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Woz advises Toyota to reboot
THE OTHER FOUNDER of Apple, Steve Wozniak has told Toyota that the best way to deal with its unintended acceleration problem is it switch it off and then switch it back on again.
This sterling piece of advice works for most Apple and PC users when something goes wrong, and apparently it also worked a treat for Woz's Toyota Prius, he told the RSA security conference in San Francisco.
Woz said that everything today has a computer in it, so everything will fail. Woz said he was able to induce the unintended acceleration problem with the cruise control feature and used the brake to slow down his car. Sheesh, who would have thought that touching the brake would slow the car down?
Wozniak is convinced that that Toyota has a software problem, a kind of "little failure" familiar to those who work with computers, even Apples.
However Wozniak said that he believes Toyota vehicles are safe, and he will continue to buy them.
More than 8 million Toyota cars have been recalled due to what the outfit calls sticky accelerators, although it denies that it is an electronic or software problem.
More than 60 Toyota owners who had their vehicles fixed by the company complained that their cars continue to exhibit the unintended acceleration problem. µ
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Will someone please tell this idiot to stick to dumbed-down technology and shut up about cars, something he knows nothing about?
Most accidents are user-error. FACT.
Toyota has repeatedly "under-addressed" this issue, using cut-rate methods like replacing floor mats and installing little metal shims, while noble corporate servants are congratulated for saving the honourable company money (except for the little issues of law suits by injured customers and lost sales revenue...).
Perhaps the next recall will result in installing giant RED MUSHROOM BUTTONS on the dash boards, along with a sign the reads PRESS FOR EMERGENCY STOP. This could even be installed in new vehicles, as I am sure that this is a selling feature that could really distinguish Toyota from their competitors.
(please insert additional comments about nifty "ejection seat" features after this comment).
the reboot philosophy was a "Windows only".
Shame on you Woz.
Woz, is slowly changing his story. First he had specific claims about the way the cruise worked and that he could repeat it. Now he is just saying any computer can crash. Maybe he is setting us up for that ANY personal laptop computer can catch on FIRE if theft unattended. He did not know how to operate the cruise control properly before but now he was shown so his story changed as well.
Our city busses have to restart when the rear doors get jammed.
I ran out of fuel once in the late-90's, and predictably that turned the engine off. What it also turned off as a consequence were the servo assist on the brakes, and the power steering.
Of course you don't realise that initially. The first roundabout I encountered with the engine off was an interesting experience to say the least!
I also learnt that with diesel cars, sometimes the fuel gauge didn't always show the real state of play ;)
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On the subject of rebooting; my Merc had an episode of creeping electronic paralysis. So I did the ITcrowd approved "turn it off and turn it on again"; it just made things a lot worse. It rendered something that was barely working into something that didn't work at all.
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As for accelerator stuck... My mother had a car fitted with an early electronic fuel injection system. It had a tendency to continue runing even after it had been turned off. It also had a lovely tendency to latch the accelerator full on for no reason. Even if you took the key out it might carry on for a few minutes on the red-line, until you could knock it out.
The solution to a runaway is to stall the engine if you can. If you're in first and accelerating hard, stick it into fifth and release the clutch sharply. Most times that'll knock it out.
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Also as a side note: The recall doesn't affect purely Toyota cars, it also affects some cars built as joint ventures. The Peugeot 107 is also part of this recall.
Some have suggested that the issue is that the codebase for the firmware in the ECM computer is bedraggled and old, having been patched year after year after year to add new features for each model, and that some rare combinations of events coincide and cause a latent defect to rise to the surface.
In this sense "reboot" can have a broader meaning: trash your old codebase and start over from scratch.
It's kinda like "bit rot" or "feature rot" in PC applications - company has a succesful but simple product. Marketing and competition causes new features to be added. New features interact in complicated ways with the actual core product and cause undesired crashes.
Internal to the company that sells the product, there's the old-line codewriters who don't want to start over, they have maybe hundreds of man-years of software engineering in the product and it's a gravy train if they keep it. Get rid of the old codebase and who knows what might happen.
... will work just fine if you just turn it back one notch, not all the way into steering wheel lock. "High milers" do this all the time to save gas.
While the car is moving you don't need power steering, and on modern cars the brake booster will keep going quite a while with the engine off. At least it does on my Peugeot.
But I'm still struggling to explain how turning the key off isn't an absolute "fix" for a runaway.
Loss of steering (wheel lock)?
Loss of braking assist?
Aim at brick wall, turn off key....
Loss of steering would be if you were an idiot and turned it to lock.
The bigger issue (I can see) is the push button start cars (ie/ no mechanical key switch). I don't have one, as I understand, some logic (sw) is applied to the press of the button, so if that sw failed or is failed by design, then you'd be stuck. I am not sure, however, how many runaway's were push button (if any...)
The people impacted by these issues are casualties of our quest for the self driving automobile.
same thing happened with my toyota sienna van's cruise control. i engaged it and it went off. the laser sensor suppose to detect the car in front of me but it keeps on going. i cancelled the cruise control and it stopped accelerating. it happened once. i thought not turning on the cruise control again anytime soon. i used it many times after that and its working (finger crossed). my next car? i think i will stick with a european's on my next car change cycle.
cruise control, if you have it, is usually cancelled automatically when you touch the brakes or change gear (in a manual).
The Audi problems in the 80s were almost certainly stomping on the accelerator while swearing blind it was the brake..
Not much can be done about that, apart from natural selection...
Toyota wouldn't be so apologetic if it were just a matter of user stupidity. They would be polite, but not so apologetic.
Best bet with a stuck accelerator is to put it in neutral, ignore the noise, stop safely with the brakes, and then turn the engine off.
But I'm still struggling to explain how turning the key off isn't an absolute "fix" for a runaway.
Loss of steering (wheel lock)?
Loss of braking assist?
Aim at brick wall, turn off key....
"They will milk this for years, especially GM and all the various US car manufacturers"
And the majority of the world will laugh even more. For example, the top company in terms of malfunction, bad engineering and deaths due to that is - shock - Ford (US).
Almost every manufacturer had problems, but evidence shows that serious (mortal in some cases) problems were on US side. And that's from US track keeping arcives ;)
Just LOLx2
:)
by stomping FULL on brakes (supposedly verified with a Corvette and some other model), HOWEVER, it is possible to over-heat brakes by using them to keep speed down while considering the matter, which is what I suspect happened IF any of these stories are true. -- But since Toyota apparently lied about floor mat and mechanical causes when these are actually "fly-by-wire" controls, HMM.
But I'm still struggling to explain how turning the key off isn't an absolute "fix" for a runaway. And I conclude so far that drivers in those case are idiots.
Remember this alleged problem with Audi? So now because of a few idiots AND/OR one bad design we're ALL stuck with stepping on the brake when shifting out of park, and the costs accumulate with every new car.
Every problem idiots have is used by idiot legislators and idiot bureaucrats to inflict yet more controls on us.
for all the US competition.
They will milk this for years, especially GM and all the various US car manufacturers that couldn't keep up and still dont have a cat in hells chance on the world market.They didn't like Toyota making them all look quite silly for years.Their revenge will be sweet(for them)
I will continue to Buy Toyota, I can see what's going on.
at 70MPH? Hmm, I don't want to be an early adopter.
My Yaris had no cruise control, no computer, no electronic accelerator and yet it did have the acceleration issue (because of the floor mat). So, how is one supposed to reboot it? By giving it the boot?