How Hard Is It To Stop a Prius? Not Very

Dan, the question is can you call 911 AND step on the brake? These are things we need to know!

No, the question is can you commit insurance fraud while stepping on the brake and calling 911!

can u show us a video to show how these fakers can just do us all a fav and jump off the golden gate?

I need to se a rebuttal video from someone b4 i start lobbying for execution of the weird prius guy....goddam. what gets me the most is the accleration is soooo slow...and so quiet.....and so not happening... how do people get freaked out by it? i don't know....

I'm trying my best to sit in the middle, rather than be critical.

Let's take the infamous example of the glory hound in California. The State Trooper says it appeared the guy was trying to brake. At the very least, he saw brake lights on the Prius. If the guy was even gently touching the brakes, wouldn't the override have cut the engine?

I understand the skepticism, but things aren't adding up.

First i think doing this testing on a public road in traffic was a little irresponsible... I know you THOUGHT you knew what was going to happen but maybe controlled conditions would have been safer.

That said its quite a no brainer to stop a car accelerating... especially one meandering to 60 no faster than 13 seconds... but isnt the point of the recall that SOMETHING is causing these techniques not to work? Unless everyone is just faking it but it had to start somewhere

Thanks for the vid!

"The State Trooper says it appeared the guy was trying to brake. At the very least, he saw brake lights on the Prius. If the guy was even gently touching the brakes, wouldn't the override have cut the engine?"

Unless the brakes have to be depressed past a specific point, beyond lighting the brake lights?

Who knows.

inlinsix,

"Who knows" is correct. I REALLY don't want to sound like I'm defending James. The point is that we don't know what happened. There's evidence to point both ways and neither really nullifies the other, because we simply don't know.

Btw: I would expect they'd use the same sensor/switch to activate the brake lights as they would to sense the brakes being depressed, but "who knows". ;)

Here we go again, Edmunds defending Toyota to the bitter end :)

Actually, to get serious, first thing is that Edmunds Prius is a 2004, the gentleman's was a 2007 or 2008, I believe some changes were made during those years. In addition, maybe the guys is a SS model :) Sorry, that would be Chevy and Edmunds doesn't defend them :)

However, remember, the bigger issue is that something is causing the cars to accelerate, and maybe when that happens, other systems are going haywire at the same time.

The answer is pretty easy here. Can the Prius be driven at speeds pushing 90 MPH while still braking enough to make the brakes smell and the brake lights come on with the override system still working OK but not activating? This video doesn't in any way adress that, but Edmunds has the car. So go find a track and test this out, OK? And let us know.

OK Ed. You've proved that when there's no glitch, everything works fine, the car will go into neutral and the brakes will deactivate the throttle. When there's no glitch on my peecee, I can select "Shutdown" from the "Start" menu and it shutdowns properly.

But when there's a glitch, I have to hold the power button in for five seconds or so to have it shut down and when that doesn't work, I have to pull the plug.

When there's a glitch causing unintended WOT on a Toyota while preventing the transmission from going into neutral, how do you "pull the plug".

^^^^

What he said!

That`s an interesting commentary.

@120mmgun: This comparison is often used, but it's not valid. The computer systems in a Prius, or any car for that matter, don't work the same as your desktop computer. Instead of one chip that does many different things like your laptop, cars use hard coded chips that control one specific process.

So unlike your home computer that might get overwhelmed when you try to do too many things at one time, the systems in cars are overly simplified for the sake of reliability. That's why despite the millions upon millions of cars on the road, computer failures rarely, if ever, cause catastrophic failure. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but the likelihood is so remote that it's a stretch to make the comparison.

Ed

I love talk of the "glitch". The mysterious fault that no one can reproduce or demonstrate but is the cause of so many accidents.

"Honest officer, it wasn't my fault... I blame the car."

fst, I've worked with many embedded systems. As technology evolves, they tend to work their way back toward a central controller. That central controller is unlikely to get overloaded, but it can fail (software or hardware). Worst case, systems go crazy. Medium case, systems stop working. Best case, systems work on their own (eg. throttle system doesn't know the brakes are on). Automotive systems are generally designed so they can operate on their own, with default values (like a "limp" mode). If conditions are such that default values don't apply, unintended consequences can occur.

We can certainly list the thousands of reasons a car's system isn't like a PC. At a conceptual level, 120mmgun's example is perfectly valid. He's simply saying that when a system fails, it can behave differently than it does when it's operating normally. He's suggesting that Dan's example of a normally operating system is not necessarily indicative of the rumored failures.

Government propoganda. That's all I can say. Well that and, screw you detroit/washington. Well actually I can say more- WTF are these drivers that fucking stupid that they can't even use a little bit of logic to determine that- hmm I don't know- the brakes will slow the car down? Why even a caveman could do that!

interesting that no one was having these acceleration problems before the recall but now everyone is trying to get their 15 minutes of fame blaming toyota that their car accelerates "out of control" even ABC news edited a video trying to make toyota looks worse. I'm kind of sure there have to be a problem somewhere or toyota would not have made the recall but for me it looks like some people are just trying to fill their pockets with toyota's money. Thanks for the video Dan.

seriousekid: "interesting that no one was having these acceleration problems before the recall"

Um, yes they were. That's why there was a recall.

seriousekid: "interesting that no one was having these acceleration problems before the recall"

Um, yes they were. That's why there was a recall.

Not they were not. As i wrote before i think there is a problem somewhere hence the recall but this "problem" have been blown way out of what it really is. Just look at the news. Of course this is only my opinion.

firstwagon, it has happened before. Ford had a UA problem in the Tempo/Topaz. I know; I had one and experienced it.

And since Toyota's problem may be a glitch, the Edmunds video has no bearing on the issue. What a car does with both the gas & brake pedals depressed can be different from what the car does with the brake pedal depressed & an engine module that's saying "go WOT" all the time (ignoring input from the throttle position sensor). The stuck WOT setting is happening independent of the pedal position.