Runaway Prius = Driver FAIL

The runaway Prius story is just full of FAIL.

The driver didn't know he could put the car in neutral with a flick of his wrist, or push and hold the starter button to kill the engine.

The police officer which talked to him over the loudspeaker told him to use the emergency brakes--did the police officer know to suggest neutral or killing the engine?

There is no excuse for a sticky throttle pedal.  But there is also no excuse for not knowing how to control your vehicle.  It is lucky that in this case, somehow the ignorance didn't cause injury or death.

U.S. Census Money Waste

Today I got a letter in the mail with official markings on it, U.S. Census. But it seemed awful skinny to be a census form. Sure enough, it was a letter informing me that in a week, I will get a census form, and that it is very important that I fill it out.

What a stupid waste of money and trees.

Toyota Vs. ABC: The Empire Strikes Back

It took The Galactic Empire^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Toyota a couple of weeks, but they finally have issued a formal rebuttal to the hack job that ABC and Professor Gilbert did to them on TV.   You can read the details here, but basically, it is the same conclusion that I came to (and posted about here).

Gilbert spliced into several wires on the throttle pedal harness, shorted two of them together through a resistance, and then shorted them to sensor power.  In other words, he induced a multi-point failure, with very specific parameters.  If he had done the splicing in a different order, or shorted different wires, or used a different resistor, it would not work.

Gilbert proved that you can re-wire a car to misbehave.  He didn't come even close to proving that this is what is going on in the field.  

ABC proved that it would rather stir the pot and get people excited, while providing ammo for trial lawyers, than report responsibly on a highly technical issue.  They even threw in some faked tachometer footage to make things look more dramatic--hilariously, with all the telltales illuminated, showing a vehicle at rest, with doors open, and in park.

I would like to see ABC and Gilbert now defend their piece, by explaining how it is relevant to the Toyota untended acceleration issue.

Troy Chrysler Dealership Tricks

At the Troy motor mall, there used to be a Chrysler dealership, Birmingham Chrysler Jeep ("Birmingham's In Troy!"). They lost their franchise during the Chrysler quick-rinse bankruptcy. Now, something strange has happened. The former Saturn store in the same area has apparently picked up a Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge franchise.

This was formerly Suburban Saturn

I don't get it. Chrysler had an established and apparently successful dealership right on Maple road. Why would they force them closed, and then open up a new one around the corner?

Birmingham Chrysler Jeep is now Troy Autoworld, and is trying to scrape by on used car sales and service. They also are selling Wheego neighborhood electric vehicles, which look like an electrified Smart.

Volt Sighting: Detroit Zoo

I took the family to the Detroit Zoo today, to take advantage of the warm sunny weather, and here is what I spotted in the parking deck: a Volt powertrain calibration vehicle.


What surprised me the most about seeing the Volt up close was its size. This is a compact car, not much (if any) larger than a Prius. It was parked next to a current model Malibu, on one side, and a large crossover utility on the other, and it looked small. The GM employee who was driving the car had installed an infant seat in the back behind the driver, and it took up all the space, touching the driver's seat. The car also seemed noticeably short, and according to Edmunds, the Volt is 3" shorter than the Prius.

The volt is definitely going to be a technical triumph, but if it comes in at $35,000+ retail, I don't see how it will be a commercial success.

In Defense Of ETC, Part 3

A comment on my previous post, by user "Ming", pointed out the trend of the total number of unintended acceleration complaints to NHTSA over the years.

2000: 1415
2001: 1345
2002: 1460
2003: 1446
2004: 1426
2005: 1112
2006: 878
2007: 876
2008: 456
2009: 251

Now, what is interesting in this is that over this period, the number of complaints were cut dramatically, even though the number of new cars on the road increased. Also, and this is key, in the year 2000 many cars were still using mechanical throttle systems.

By 2009, almost all cars now use electronic throttle systems.

Yet, unintended acceleration complaints were reduced dramatically.

Another point of proof, that ETC systems are at least as safe, if not more safe, than mechanical throttles!

Unintended Acceleration Round 3: NPR Does The Math

NPR posted a nice widget on their web site, here, where you can check the statistics on unintended acceleration complaints.  Most importantly, the data is normalized, so you can see which carmakers are having more complaints than their market share and which are getting less.   

Here is a snapshot for 2009. Notice that the worst three carmakers, in terms of complaints per 100,000 vehicles, are Toytoa, VW, and BMW.  Also notice that VW/Audi is more over-represented even than Toyota is!

model year 2009

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration identified 251 complaints alleging sudden acceleration and related problems for vehicles in model year 2009. A breakdown by vehicle make follows.

Vehicle make	Complaints	Market share	Share of complaints	Sales	Complaints per 100,000 veh.
TOYOTA-LEXUS	133	16.7%	53.0%	1,773,609	7.5
VOLKSWAGEN-AUDI	34	2.8%	13.6%	295,778	11.5
FORD	17	15.3%	6.8%	1,620,949	1.1
BMW	14	2.3%	5.6%	241,711	5.8
HONDA-ACURA	14	10.9%	5.6%	1,151,309	1.2
GM	9	19.6%	3.6%	2,075,748	0.4
NISSAN	7	7.3%	2.8%	770,719	0.9
CHRYSLER	5	8.8%	2.0%	931,860	0.5
SUBARU	4	2.0%	1.6%	216,268	1.9
HYUNDAI	3	4.1%	1.2%	434,656	0.7
MAZDA	2	2.0%	0.8%	207,787	1.0
VOLVO	1	0.6%	0.4%	61,488	1.6
KIA	1	2.8%	0.4%	300,019	0.3