Slashdot Mirror
NASA Summoned To Fix Prius Problems
coondoggie writes "If you want to solve a major engineering mystery, why not bring in some of the world's best engineers? The US Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today said it was doing just that by bringing in NASA engineers with expertise in areas such as computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference, and software integrity to help tackle the issue of unintended vehicle acceleration in Toyotas. The NHTSA review of the electronic throttle control systems in Toyotas is to be completed by late summer." We're really in trouble when NASA has no choice but to call Bruce Willis.
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.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
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.
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.