Woz Cites "Scary" Prius Acceleration Software Problem 749
theodp writes "Speaking at Discovery Forum 2010, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak went off topic and spoke about a 'very scary' problem with his 2010 Toyota Prius. 'I don't get upset and teed off at things in life, except computers that don't work right,' said Woz, who went on to explain he'd been trying to get through to Toyota and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration for three months, but could not get anyone to explore an alleged software-related acceleration problem. 'I have a new model that didn't get recalled,' Steve said. '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.' Toyota said it investigates all complaints. 'We're in the business of investigating complaints, assessing problems and finding remedies,' said Toyota's John Hanson. 'After man-years of exhaustive testing we have not found any evidence of an electronic [software] problem that would have led to unwanted acceleration.'"
We recently discussed other problems Toyota has had with electronic acceleration systems.
Re:Like Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
"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."
Jalopnik has been covering this... (Score:5, Informative)
However, they have been frontrunning this story and trying to lead the charge to push it up to the MSM.
Woz is Woz, he needs no introduction on
Note, in NTSB reports - many of these cars have had the brake pads TOTALLY burned through, indicating that once these cars took off on people, they COULD NOT stop. In the fatality cases, if the driver had forced the car into neutral (the linkage would have resisted, you would have needed to really muscle it) they could have saved themselves. Instead they rode the brake into an obstacle.
This is PR nightmare time for Toyota. It will make the Ford-Firestone debacle look like simple times.
Safely. noted this one on /. before: (Score:5, Informative)
woz said he could reproduce safely .. I bet it is the same isssue as : This poster op [slashdot.org]
"I can nudge my cruise control speed lever and my speed barely goes up, say from 80 to 81.I nudge at again and again, up to 83. Then I nudge it again and the car takes off, no speed limit. Nudging the cruise speed control lever down has no effect until I've done it about 10 times or more. By then my Prius is doing 97. It's scary because it's so wrong and so out of your normal control. I tested this over and over the night I observed it."
Re:A Public Service Announcement to AllToyota Driv (Score:3, Informative)
The vehicle was push button and pushing the button while driving doesn't do anything. Computer users may be inclined to hold the power button down for a few seconds but a computer illiterate person may not think of that. In the case of the push button start Lexus you have to hold the button down for like 3-5 seconds to force a shutdown while driving.
Also, the automatic is a weird looking gated one similiar to this http://pictures.topspeed.com/IMG/crop/200605/2006-lexus-is350-27_460x0w.jpg
There are two nutrals, one is clearly labeled and one is not. The problem is that the clearly labeled one is locked out while driving and the other one isn't clearly labeled... Combine that with a driver unfamiliar with his vehicle (this was a rental) and you have a recipe for disaster in a panic situation.
This topic has been thoroughly covered on the Internet.
Re:Safely. noted this one on /. before: (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the poster's name, that IS woz.
Re:Woz, you're an idiot (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuously_variable_transmission
"A continuously variable transmission (CVT) is a transmission which can change steplessly through an infinite number of effective gear ratios between maximum and minimum values. This contrasts with other mechanical transmissions that only allow a few different distinct gear ratios to be selected. The flexibility of a CVT allows the driving shaft to maintain a constant angular velocity over a range of output velocities."
It then goes on to note that a Prius actually has something a bit different, since it derives power from both the motor and the engine, and not from a single source.
Also, about Woz's thing... I wonder if it doesn't have more to do with impatience than run-away acceleration. The Prius's cruise control accelerates gradually when you increase the threshhold, it doesn't lurch forward and immediately try to attain the new speed. But I believe if you keep pressing it, the threshhold eventually gets high enough above the current speed that it uses a lower gear ratio and will accelerate more quickly to what the CC is now set at.
I know my VW Golf will eventually downshift and leap forward if you increase the cruise control faster than the car can accelerate in whatever it's current gear is. Since you may, by then, have set the CC to like 20mph above where you're currently at, it may indeed seem like a runaway car.
Re:Woz, you're an idiot (Score:3, Informative)
Doesn't sound like he's an idiot to me. [slashdot.org]
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:2, Informative)
Back in college, I worked outsourced tier-1 tech support for a major US computer manufacturer one summer. This was before long-distance telephone got so cheap that all that was shipped out to India. Actually, I didn't even last the whole summer it was so terrible a job. There are a few things to remember when calling tech support:
1)
The tier-1 people aren't going through those scripts just to frustrate you. They're doing it because they're required to do so and a supervisor could be listening in live or to the recorded call later. If you deviate from the procedure, you could lose your job. So, even if you know exactly what is wrong and exactly how to fix it, you HAVE TO go through the litany of "Is it plugged in?", "Now press the power button", etc.
2)
The companies that do outsourced tier-1 support are paid by... and therefore employees are evaluated by... the number of calls precessed per hour. They are NOT paid by whether or not the caller problem is resolved. If a caller hangs up in frustration, that counts as a processed call. If you can subtly goad the caller into swearing (Even a "hell" will do.) you can dump the call as abusive and count it as processed. If you spend half an hour actually troubleshooting and fixing the caller's problem, that's only ONE call processed in the time you're expected to process six. Escalating the caller to a tier-2 tech does NOT count as a processed call.
3)
The vast bulk of people who call tech support really ARE mouth-breathing idiots who don't understand that you have to plug everything in and turn the computer on for it to work.
Re:TERRIBLE ADVICE (Score:2, Informative)
Wrong, at least for Toyotas - See http://www.toyota.com/recall/pedal.html [toyota.com]
Note:
"If unable to put the vehicle in Neutral, turn the engine OFF. This will not cause loss of steering or braking control, but the power assist to these systems will be lost.
If the vehicle is equipped with an Engine Start/Stop button, firmly and steadily push the button for at least three seconds to turn off the engine. Do NOT tap the Engine Start/Stop button."
Problem and explanation discussed here before (Score:4, Informative)
Engine Limiters (Score:5, Informative)
Most modern cars have engine RPM limiters; throw it into neutral with a stuck throttle and it may sound like it's going to blow up but it'll be fine. In automatic transmissions, selecting low is really only a suggestion and most automatics will freely ignore a manually selected downshift if it leads to an over-rev condition.
The only way to over-rev most cars these days is have a standard transmission and miss a shift coming down.
My 1994 Chrysler New Yorker Had Similar Problem (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Floor mat, really? (Score:5, Interesting) [slashdot.org]
by SteveWoz (152247) writes: Alter Relationship on 2009-11-04 0:12 (#29973870)
My old 1994 Chrysler New Yorker had a similar problem with cruise control but it wasn't as acute as was Steve describes. If I was going up any small hill on a highway and I hit the cruise control speed up button once, twice, three times the car would try to accelerate a little and then rev up like mad and try to speed up by almost +10 miles per hour until it was going much faster than I intended, making me hold the coast button for a while unit it slows down or by turning off cruise control all together with the Off button or by a light tap on the breaks.
Oh and I'm not trying to play down the problem with Toyota's accelerator pedal recall or now this cruise control issue, there is a real issue there that needs to be addressed and it appears like there is some cover-up and a lack of accountability and openness about these problems from Toyota's reactions.
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:3, Informative)
Then you get the flipside: the online troubleshooting site is the only thing you can find under "contact." No way to get past the lack of an answer in the database to find a phone number, email address, or submission form.
Most online content providers do this. Google, Yahoo, ESPN, are a few I can think of off the top of my head. The closest you'll ever get is to luck into a "feedback" widget meant to collect impressions about their web design on a particular page. But those are likely linked to a database on a server they haven't logged into in years. It's semi-understandable in those cases. They provide content for nothing, so there's no profit margin in taking complaints, especially when 99% of all contacts will be spam or attempted denial-of-service attacks. Of course, broken content is a problem, so it costs them more to leave it broken than to fix it, but they still don't see the need to have a service organization to deal with it.
But when companies who sell expensive products they have presumably paid a lot of money to test do this, it's just business suicide.
Re:Jalopnik has been covering this... (Score:3, Informative)
I would have a tough time believing that they even overheated the pads, that would take a LOT of "unstoppable" acceleration.
I would guess that the Prius has inadequate brakes, counting on the regenerative system to take up the slack, which it would do if the car were operating correctly. In addition, as RPM approaches zero, the torque of an electric motor approaches the maximum, so the slower you got the car, the harder it would be to stop if the electric motor were convinced it needed to put out maximum power — which it would do if it were trying to accelerate. Of course, any responsible vehicle would permit the brake to take precedence, which is apparently not what happens here. It is not inconceivable that they actual problem has to do with the code regarding regenerative braking causing acceleration instead of deceleration, but now I'm just speculating wildly.
The responsible thing to do is to open up the source (to a limited set of parties, I guess) and do an open audit. But Toyota apparently has magical source code, because almost everyone but Nissan has licensed it for their hybrids, along with other elements of Toyota's design.
Overheating brakes is not all that hard. I've done it in a few vehicles and occasionally been amazed at how easy it was. Glazing typical composite pads is also quite simple. Now, I put DOT 5.1 fluid in all my vehicles, and always use full-metallic brake pads when they are available. These pads have slightly less stopping force than other pads, but are not at all susceptible to fade and produce less gases during abrasion, essentially eliminating the need (on the street) for grooved or drilled rotors, which I used to run on my 240SX with composite pads. They also carry more heat directly into the caliper's cylinder[s] via the piston, which is why I also upgrade the fluid. 5.1 is compatible with DOT3 or DOT4 in exactly the way that DOT5 fluid isn't; silicone fluid causes the remnants of DOT3/DOT4 fluid (and perhaps DOT5.1 as well) to pill and clog brake lines.
Re:Disconnect..... (Score:3, Informative)
You are so right.
I've worked in organizations that developed software, from small shops where the programmers talked to the customers directly, and huge organizations with several layers in between.
In the small shops, the programmers know what is wrong with the software they make. They know, because the users tell them. They phone in and say "X doesn't work", and the programmer just keeps asking questions until they can reproduce the problem. If they don't sort it out over the phone, one visits the other and the problem gets demonstrated, documented, and fixed.
In the large organizations, the programmers often don't even know what the software is supposed to do, much less how it fails to do it. I've literally seen developers ship software that was so broken it didn't even run. Often, the developers wouldn't hear about it, because the organization had an entire department dedicated to filtering bug reports. And this made sense, because most of the reports weren't for actual bugs in the software. But, in the end, a lot of users just stopped even filing the reports, convinced that they wouldn't be picked up, anyway.
The funny thing is that the latter organization actually delivered a more pleasant experience for both the developers and the users. Why? Well, let's just say that software developers aren't always known for their good people skills. Users aren't, either. The large organization, however, had (surprise, surprise) an entire department dedicated to sweet-talking the users, and an internal code to prevent stepping on the developers' toes. There were never bugs, there were only ever things that would be improved in the next release. And that's something that everybody can live with.
Re:My 1994 Chrysler New Yorker Had Similar Problem (Score:3, Informative)
What you were experiencing was the engine down shifting to try and accelerate to the speed you had told it to go to. When in the higher gear it couldn't accelerate fast enough so you kept hitting the button, so it was set to a much higher speed than you actually wanted. Then it changed gears and had the additional power and accelerated quickly towards its target speed.
Your problem was a user issue. The same problem still exists in cars today.
Car and Driver magazine test of Audi flawed (Score:3, Informative)
Some years ago, when the Audi 5000 (IIRC) was under fire for a similar problem, one of the car magazines (Car & Driver, IIRC) did a test where they compared the stopping distance from 60 mph at closed throttle (the normal case) to that at full throttle. They reported the stopping distances were identical -- the brakes were so much stronger than the engine that the engine's torque had no effect at all.
I used to own an Audi 5000 Turbo. Indeed, the brakes were much stronger than the engine. But if the check valve between the intake manifold and the brake booster failed, then you would have high pressure air where you needed sub-atmospheric air, resulting in an inability to operate the brakes.
This happened to me. If the engine had positive boost, you couldn't budge the brake petal.
So while the Car & Driver magazine was correct for a car in perfect shape, their test did not show what would happen with the combination of a worn check valve and a turbo engine.
Oh yeah - one day the cruse control made the car suddenly accelerate, and with a worn check valve I found myself in a runaway Audi with not brakes. Glad it had a on/off switch on the dashboard.