor was doing.
As he put it, more or less, "First make it so the machine can not hit things. Then make it go." Thus you make a machine that can not have a collision problem. IMHO this is a fundamental concept, which he called "Subsumption Architecture". If automative systems architects used this approach they would be much less likely to have problems of this type.
From the wiki:

A subsumption architecture is a way of decomposing complicated intelligent behaviour into many "simple" behaviour modules, which are in turn organized into layers. Each layer implements a particular goal of the agent, and higher layers are increasingly abstract. Each layer's goal subsumes that of the underlying layers, e.g. the decision to move forward by the eat-food layer takes into account the decision of the lowest obstacle-avoidance layer. As opposed to more traditional AI approaches subsumption architecture uses a bottom-up design.
For example, a robot's lowest layer could be "avoid an object", on top of it would be the layer "wander around", which in turn lies under "explore the world". Each of these horizontal layers access all of the sensor data and generate actions for the actuators — the main caveat is that separate tasks can suppress (or overrule) inputs or inhibit outputs. This way, the lowest layers can work like fast-adapting mechanisms (e.g. reflexes), while the higher layers work to achieve the overall goal. Feedback is given mainly through the environment.

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It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/

Re:If you want to stop things from moving anywhere by Cacadril · 2010-03-31 04:21 · Score: 1

NASA works in metric too.

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There is no substitute for common sense. Especially, no body of rules will do.

New customer services just opened ! by Sterops · 2010-03-31 08:22 · Score: 1

Following the announcement that NASA will deal with your car problems, well known companies and agencies opened customer services:

You don't get along very well with your neighbor? Call United Nations, they deal with negotiation problems all the time.
You don't feel secure in your house? You want some security stuff for your downtown shop? Call NATO, they are experts in security issues.
Your kid doesn't know how to put batteries in his toy car? Let him call General Electric, they know all about electricity stuff
You just made a paper-plane contest and lost, and you feel bad? Call Boeing, they can help on plane problems.

Bruce Willis? by danwesnor · 2010-04-01 13:43 · Score: 1

We're more in trouble when they call Liv Tyler. That means the situation is so bad they just want to watch one more really hot car wash before we all die.

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NASA Summoned To Fix Prius Problems

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