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:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:5, Interesting)
The end result is you would end up with a lot of people who sound like they know what they're talking about being escalated and wasting the time of your skilled (and highly paid) engineers.
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:5, Interesting)
Most customer service centres seem to be manned by people that would fail the Turing test.
Last time I called Dell about a laptop that was completely dead, no power lights, no fans, they asked me what the error message on screen was and it took a few minutes to explain to them something as simple as the fact that I couldn't get an error message on screen because the laptop was dead.
It was probably one of the most epic examples of human idiocy I have ever encountered. The worst part is that I understand these people are given little flow charts, or on screen wizards, so he must've managed to click past the first box that checked whether the system even turned on or not and then been incapable of handling the idea that my response didn't fit his next question.
I don't even know why places like Dell even have customer services anymore really, they outsource because it's cheap, but the centres they outsource to are cheap because they're incompetent. They might as well drop the customer service lark altogether and save themselves even more, if I phoned Dell and got told by an automated message that customer service didn't exist anymore, it wouldn't have been any less helpful than the guy above that I did actually get through to.
Re:Like Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly, officer, it wasn't me! (Score:3, Interesting)
I got a speeding ticket last year while driving my mother-in-law's new Toyota Sienna for the first time. I was following a vehicle through a work-zone with the cruise control set at 50-mph (so I thought). The vehicle in front of me changed lanes and the van accelerated rapidly to 65-mph...right past a cop. I tried to explain to him that the van did it, but he didn't care.
I know now that the digital cruise control, in combination with the collision-avoidance "radar" in the Toyotas will regulate the vehicle speed, but what happens when the vehicle in front of you moves or accelerates is sometimes erratic behavior. Could this be related to what's happening? Is it user error?
Almost as frustrating as the article (Score:4, Interesting)
I can imagine that woz explained specifically what the problem is (and how to reproduce it), but the article doesn't mention any specifics. Now I have nothing empirical to form an opinion off of.
Thanks a lot modern news media!
Re:Woz, you're an idiot (Score:2, Interesting)
Toyota apparently indicated that they investigate all complaints, and that they haven't come up with any electronic acceleration problems.
Franky, this is just a case of "he said, she said" - it isn't news until Woz publishes a reproducible test case for his problems. Anything else is just a Toyota vs Woz popularity contest.
Re:But its the guy who can reproduce results! (Score:3, Interesting)
The car manufacturers checked and checked again. Found nothing.
But the Apple dude says there's something wrong!
I think I'll believe the computer guy, not the guys who actually designed, tested, certified and built the car.
If Woz can reproduce the problem, then I'll believe him.
Reproducing the problem is not the same as making the right diagnosis.
I am sure he can reproduce the problem.
I am not sure that his diagnosis of a computer system which he has not taken apart, and with which he hasn't tinkered, is right.
However, if he HAS tinkered with the Toyota's computer system - that would be a great diagnosis in itself, and perhaps a reason for the malfunction (apologies to Apple fans for blasphemy) and perhaps Toyota would blame him.
Frankly, it can be Woz, hell, it could be the entire Apple team - I don't see why toyota should treat him as anything but just a normal customer... unless the Prius runs on Apple software and hardware.
Re:Like Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, they patched the engine management software on my Subaru while it was in for an oil change. It apparently takes longer to do the patch than the oil change and vehicle inspection combined....
(Problem was, it would go into fast idle for a few seconds after declutching. So much for PZEV....)
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:4, Interesting)
I did the same thing at comcast before I left.
I embarassed an entire divisional Office. they were still talking about how to approach the problem and I produced a working prototype to the CTO in their meeting. He berated the other office of 8 that could not even get started on a project that I solved on my own in 1 week.
They still hate me to this day, and I've been gone for 4 years.
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:5, Interesting)
Next time you call support take a video, it might be the next "verizon math fail" with 30,000+ hits. [youtube.com] All that bad press over $71. [blogspot.com]
I had a problem with a Whirlpool wash machine. It was a few years old and the warranty expired, but I took a video of the problem and posted it on Youtube. Within a week and less than 50 views I had an email from someone claiming to be whirlpool [youtube.com] offering to help resolve the situation with a 800 number and extension attached.
I use to work tech support for a huge hosting provider (they're in the top 5). We'd get threats of lawsuits every day, but one time someone blogged about us and management had an all hands meeting, telling us to ignore lawsuits because those are easy to fight but if a customer threatens to blog about us to escalate to a manager immediately (usually we could only offer manager call backs... yes i know stupid).
People forget how powerful the internet is yet we see the effects of millions of
Re:Jalopnik has been covering this... (Score:1, Interesting)
Scuttlebutt is that Toyota never put in an override into the throttle software. In a case like the pedal sticking, pushing on the brakes should tell the system to ignore what the gas pedal is doing and stop trying to gun the engine. I doubt Toyota would ever admit that except under investigation.
This is from someone who works at a competitor, so take it for what it is, an unsubstantiated rumor. But it does explain how that experienced Highway Patrolman died in that Lexus, calling in and saying he had no more brakes as he collided in the intersection.
Re:This always made me wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:TERRIBLE ADVICE (Score:3, Interesting)
This whole "sudden acceleration" issue is a non-issue (or at least it should be a bug, but not a horrible death trap) if people just had functioning brains; as the parent said: "PUT THE DAMN CAR IN N and PRESS THE BREAKS (sic)" and all should come to a stop. I guess that too many cheeseburgers with super-sized fries have finally shown their effects in people's brains...
Isn't it bad enough that other cars on the roads can do unpredictable things on the road? Now you gotta be prepared for your car to go nuts too? Most of the time what you describe is what happens -- driver gets the car back in control. You don't hear much in the news about accidents that don't happen, though. Accidents do happen when a sufficient number of problems arise at once and exceed the driver's ability to cope with all of them in time. Some of those things are the your fault, some are the other guy's fault, some are your passengers', some are environmental, some just happenstance. Exceed the driver's ability to cope and you will occasionally get crashes. Put enough cars on the road and "occasionally" adds up. This has nothing to do with diet, excepting actually eating while driving of course.
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:2, Interesting)
The sad thing about office politics is that the people who are best at it often rise to the highest levels.
The trouble is inherent in the bureaucracy of big organizations. The company, government agency or whatever, is too big to be managed by one person, so the big boss has to rely on little bosses, and the little bosses who sound the best at meetings always win.
You, the little guy who hasn't risen to your level of incompetence cannot be caught making your little boss, or some other little boss on her way up, bad. They'll get even with you, and you'll never know how.
Re:TERRIBLE ADVICE (Score:3, Interesting)
I have heard the Toyota software will not allow you to shift into neutral if the throttle is too high. I have not been willing to test it on my Toyota, as I like my functional engine. Can anyone verify or debunk this information?
Re:Disconnect..... (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't blame the developer. I have been there and there is no way to know who is the quack and who is the knowledgeable amateur or pro. It does take time and resources. In some cases I have been in the situation where I was given the resources to chase down every issue, and that was fun. In other cases, unless something was about to blow up, we had to ignore it.
With Toyota this seems to be a subtle but persistent issue. I, personally, have had control cable issues on every Toyota I have owned, be is a stuck gas pedal, a stretched clutch cable, or sticky brake. I suspect Toyotas have fundamental, albeit extremely minor, design problems in that area that have been amplified by an electronics issue.
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:3, Interesting)
My point is you generally get what you pay for. That's the same with most goods. If you want to buy cheap, you'll usually get a cheaper product and poorer service. You will pay less for a Ford than an Acura, but you'll get better service with an Acura.
As for Macs being overpriced that's been debunked so many times. Macs are generally priced higher than other brands because they start at the middle of the market and go to the high end. They do not make low-cost models. Many times I've seen someone try to compare their DIY desktop and complain the MacPro costs an order magnitude higher. Of course it does. A MacPro is a professional workstation not a consumer desktop. If you compare it feature for feature to a Dell workstation, it's price competitive.
In terms of the desktop models, part of the equation is the form factor. It costs more to make something in a smaller form factor. Again people compare their Dell special of the week where they can get a desktop and monitor for a fraction of the cost of an iMac or Mac mini. Of course they can, it's not a fair comparison. Even when they compare Dell's all-in-one Studio they don't take into account that the Studio's largest screen size is 19" and they use Pentium Dual Core 2.6 GHz and has 2GB RAM while Apple's smallest iMac is 21.5" and uses an Intel Duo 3.0GHz with 4GB RAM. Adjusting the Studio to be comparable in specs makes it within $100 of the iMac.
Calling something overpriced because it has features that you don't want to pay for is sour grapes especially when you go a true comparison with a competitor and there's a small increase in price. You can complain that it's not as flexible or configurable.
Re:Typical Customer Service Department attitude (Score:3, Interesting)
Last time I called Dell about a laptop that was completely dead, no power lights, no fans, they asked me what the error message on screen was and it took a few minutes to explain to them something as simple as the fact that I couldn't get an error message on screen because the laptop was dead.
It was probably one of the most epic examples of human idiocy I have ever encountered. The worst part is that I understand these people are given little flow charts, or on screen wizards, so he must've managed to click past the first box that checked whether the system even turned on or not and then been incapable of handling the idea that my response didn't fit his next question.
I understand your pain, but it would be worthwhile to point out that the reason they ask questions the way they do is because the vast majority of their customers cannot distinguish between things like "Dead" and "Broken" and "Not working", etc.
The general populace is incompetent, inarticulate and cannot properly explain their own problems. Hence, customer service reps follow these flow charts and whatnot in order to diagnose the problem and they do not trust the customer to properly communicate that.
These reps are not necessarily stupid (well, they probably are), but in reality, they are treating you, the customer, like you have little to no knowledge no matter what you say. That isn't such a bad rule because most people who don't know anything think they know very much. This is commonly known as the Dunning-Kruger effect [wikipedia.org].
All of this makes them look stupid, you feel stupid (or superior, depending on your defense mechanism), and everything else a great big waste of time.
Re:Woz, you're an idiot (Score:3, Interesting)
You have absolutely no idea how a Prius drivetrain works, do you?
Here are a few hints: First, the Prius doesn't have anything resembling a normal automatic transmission. Second, it has to be computerized because there's no easy mechanical way to implement the algorithm that decides how much power needs to come from the gasoline engine and how much of it needs to come from the electric motor. Third, even normal transmissions are computerized these days (e.g. anything with "Tiptronic" or paddle shifters).
Re:Mostly an american problem! (Score:2, Interesting)