Reply With Quote
Genius! Remember all us little people when you cash in.
You need to get to work designing a simple USB interface for cars. Plug in a flash drive, drag some files over, and bingo! Problem fixed.
Genius! Remember all us little people when you cash in.
I'm telling ya... the NHTSA needs to be all over this...
This Toyota thing keeps getting worse…In their quest to overtake GM Toyota lowered their standards…
Worldwide recalls…. Over 100 new complaints for Prius brake problems…LaHood to call Toyota president about recalls…Electronic acceleration now being probed….Toyota trouble: Wozniak and sudden acceleration... Sudden acceleration complaints now with Lexus…
Too bad...Most people have had good experiences with Toyota...
I don't know about this idea. I don't want my car to become compromised and start spitting Viagra ads and stories about how I can work for Google from home every time I turn the key.
Leno...
Have you heard the new Toyota slogan?
It is, "Toyota - just try and stop us."
NHTSA Has No Software Engineers or EEs To Analyze Toyotas
By John Voelcker
Sometimes you see something you just can't believe. And yet, there it is in cold type (or warm electrons).
Today's candidate is a single sentence by Washington Post writers Peter Whoriskey and Frank Ahrens, discussing the Congressional investigation of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's response to multiple reports of Toyota safety problems.
It says: NHTSA officials told investigators that the agency doesn't employ any electrical engineers or software engineers.
To say our jaw dropped would be woefully inadequate.
A modern luxury car has something close to 100 million lines of software code in it, running on 70 to 100 microprocessors. The navigation system of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class alone exceeds 20 million lines of code.
Manfred Broy, of the Technical University, Munich, told IEEE Spectrum that software and electronics can make up 35 to 40 percent of the cost of a premium car today. At $10 a line, a cost he calls too low, 100 million lines represent $1 billion of investment for each car.
According to consultant Frost & Sullivan, those 100 million lines of code will rise to 200 or 300 million within a few years.
Software controls the vehicle, the operation of its engine, the mapping of the transmission shift points, the interactions among the components of the powertrain, the traction control system ... the list could go on for pages and pages.
And the software that controls the "drive-by-wire" accelerators of Toyota and Lexus vehicles is one potential culprit in the tangled collection of issues, allegations, and recalls of many of those vehicles for so-called "sudden acceleration" problems.
The NHTSA's mission is to “save lives, prevent injuries, reduce vehicle-related crashes.”
If it cannot properly analyze those systems, or even understand at a deep-code level how they work, then the agency is useless at overseeing the entire "Safety" part of its mandate.
The agency has an annual budget of more than $800 million, and it employs 635 thousands of people. That not a single one of them is an EE or software engineer borders on the criminally insane.
Grasping for straws, perhaps it employs software engineers and EEs as contractors, so they're not technically employees? Or does it outsource all those functions to firms who specialize in those disciplines?
We'd like to believe that. But we recently got a note from an author who's written on software in cars and spoken to the NHTSA about the topic. It said:
They told me they didn't track defects ... by software/electronic cause. They couldn't understand why that would be important, since software improvements and defect rates were no different in their minds from mechanical improvements. In fact, software increased car safety. Then they basically told me not to bother them with such trivial questions.
Please, please: Somebody tell us that those NHTSA officials misspoke. Because if they didn't, heads had better roll.
UPDATE: According to the Detroit News, a Department of Transportation spokeswoman, Olivia Alair, said, "NHTSA has numerous engineers on staff with experience with electrical engineering and (electronics) issues." The DoT is the parent agency of the NHTSA.
UPDATE 2: Just before the end of today's hearings, Transportation secretary Ray LaHood told Congress that NHTSA has two electrical engineers on staff and, "When we need outside expertise, we use it." Two EEs? And how many software engineers, pray tell?
Electronic acceleration? Talk about an intriniscally bad idea.
Do you also want to do away with antilock brackes, stability control, electronic fuel injection, airbags, etc. etc.?
As long as there are no bugs in the system, an electronic system is much more reliable than a mechanical system.
Toyota became over-confident and that made a bad situation worse. I love my 4Runner but I did have some pulley bearing go bad at only 80K. That in itself speaks to how high the standards are now (in the 50's-60's you expected to rebuild an engine at 80K). The American cars are extremely well-built, too. They are catching grief for an older policy of pumping out units and catching any mistakes with a liberal warranty policy (for the first 50K)-a policy that became out-dated in the 70's. The consumer's expectations changed and the bean-counters running the American companies did not respond quickly enough. I drive a Toyota now but would not hesitate to purchase American the next time. The worse car I have owned, from the maintenance viewpoint was a 740iL. Everything was fixed under warranty and I enjoyed driving the out of the loaners but it did spend a lot of time in the shop (still loved it, though).
If not for the Japanese auto makers, you would still be driving POS domestics that leaked oil after 10,000 miles and was ready for a new engine or an overhaul at about the 50,000 mile mark. Remember Toyota, Datsan, Subaru were cars that made the domestics improve the quality of their cars.
One of the best quotes I have ever seen came from the man that came up with the Pontiac GTO. "When asked the question "they don't make em like that anymore, do they? He replied "No, and thank God they don't". He then went on to explain just how dangerous these machines really were. But none of them were ever recalled.
Meh; had a '67 mustang; gas pedal was ALWAYS getting stuck under the floor mat; they're fixing the problem.
Also, there isn't a car made whose brakes cannot overpower it's engine (especially a Toyota!); people who have wrecks because of this are bad drivers who panic.
See the following from Car And Driver
http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car...vers-editorial
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...tion-tech_dept
Why? I actually think it's a much better and more secure way to do things (and cheaper to boot), as long as there are no bugs.
Yes and no. One specific case had to do with a rental car that had they ignition key replaced with a button. The person obviously didn't know that she was supposed to hold the button for 5 seconds to turn off the engine while the car was running...
The other thing is, a lot of cars will simply not let you break while you accelerate at the same time. Some let you do that only when the directional wheel is turned, and some won't let you at all. This is exactly why this was a major issue.
One of the first recall fixes on the Lexus line was to replace the brake system to allow you to brake while accelerating.
Why should you assume that? I ed about one thing.
In this case, there is a bug.
Link.
Seriously. This is technology that is foreign to me. (and please read the articles I posted above by Car and Driver.)
Perhaps. I'm always a bit skeptical of the "unintended acceleration" defect. There have been numerous cases were people have panicked and stomped even harder on the gas. If I recall, there was supposedly some issue with Audi vehicles years ago. If there is a problem, they need to fix it.
Make up your mind Darrin. Yesterday you were holding Toyota up for ridicule; now you seem to be carrying water for them. Which is it it?
I wonder if people forget that they have an emergency brake?
Emergency brakes never overpower front wheel drive cars under power.
They should have turned the key off.
I am actually amazed that all this passed Toyota's testing. Every piece of computer controlled equipment I ever worked on has safeties in place. Even trucks, trains, etc. from years past have the default position for brakes engaged. If you lose air pressure, the brakes are fully engaged.
Not this is different from an automobile, but how did OSHA even allow such a system to be marketed? New designs, and engineers are simple humans, and we all make mistakes. It is almost impossible in research and development to conceive of all possible problems. Still, I am simply amazed that it happened.
Now I have never seen how the gizmo's attach under the hood of these newer cars, but I do know enough about equipment safety features to see there wasn't enough safety considered. The brakes and acceleration of the vehicle are apparently not direct control. The car's computer controls everything. This leads to possible computer chip defects to even viruses introduced by a competing car company.
It will be interesting to see how Toyota resolves this, but I do trust they will. They have always been a top car company for a reason. People like the product and service.
See the following from Car And Driver
http://www.caranddriver.com/news/car...vers-editorial
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...tion-tech_deptToyota Recall: Scandal, Media Circus, and Stupid Drivers - Editorial
We dive into Toyota’s three-ring circus and emerge with the facts.
BY MIKE DUSHANE
February 2010
First, What to Do if Your Car (Not Just a Toyota) Starts to Accelerate Uncontrollably
If your car starts accelerating unexpectedly, hit the brake (it's the one to the left of the gas) and shift into neutral. After you do this, the engine may race loudly but the car won't accelerate. Pull off the road, brake to a stop, shift to park, and shut off the car. This is a simple solution we guarantee will save your life in any car that suffers from unintended acceleration. For more, read our story “How To Deal With Unintended Acceleration,” which is based on our own instrumented testing.
How Big is This Problem?
We're no Toyota apologists, but if you look past the media circus, the numbers don't reveal a meaningful problem. Every man, woman, and child in the U.S. has approximately a one-in-8000 chance of perishing in a car accident every year. Over a decade, that's about one in 800. Given the millions of cars included in the Toyota recalls and the fewer than 20 alleged deaths over the past decade, the alleged fatality rate is about one death per 200,000 recalled Toyotas. Even if all the alleged deaths really are resultant from vehicle defects—highly unlikely—and even if all the worst things people are speculating about Toyotas are true, and you're driving one, and you aren't smart or calm enough to shift to neutral if the thing surges, you're still approximately 250 times likelier to die in one of these cars for reasons having nothing to do with unintended acceleration. So if you can muster the courage to get into a car and drive, the additional alleged risk of driving a Toyota is virtually negligible.
What's Wrong with Toyotas?
1. Floor mats. In some cases, an unsecured driver's floor mat can supposedly jam the gas pedal. Complaints and deaths stemming from this issue led to the first Toyota recall. Secure your floor mats, take them out, or, if you're too lazy to do either of those and the mat jams the accelerator, shift to neutral.
2. Sticky throttles. The accelerator may stick in some Toyotas. NHTSA hasn't determined that this has actually caused any fatalities, but there is enough evidence that the throttle may stick to warrant a recall. If this happens to you, shift to neutral.
3. The "electronic issue." Unlike vehicles from some other automakers, Toyotas don't kill the throttle when you hit the brakes. This means it's possible to apply both at the same time. Our own instrumented testing determined that you can safely brake a car from highway speed, even with the throttle pegged. But if the accelerator is floored and the car is in gear, repeated stabs at the pedal and modulation of speed with the brake will eventually overheat the brakes and cause them to fail. Pumping the brakes is a bad idea beyond the overheating issue. When the throttle is stuck open, the engine isn’t producing sufficient vacuum to enable power assist for the brakes, so press the brake pedal firmly once and don’t let up. (Some allege that electromagnetic interference could be causing the electronic throttles in Toyotas to become stuck open; this is completely unsubstantiated. It’s also possible that alien tractor beams are to blame.)
The lack of a throttle kill is probably the explanation for Toyotas' higher reported rate of "unintended acceleration" than other brands. But it's critical to note that the lack of such a throttle kill isn't a defect. It isn't Toyota's responsibility to account for every possible stupid thing people might do in a car. Anyone so uncoordinated that they can't differentiate the pedals and operate them independently shouldn't be driving.
And this is going to sound uncharitable, but even if the recall dealing with potentially sticking pedals applies to a lot of Toyotas, why aren’t people just shifting into neutral? Even if the throttle really sticks fully open, it won't have any accelerative impact on the car if it's in neutral. By this point, if you have a Toyota (or any car), and you don't know to shift to neutral if the engine races unexpectedly, you're going to suc b to what can only be described as natural selection.
Some Context: Audi's "Unintended Acceleration"
In 1986, the television program 60 Minutes started Audi's "unintended acceleration" scandal. The show trotted out tearful people, recounted death and carnage, spoke to so-called experts, and generally made it seem like the vehicle in question, the Audi 5000, was a roving menace with a mind of its own. In the end, the U.S. government determined that every single so-called unintended acceleration accident was the result of driver error. Some speculated that because Audi's pedals were closer together than those of some other brands, people were too uncoordinated to choose the correct one. The pedal-placement issue Audi faced at that time parallels the throttle-kill issue Toyota faces now.
What Does This Mean for Toyota?
Even if you buy our argument that most of the "unintended acceleration" issues are actually driver error and the company ultimately is vindicated, Toyota is still screwed. Audi sales were depressed for a decade and a half after the false claims leveled against it. Toyota either blames its customers and faces the wrath of the media or expresses contrition and admits it has quality issues. Perhaps having learned from the backlash against Audi when it—rightly—blamed its customers, Toyota has chosen the latter course of action.
Toyota has earned a reputation in this country over the past 30 years as a maker of utterly dull and utterly reliable transportation appliances. Readers of Consumer Reports and their friends buy them by the millions. But with the notable exception of the Prius (which now is facing its own recall fiasco), Toyota hasn't produced many interesting or exciting products. In Car and Driver comparison tests, Toyotas have generally placed mid-pack for years because they handle poorly and have increasingly chintzy interiors. Over the years, people haven't bought Toyotas because they offered driving thrills or prestige; they bought them because, in the words of one CR loyalist and former serial Camry buyer—this author’s mother—"The ultimate luxury is a car that doesn't ever break." So what happens when quality is called into question and the cars don't offer anything special? Well, Mrs. Dushane now drives a Subaru. Even the pragmatic tire of the banal.
How To Deal With Unintended Acceleration - Tech Dept.
We put unintended acceleration to the test and examine how to handle a runaway vehicle.
BY DAVE VANDERWERP
December 2009
Lexus and Toyota models were stung recently by claims that faulty floor mats had jammed throttle pedals and were causing wide-open acceleration. Toyota has agreed to a largest-ever recall of 4.3 million vehicles (which could cost $250 million or more) to modify the gas pedals and remove unsecured or incompatible driver’s floor mats. Not since Audi was decimated by accusations of unintended acceleration in the late 1980s has the topic of runaway cars received so much media attention.
The furor began when an off-duty California Highway Patrolman crashed a loaner Lexus ES350 at high speed, killing himself, his wife and their daughter, and his brother-in-law. It was reported that someone, either the officer or his brother-in-law, called 9-1-1 moments before the crash, saying that the “accelerator is stuck . . . there’s no brake.”
Our focus here is not to question the validity of the “floor-mat” claims (some investigators have suggested that a faulty drive-by-wire system is to blame) but to present methods for coping with this heart-stopping situation and to investigate a Toyota’s relative performance during such an event. For our tests, we rounded up a disparate bunch: a V-6 Camry (a recalled vehicle), an Infiniti G37 convertible, and a hugely powerful 540-hp Roush Stage 3 Mustang.
Our tests were conducted at highway speeds, as the incident with the Lexus ES350 happened on an expressway, and in the lowest possible gear, as that's the worst-case scenario. Here is how to deal with a runaway car:
Hit the Brakes
Certainly the most natural reaction to a stuck-throttle emergency is to stomp on the brake pedal, possibly with both feet. And despite dramatic horsepower increases since C/D’s 1987 unintended-acceleration test of an Audi 5000, brakes by and large can still overpower and rein in an engine roaring under full throttle. With the Camry’s throttle pinned while going 70 mph, the brakes easily overcame all 268 horsepower straining against them and stopped the car in 190 feet—that’s a foot shorter than the performance of a Ford Taurus without any gas-pedal problems and just 16 feet longer than with the Camry’s throttle closed. From 100 mph, the stopping-distance differential was 88 feet—noticeable to be sure, but the car still slowed enthusiastically enough to impart a feeling of confidence. We also tried one go-for-broke run at 120 mph, and, even then, the car quickly decelerated to about 10 mph before the brakes got excessively hot and the car refused to decelerate any further. So even in the most extreme case, it should be possible to get a car’s speed down to a point where a resulting accident should be a low-speed and relatively minor event.
But Toyota could do better. Since the advent of electronic throttle control, many automakers have added software to program the throttle to close—and therefore cut power—when the brakes are applied. Cars from BMW, Chrysler, Nissan/Infiniti, Porsche, and Volkswagen/Audi have this feature, and that’s precisely why the G37 aced this test. Even with the throttle floored and the vehicle accelerating briskly, stabbing the brakes causes the engine’s power to fade almost immediately, and as a result, the Infiniti stops in a hurry. From speeds of 70 or even 100 mph, the difference in braking results between having a pinned throttle or not was fewer than 10 feet, which isn’t discernible to the average driver. As a result of the unintended-acceleration investigation, Toyota is adding this feature posthaste.
We included the powerful Roush Mustang to test—in the extreme—the theory that “brakes are stronger than the engine.” From 70 mph, the Roush’s brakes were still resolutely king even though a pinned throttle added 80 feet to its stopping distance. However, from 100 mph, it wasn’t clear from behind the wheel that the Mustang was going to stop. But after 903 feet—almost three times longer than normal—the 540-hp supercharged Roush finally did suc b, chugging to a stop in a puff of brake smoke.
Shift to Neutral or Park
This is your best option in an emergency. Neither the Camry’s nor the Infiniti’s automatic transmission showed any hesitancy to shift into neutral or park when accelerating at full tilt. (Automatics have a piece of hardware called a park pawl, which prevents the transmission from actually engaging park and locking the wheels at speed—it creates a disturbing grinding sound, but the car essentially coasts freely.) The Roush had a manual, so you’d simply depress the clutch. In either case, power is effectively kept from the wheels and the car will be able to brake with its usual undiminished vigor, engine racing or not.
Turn It Off
Switching off the ignition is a sure way to silence an engine, but it’s probably the least desirable action because it will also make the car more difficult to maneuver. It causes a loss of power-steering assist, plus it will cut off vacuum boost for the brakes. The new wrinkle here: the keyless, push-button start-and-stop systems in many vehicles. Owners need to be aware that these systems require a long press of the button to shut off power when the car is moving (so that an inadvertent touch of the button by the driver doesn’t kill the engine). Here, too, the Toyota was slightly behind the curve; the Infiniti’s engine shut down after a 2.5-second press of the button versus 3.3 seconds for the Camry. In an emergency, that would probably feel like an eternity. For some perspective, if a V-6 Camry’s throttle became stuck at 60 mph, the car would accelerate to nearly 80 mph before the engine would surrender.
Furthermore, short, frantic pressing of the Toyota’s start/stop button—the probable response in an emergency—does nothing, whereas the Infiniti kills the engine after three rapid-fire presses.
Conclusion
In the end, though, we found no major deficiencies with the Camry’s ability to defuse an unintended-acceleration situation. But the No. 1 automaker could learn a few lessons from the compe ion here—namely a throttle cutoff and a more responsive push-button ignition.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
