Toyota is recalling thousands of motor vehicles around the world to deal with certain problems, such as possible brake failures. The story was the lead item on the BBC TV news today, not surprisingly, given the large number of people who now drive Toyota cars. On one level, this issue is being billed as a terrible embarrassment for the Japanese company, but to an extent I find the comprehensive recall of the cars to be a pretty good example, in fact, of how private businesses with a huge brand-name investment have to act when their products have a problem. Can you imagine, say, a government department doing such a massive “recall” of a failed policy? With private business, the penalties for failure are bankruptcy. For government, the consequence of a mess is often more of the same, only with more lumps of taxpayers’ money. To put it more technically, there is little in the way of a negative feedback loop when governments are involved.
As an aside, and yes, I know this may seem a bit mean-spirited, but I cannot help reflect that the problems of the Prius cars add to what has been a terrible time for the Green/AGW alarmists. The Prius is very much the car that guilt-ridden, Greenie types like to drive. As the snows continue to fall, who wants to drive one of those machines right now? And in any event, they are just pig-ugly. Time to fire up the Aston Martin, Carruthers.
> Can you imagine, say, a government department doing such a massive “recall” of a failed policy?
The government can always spin them as the moral fault of the ruled. E.g. the latest financial crisis blamed at greed.
I am not sure about this, as I know people who bought it to save on gas. Whether this was a wise decision, given the (very limited) battery life is another matter.
Amen brother.
You could buy an Audi A3 instead.
It’s not just the shitty Prius, there were also problems with the Lexus brand – my boss wrote his off a few months ago after break failure.
Look, ‘unintended acceleration’ has been a low-level nagging problem ever since horse was first harnessed to cart.
(Yes, I know it’s the lowest form of wit, but I just couldn’t resist.)
The NHTSA website will show you a steady stream of such complaints, year in, year out, all brands, none really much better or much worse than any other. Every now and then, one of them bubbles to the surface – and we’re off to the races.
NHTSA has investigated UA incidents for decades, covering all makes, all models, and chasing the most fanciful theories that trail lawyers and ‘consumer advocates’ could dream up. And consistently, they find the same cause – ‘pedal misapplication’.
When one looks at the number of complaints vs the number of Toyotas on the road, it’s self-evident that this latest crisis is, statistically-speaking, indistinguishable from noise in the data.
The reason that the “problem” was so hard to pin down – is that there is no problem. This is a classic example of the Heisenberg principle at work – in investigating the alleged problem, Toyota’s engineers found some unlikely combination of circumstances in the construction of their accelerator pedal which might, if the moon were right and the light hits it just so, cause it to stick. They can’t tie what they found to any actual incident, in fact, they can’t learn anything from most of the actual incidents at all. But the Federal gummint is breathing down their necks, the Toyota-driving public has been whipped into a frenzy that’s perfect for endless, breathless media coverage, and they have to do something.
They saw what happened to Audi and the 4000. The company stood firm and insisted that the problem was ‘pedal misapplication’. 4 years later, NHTSA confirmed that they were right. But it took them 25 years to recover from the hit they took in the market.
“Nice, popular, non-union, no-bailout car company you got there. Be a shame if anything were to happen to it.”
If your car accelerates unexpectedly, and taking your foot off the gas pedal doesn’t help, you can either
a) depress the clutch and place the trasnmission in neutral, or
b) place the automatic transmission in neutral
and it will stop doing it. Immediately. These amazing tales of multi-mile, multi-minute drag races at enormous speeds and allegedly entirely out-of-control only confirm what I already suspect – these drivers haven’t the first idea how to handle any anomalous event. Just put it in neutral.
llater,
llamas
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/ Reliable as ever.
I almost forgot – 25 years ago, UA complaints were almost-entirely classified at problems from rest – put the car in gear from a standstill and it would take off unexpectedly. And almost-invariably, in cars with automatic transmission.
Those complaints have almost-entirely disappeared. It just doesn’t happen very much anymore.
For why?
Because Federal motor-vehicle standards now require a brake interlock on the automatic transmission shifter. You can’t shift into any drive gear from neutral unless your foot is on the brake. And the problem is solved – if you prevent people from inadvertently pressing the gas pedal when shifting, by forcing them to press the brake pedal when shifting – UA Goes Away. The tiny residuum of complaints of this type of UA are no doubt the result of that small but non-zero subset of drivers who still insist on driving an automatic with both feet.
Pedal misapplication. Always has been, always will be.
llater,
llamas
Sticking pedals my ass; I bet this turns out to be some damn electronic gizmo that’s gone haywire or was never programmed right in the first place.
The day they stopped putting an actual physical connection between my right foot and the throttle valve, was the day all this stuff started going badly wrong.
And Adolph, yes you could buy an Audi A3; but an S3 would be a lot more fun.
Andrew Duffin wrote:
‘The day they stopped putting an actual physical connection between my right foot and the throttle valve, was the day all this stuff started going badly wrong.’
An assertion for which you have precisely no evidence.
Nobody else can find any evidence for this assertion either, whether it be investigators from the government or from private industry. And they’ve been looking for decades for such a thing. Never have found it. Because it’s just not there.
This is, in fact, an entirely cultural assertion – it has nothing to do with physical reality.
The data actually says the exact reverse of what you assert – with the advent of more and more electronic engine control systems over the last 25 years, reported rates of UA have been going down – not up. So this stuff is not going badly wrong – it’s going ever-more-right. The largest single contributor to the decline in UA reports is probably the shift interlock. Remember? That’s the device that prevents the driver from making a mistake.
Electronic and fly-by-wire controls are actually instrinsically more safe than any primitive mechanical connection, because you can build in multiple layers of redundancy and fail-safe that are impossible or impractical in any mechsnical system. If a 1950’s-style throttle cable jams – you’re hosed. (And this was a common-enough problem in the days of throttle cables – ask Ford, who recalled some 7 million vehicles for this problem). But an electronic system, properly-designed (and they are) can compare the pedal input with the engine output, though multiple channels, and resolve any anomaly in the safest manner possible, using multiple decision paths.
I know you are comforted by the idea of some actual physical connection from your foot to the engine, as though such a device is absolutely immune to any failure and intrinsically more-safe than any other. But the data tells an exactly-opposite story. Throttle cables (and brake cables, and clutch cables) are what we used when we didn’t have anything better. Now we do.
llater,
llamas
What Llamas says sounds about right. I think what happens is people press the wrong pedal, then panic when the car starts moving and press it harder, thinking they’ve hit the brake. There’s also some principle whereby if you have to pick one of two choices in a hurry, you pick the wrong one more often than the right one.
Somewhat related, remember Chase Wier’s terror drive? No-one can find anything wrong with his car.
I had a souped up MGB (REALLY souped up!) when I was in my 20’s and used to push it all the time… I’ve not had a car over in Belfast since 1994 though so my familiarity with the electronic controls is strictly via rental cars for travel. So llamas, questions: I used to heal and toe for high performance driving, particularly doing hairpins with a double down with careful monitoring of revs for the shift point. Can you still do this with a modern system?
Are there two problems here or just one? Is “brake failure” being confused with “sticky accelerator pedals”, or are there two separate faults (or alleged faults)?
llamas:
I’m behind you all that way on this one. Pedal misapplication is unquestionably the explanation for the vast majority of “unintended acceleration” incidents. The only non-pedal-misapplication incidents that have been proven, to my knowledge, were the early 70s GM cars that, when the engine mounts failed, would allow the engine to torque over and pull the mechanical throttle linkage to the wide-open position. (Obviously not a failure mode that fly-by-wire throttles are susceptible to.)
Dale:
Heel-and-toe is still possible, and still just as much fun.
Mike:
Yes, two different problems have been reported with Toyotas. One is a problem with (I believe) the Prius’s regenerative braking system under conditions of very low adhesion (such as ice). Apparently, this is a problem that all the hybrids have, to some extent, and perhaps all electric cars. The other is an “unintended acceleration” situation, which I believe applies to other Toyota models. See llamas’s explanation (above) for what is probably going on with the “unintended acceleration.”
Re – heel-and-toe – I wouldn’t care to make a blanket statement, but mrs llamas Z4 has a fly-by-wire throttle and you can heel-and-toe that like a good’un.
But – once again – who cares? If you really want to go fast, you need a paddle shifters, which will shift you faster, with better control and response, than even the most accomplished stick-shifting driver ever can. Once again, the techniques of the 1940s are superseded by better technology.
llater,
llamas
Well, they are front-wheel drive (probably) so they’ll have better traction than an Aston.
I bet “Pedal misapplication” isn’t as big a problem with standards since, if you’re doing it correctly, when you’re trying to brake you will engage the clutch.
Get rid of automatics and make people learn how to drive.
(half joking… half not)
There were so many people talking about Toyota on Twitter that it was one of the top trending topics for a while – check out the video at http://www.joshrimer.com/super-bowl-itkillsme-toyota/ to see some of the more entertaining ones in a funny video. 🙂
As a Scot now resident in Southern California, I can testify that I am not at all unhappy to be driving a 2010 Prius – which has comfortable leg-room and head-room for 4 tall adults and *still* gets 48-50 mpUSg …
I get to watch those around me sneer at the aesthetics of the Prius while going to fill up their tanks more than once a week, and I now fill mine up about every 2 weeks …
Thw 2010 Prius braking problem is that, under somewhat unusual circumstances, when you start to brake, the regenerative (transmission-side) braking kicks in than back out and then the real (actual brake) braking starts less than am second later … it’s disconcerting the first few times, getting less so, quickly, as one realises that the style of driving that gets the 50+ mpUSg driving also means that one isn’t trying to be a decal on the rear of the car in front …
So – yes, I’ll take it in when the recall reaches me – and, until then, I will contentedly drive my 2010 Prius …
Let’s see … 50 mpUSg is about 62.5 mpg (Imperial gallon) … how many (driving cars which can comfortably hold driver plus 3 adult passengers) on here get anywhere near that fuel efficiency ? (grin)
“The Prius is very much the car that guilt-ridden, Greenie types like to drive.”
Two years ago, Iowahawk tagged along with two friends to a Hollywood party.
The party was at the former estate of Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA star who claimed to have shagged 20,000 women. Sadly, the purple-fur waterbed sex room was gone.
Amenities were appropriately lavish. For instance, cars were parked by the Valet Girls, who are hot.
Iowahawk’s friends were driving a Mercedes-Benz.
“First non-Prius of the night,” remarked their Valet Girl. Iowahawk
llamas:
Do the paddle-shift systems even blip the throttle for you on downshifts? What a bore! It sounds like the difference between playing a real guitar and playing Xbox Rock Band. (And, yes, I’m an old fart who races a vintage car.)
When the 2010 Prius 1 (the no frills version) became available, I bought one. I used a spreadsheet to calculate that it was in our economic best interest. That calculation necessarily involved estimates of future gasoline costs, as relates to estimated annual driving distances, etc. Now it must be admitted that spreadsheet analysis of such scenarios is notoriously difficult to do well, but I fancy that performed a reasonable sensitivity analysis, that being the main thing that spreadsheets are good for. What I found in my particular case was that there was a surprising insensitivity of the results to the vagaries of future rates of inflation. The result was that it was barely, and I emphasize barely, economic to make the purchase, as compared to our other choices. Which is a longwinded way of respectfully saying that not all Prius purchases are based on baseless greenie wishfulness. Oh yes, and we live where it never snows, and where a sportscar is really wasted on the crowded local roads… Oahu, Hawaii.
Worth mentioning that the throttle mechanism for Toyota cars in US is supplied by CTC Corp based in Indiana.
Interesting brake-scepticism-fodder in the comments here. As to Johnathan’s original point, one other thought. Although Schadenfreude is of course one of life’s harmless pleasures, a failure in technology really does subtract value from the market, and it would go against my grain to cheer it even if I thought the Greens were ninety-nine percent rather than sixty-six percent wrong.
If Bollocks Bill from Notting Hill wishes to combat the greenhouse effect, it is much better for both him and you if he gets used to doing so by getting Toyota to flog him a Prius, than by getting Big Sulky Gordon or Slithy Dave to twoc your Aston Martin.
There are several different problems with different types of car that Toyota makes – this indicates a general problem in quality control.
The grandson of the founder of the firm has now taken charge – and I wish him well.
There was a similar position in Ford where J. Nasser (the darling of the corporate world at the time) thought that the auto business was about buying as many other companies as possible, not about making sure the cars you made were made as well as possible.
So it was not just the U.A.W. and the government who were undermining Ford – it was the head of the company also (with his spend-spend-spend policy and his neglect of basic production quality).
By the time the grandson (or was it the great grandson) of the founder of Ford took charge the position was thought to be hopeless – but he has managed to drag the company back (although the continued existence of “Government Motors” with its endless subsidies is a threat to Ford in that the UAW can say “we do not have to give way – the government will bail us out just as they did with GM).
I hope that the grandson of the founder of Toyota also manages to restore the pride in quality of work for which Toyota used to be so famous.
Myno, did battery life come into the calculation – or is it no longer an issue?
Paul Marks wrote:
“There are several different problems with different types of car that Toyota makes – this indicates a general problem in quality control.”
Well, there are several alleged different problems with different types of car that Toyota makes. This may indicate a ‘general problem in quality control’, or it may not.
I refuse to believe that Toyota took its 50-year reputation for astonishingly-good quality control and simply threw it out the window. It makes no sense. They make a premium product that people will pay full list price for, and can sell every one they make. Why would they kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
I think it’s every bit as likely that what we are seeing are new reports of alleged problems which are solely the result of the wall-to-wall coverage of the previous alleged problems. Yeah, those Toyotas don’t stop worth a damn (already received knoweldge that is simply assumed to be true) and mine don’t steer too good either! The complaint is that the cars in question may ‘wander’ when driving on the highway – and the only possible explanation for that is – a vehicle defect! It’s obvious! It couldn’t possibly be my driving! Who, me – the voter? A government agency needs to force Toyota to make my car drive better!
The alleged defect in the Prius braking system is similarly ludicrous – the complaint is that the integrated braking may not work ‘continuously’ when in ABS mode on slippery surfaces. Not working continuously is the very definition of how ABS works. Toyota is adamant that the braking systems work just fine, and that the real issue is a slightly different ‘feel’ as the system works, that some drivers find disconcerting. That opinion is echoed by Prius drivers posting here. I believe them.
I feel for Toyota. They are now in a no-win situation. I can’t help but suspect that they are being crucified for political reasons. I suspect that, at this point, if more than one person complained of the smell of the sir freshener in their Camry, the Feds would demand that Toyota institute and immediate recall for defects in the HVAC systems. What easier way to buy the votes of Toyota owners, at Toyota’s expense?
llater,
llamas
llamas: I’ll just point out this from today’s Telegraph:
“Up to 7,000 Toyota Prius drivers in Britain are to be offered a software upgrade to their cars following complaints over the braking system. ”
Yes, a software upgrade.
Nothing wrong with the brakes in terms of disks, pads, hydraulic lines, or a pump or two.
But a software failure is causing a safety problem.
This is the sort of thing I suspected. I don’t think I was entirely wrong, do you?
Andrew Duffin wrote:
‘But a software failure is causing a safety problem.
This is the sort of thing I suspected. I don’t think I was entirely wrong, do you?’
Not entirely – but mostly.
The software has not ‘failed’ and the upgrade is not a ‘repair’ to the software or the electronic systems, in the way that the term ‘repair’ is usually understood. The ‘failure’, if there is one, is not in the system or the way it works, but in the education and information of the user – a notoriously-challenging process, because, in the US at least, all you need to get a driver’s license is the ability to fog a mirror.
Toyota is adamant that the braking systems works as intended and is completely effective as a braking system. I believe them. Many, many Prius drivers, including at least one here, confirm what Toyota says.
The software upgrade changes the way that the response of the system feels to the user. It’s a customer perception issue – not a technical failing in any real sense.
The exact-same issues arose when ABS first became widely available. Customers complained because the system gives feedback through the brake pedal – it shakes and shudders, in part at least, to report that the system is working. Customers complained because it didn’t feel like they ‘thought’ it should. But it wasn’t a ‘failure.’
But still, every year, when the snow season comes around here, people have to be reminded that ABS works this way, and not to ‘pump’ their brakes on slippery surfaces. But there’s always a die-hard subset of drivers who learned that when they passed their test in ’53, harrumph, harrumph, and any car that doesn’t work just in the same way that the old DeSoto did must be ‘defective’.
We should also be alive to the fact that many of these reported incidents involve people who have had accidents or suffered property damage. I think that an element of blame shifting is at least as likely as the suggestion that Toyota doesn’t know how to design and build a braking system – or a gas pedal. You might want to revisist your a-priori assumption that the vehicles must be defective – there’s really no concrete evidence to link the reported incidents with any discoverable defect in the cars.
llater,
llamas
For what it’s worth, I want to reiterate that llamas is spot on, here. I’ve been following the auto industry for a bunch of decades now, and we’ve seen this movie before, lots of times. This is a media spasm built on the slimmest of possible actual facts. I’m not a particular fan of Toyotas (I find them pedestrian and uninteresting to drive, for the most part), but credit where it’s due: their quality control is the envy of the industry — any industry — and it hasn’t vanished overnight.
Tedd wrote:
‘Do the paddle-shift systems even blip the throttle for you on downshifts? What a bore! It sounds like the difference between playing a real guitar and playing Xbox Rock Band. (And, yes, I’m an old fart who races a vintage car.)’
If only it were that simple.
Paddle-shifters do much more than just ‘blip’ the throttle for downshifts – they measure the engine speed down the to the geartooth level. match the torque, work the clutch for you and slide the gears over based on tooth-by-tooth speed matching. They are designed and built to never miss a shift or grind a gear, and to get you from full throttle in one gear to full throttle in the next gear in the quickest and best way possible.
I’ve only driven one, a BMW. It’s eerie. It’s like there’s someone else in the car taking car of the shifting chores for you. You just press down on the loud pedal as hard as you think the situation warrants, and when you feel the need for a higher gear, you just press the ‘higher gear’ paddle and you get it, right now, no muss, no fuss. It’s up to you how well or ill you use it – the system simply gets you from the engine speed & gear combination you were at, to the combination you asked for.
Is it as much fun as the delicate dance of matching gas, brake, clutch and shifter? No, it is not. Does it get the job done better and faster? Yes, it does. That’s why the pros use them. Your mileage may vary.
llater,
llamas
Alisa wrote: “Myno, did battery life come into the calculation – or is it no longer an issue?”
Yes, it did. It was the reason that the long term result was “barely” in favor of the Prius in our case.
llamas:
For what it’s worth, I was kidding about the blip the throttle thing. I’ve understood how that kind of system works since a very detailed article about it was published in Racecar Engineering back in the early 90s. Incidentally, the systems actually only shift a few milliseconds faster than an F1 driver could shift an old-school H-pattern gearbox. The absence of missed shifts is probably more important than the time saved per shift.
That’s the nub of the issue, for me. I really can ‘t see the point, in a road-going car, of being concerned about “getting the job done better and faster” if it’s not also more fun. The pros have no choice but to use whatever technology the rules allow that enables them to lap faster. They’re not being paid to have fun. But wanting paddle shifters in your car on the street is Walter Mitty-ism, so far as I can see.
On the scale of technologies that take control away from the driver, paddle shifters are pretty low down. You might even argue that in a certain sense they give the driver more control. But throttles that cut out when you apply the brakes are pure evil. (How are you going to use power against brakes?) Traction control is nearly as bad. (It takes away a very simple means of changing the cornering balance at will.) Even anti-lock brakes, while being mostly positive, really ought to have some kind of over-ride for those situations where you need to lock the wheels. Those kinds of technologies frustrate me because, for someone who actually knows how to drive, they reduce both safety and pleasure.