refuse to accept a very logical, scientific explanation for a symptom that NO ONE has been able to reproduce in a real-world environment.
Your belief in our scientific prowess is surely optimistic, considering the centuries and millenium when scientists looked at phenomena and could not put the dots together as to what was going on. How long was it that scientists didn't realize the true cause of disease, or that there was a Milky Way and other galaxies? I'd guess that if you asked people from any of the generations I'm referring to, you would see the typical human-nature that "our scientists are vrilliant and now can solve anything". I don't buy it, anymore than I now buy the scientific data and stories from 2002 - of WMD in Iraq. Could we have some of the same government "experts/scientists" (just an example of how even a large body of our best minds get something VERY wrong).
Anyway let's go with our "better scientists" having reached the correct conclusion. How many NASA scientists worked on this? full-time? How many different scenarios of the almost infinite number did they run? 100? 1000? I'd like to know the details, not just the 1-page glossy story with the headline.
I don't believe the electronics and software in vehicles works any better than those in my HP PC, or in the Allen Bradley PLC and ladder-logic systems in the factory I work in. Stuff happens everyday that are unexplainable "glitches" - lost communication, temporary sensor failure. We have equipment in our factory that we've had for 10 years, it runs fine typically, but every few weeks it has an issue.
There's a reason that there are several million people in the global economy who do IT hardware and software support; not new design; just fixing the problems of the current designs.
So believe what government experts you want, and the headlines you're given. Believe in Al Gore's and the other biased scientific organizations' Global Warming crap, if you want. I'll side with Colin Powell now - and be a little skeptical, knowing that people WERE and ARE very fallible.
I maintain that the problem IS electronic based and that Toyota & NASA have not found anything conclusive. What this means is that the problem is not yet solved.
That's really nothing more than a conjecture on your part. You seem to have already made your mind up as to the cause, and if investigations - no matter how many and how thorough fail to find the explanation your are looking for, well then they just didn't dig deep enough.
Stuff happens everyday that are unexplainable "glitches" - lost communication, temporary sensor failure. We have equipment in our factory that we've had for 10 years, it runs fine typically, but every few weeks it has an issue
So why haven't you been able to find the problem :P ?
Bet I know. Because a decision was made that the factory can just live with those glitches rather than spend the time and money on a detailed investigation to find and correct the root cause.
I bet things would be different if those glitches led to injury, loss of life, or a plant fire.
I can't seem to find any details of HOW they got to the result, but I haven't found a link to any detailed explanation of their methods. Did they do detailed code reviews (the mars probe crash was due to one line, and NASAs methods said they don't review changes unless they are 3 lines)? Did they trace the entire signal path or paths through both hardware or software? Did they create regression tests for every one of the code routines and verify they didn't crash?
Do I trust scientific methodology? Yes. Do I trust NASA when/if it says "trust us, we did everything right", No, and they have more than enough of a record that I would like verification, or at least an audit trail of precisely what they did.
Scientific results publish the raw data and the methodology used to come to the conclusion and/or sufficient detail that any other scientist can reproduce the result.
They said they "looked" but didn't find. NASA may have a bunch of PhDs, but maybe they should find some of the FBI's forensic hackers. Maybe "looked" was printing it out and glancing at each page. Maybe it was something more detailed. I don't know but would like to.
I also believe in "trust but verify". With the hundreds of millions of autos in the world today, and the ever increasing amount of electronics and computers used in them, and computer glitches that we are all aware of....it is a testament to how good a job auto manufacturers have actually done. Their track record is pretty darn good.
A cable cannot fail in such a way that it will cause UA.
I don't know that you can say that - cables can get hung up in all sorts of ways. Throttles used to jam in the old days; seems like they jammed at WOT too.
Global Warming has excellent science behind it, but a rather poor presentation of the facts for the unscientific. UA suffers rather the same fate.
Science has to rely on evidence, constantly built up, refined, re-interpreted.
The reason our ancestors could not place disease with germs is not for a lack of evidence (you live near mosquito-infested ponds, you die) but for the wrong interpretation of what was right in front of them. They called it mal-aria (bad air).
Same with global warming---someone looks outside his window and see freezing sleet and says "it can't be getting warmer", but in the Arctic, which traditionally offers the "Arctic Barrier" to keep cold air from heading south---this barrier seems to be deteriorating.
Again, the evidence is there, but the interpretation is wrong.
In the case of UA, science can only rely on what is falsifiable. They cannot "disprove" an anecdote from someone delivered second-hand after the fact, unless they could actually video the person's foot on the pedal---quite unlikely.
So the scientists looked at the various theories for UA and found them all falsifiable except one.
Science doesn't know everything, certainly, but a car is something science itself *built* -- this is not an unknown entity in the universe, like "dark matter".
You are 100% right. I have posted my experience some time ago that included 6 incidents of SUA's in a 2000 Lexus LS400. Three occurred in 2004 and three in 2006. I was able to recover by shifting into neutral after which, in my case, the car returned to normal. Lexus would not give me any kind of deal in trying to trade it in so I hung on to it until the last incident scared me so bad that I traded it in on a minimal deal. I researched the problem and found one case where a driver experiencing an SUA drove the Toyota into a dealer while the engine was going full throttle (alternating between neutral and in gear) and the tech looked at it and commented it wasn't causes by the carpet and turned the car off because it was revving so high. How do the experts from NASA explain that. I also am an electrical engineer that has had close to 20 years in trouble shooting intermittents in the disk drive and computer industry. Unless you have instrumented your testing by hooking up sensors that, for instance, look for simultaneous accelerator pedal depression, throttle position, and braking you will not see something you are not looking for especially when the failure rate is so low. If the computer chip glitches like in a freeze state that everyone has experienced it will not log anything while in that state and "guess what" they didn't see anything. I chased an intermittent on the Univac 1107 drum for 8 months before finding the problem. It turned out that the drum was temperature sensitive and would error when the air-conditioning came on. In this case parity error checking let us know we had a failure. Toyota doesn't event know and the time it would take to troubleshoot a low probability event (say 1 occurance in 10000hrs)would be time and cost prohibitive. My final comment. SUA's do occur. I will gladly take a lie detector test stating so. Will Toyota take one denying it.
It ain't over yet. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/nation-world/s_722017.html NASA won't put stamp on Toyota acceleration report - excerpt But in its report, NASA said it is "not realistic" to try to prove Toyota's ETC does not cause unintended acceleration. The report notes that a lack of evidence linking ETC to runaway cars "does not vindicate" Toyota's system.
NASA engineers evaluated the electronic circuitry in Toyota vehicles and analyzed more than 280,000 lines of software code for any potential flaws that could initiate an unintended acceleration incident, DOT says.
Electronic glitches, such as those involving software and electromagnetic interference, or EMI, can be difficult to duplicate, engineering experts say. EMI describes what happens when electrical signals -- from sources as diverse as cell phones, airport radar, even a car's own systems -- wreak havoc with vehicles' electronic controls.
"There are possible electromechanical failures that leave behind no trace and therefore cannot be ascertained after the fact with any certainty," said Mukul Verma, a former top safety expert for General Motors. Keith Armstrong, a United Kingdom-based EMI and safety design consultant who has testified against automakers in unintended acceleration cases, questions the thoroughness of NASA's report. He said problems including intermittent cable connections or incorrectly torqued-up ground connections are among the problems that could have been missed.
NASA likely was strapped as well by lack of trouble codes as was Prof. Gilbert who did show with his shorting test (although not possible cause) that if there was a computer glitch there would not be a diagnostic code to say there was. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/dr-gilbert-explains-his-research-into-toyota-el- ectronics/ Key quote: ”What I have done is, I have shown that in the fault detection strategy of the Toyota systems, there is a window of opportunity where [an error] could occur and not be detected.”
I don't know that you can say that - cables can get hung up in all sorts of ways. Throttles used to jam in the old days; seems like they jammed at WOT too.
Yes, that was in the 1960s and 70s. Any modern system gives you plenty of warning and feedback that there is a potential wear problem. And if it does break, the return spring will close the throttle plate. You never hear about it happening any more because it simply doesn't. Even potentiometers are fairly safe (GM uses them) - and while they do have to be replaced fairly often, they still are a simple device that is easy and well understood how to monitor and deal with if it breaks. The easy way is to throw an error if the throttle connection goes dead or if it ever gets to 100%. Maximum throttle would be limited to 90% of the potentiometer's travel so that any UA condition would be easy to spot. Getting stuck in the middle might happen, but it's always a gradual problem with them.
Compare that to a magnetic or optical sensor attached to a computer. This is exactly what your mouse uses. And it's not 100% reliable for most people - they glitch and have issues and if it decides to start doing something odd, you have to hit the reset button on it.*
*Yes, mine has a reset button, but because it's a software-controlled "switch", I have to physically yank the batteries most of the time.
My "solution" to any modern vehicle with a button or key fob for an ignition system would be to hard-wire a toggle switch to the dash that runs solely between the battery and the positive lead on the main computer. It also makes for a good anti-theft device.
It'll never "be over", but it is actually over I think.
And besides, even if there was a "one in a bazillion" chance of something like this happening, the percentage of risk is so low that it is quite acceptable in modern manufacturing techniques.
You cannot demand that a product be technically perfect. That is not humanely possible.
Attempting to eliminate all risk from human existence is a fruitless endeavor.
If driving a Toyota is statistically less risky than opening your refrigerator (door gets stuck, fridge falls on you as you tug) then that's more than one could ask of a car IMO.
True, when YOU are the casualty, the casualty rate is 100%, but given the man-miles driven in these cars, I'd be more worried about a shark attack than UA.
As others have already pointed out, you have some flaws in your explanation of history, or at least, some critically important omissions.
However, at the end of the day, NASA and every other researcher that has examined the issue of Toyota UA has been unable to reproduce a single case in its testing.
IMO...Once you, or any other person, lab or entity can do so, you are welcome to come back and tout your superiority in understanding science and technology.
I suspect we will be waiting quite a while for that to happen.
Is UA possible? Yes, of course it is. But possibility NEVER equals occurence.
I have read much on SUA on numerous forums. FWIW, I am not convinced there is not a potential issue.
But I would like to put a question to those of you who are inclined to be on the ney side of the fence.
In event of an SUA, do you feel so confident in trusting owning one of these Toyotas, because of the confidence you have in your own ability and your plan (that even in an unannounced emergency) would be to ultimately rely on slipping it into neutral if an SUA surfaced? Or... are you so sure that there is no such thing as SUA and you would prove it by owning that same Toyota with 2 nonnegotiable stipulations, that your gear shift lever was to be padlocked out of any neutral ability once under way, and that your key or pushbutton start button was deactivated? (you couldn't turn the car off unless you were stopped).
Simple question, give it some serious thought within the parameters that I stipulated. I'd be willing to bet that, if honesty is front and centre here, we lose a few ney sayers right here and now. I know that would be the deal-breaker for me if i was slipping myself in behind the wheel> And to keep the question simple, I haven't even factored in including your wife or son or daughter behind the wheel.
Remember, for the purposes of this question, neutral is locked out and not an option, nor is being able to turn the engine off.
Your fellow host and physics doctorate (I believe?) - Tidester, never thought much of the science of GW. I'll take his opinion, no offense.
But the fact is that science like archeology is only as good as "where you dig". I don't know what sort of effort NASA or any other testing organization put forth; all I see is a headline. If NASA did a small sampling and SOME testing and declared "No problems found", it may have been as thorough as digging some random holes in the desert in Egypt and declaring there are no lost-cities or pyramids to be found! They would be correct that - they found no problems; but not correct in stating - that there is no problem. Unless NASA wants to come out with the details of how their testing is representative of all the Toyota vehicles made, and the different operating factors and sequences they tested. I bet you'd find so many things they didn't test for, it could fill a book.
Science would say that if UA is just a human-issue, then Probability says that each brand should have an equal percentage of people reporting the problem. Is that true? Are all brands having the same rate of reports?
The science of climate change is pretty darn solid. What is not certain is the cause of it. Natural cycle? Man-made? Jury is still out.
Anyway, I have yet to see any credible refutation to the measurements shown that the earth is getting hotter *globally* (this is not about local weather). Most counter-arguments are not from qualified sources, even if they are intelligent people otherwise, and some are merely contrarian displays.
Besides, I feel certain that in a few years climate change will be so readily apparent that it will no longer be in dispute.
More to the topic: You do, however, bring up a very good point---wouldn't UA be the same for all vehicles if human error were the cause?
Answer? probably not.
Why not? Because of the ergonomic variety among different cars. Pedal placement, type of transmissions, etc.
But UA *does* happen to all kinds of cars. We can see these incidents sprinkled throughout the Edmunds Forums.
Because a decision was made that the factory can just live with those glitches rather than spend the time and money on a detailed investigation to find and correct the root cause.
"Glitches" or errors can occur in an otherwise perfectly operating system. There are problems that go undetected in the design - even after the years of testing in Alpha and Beta stages, software vendors like MS, still find errors and have to issue patches for years. Even after hundreds of thousands of hours of scrubbing out intermittent problems, there are still issues with a lot of software we use. The more complicated the software the more errors are likely there.
But to some specific problems I've seen with sensors, that have otherwise been working fine and no problem is expected - 1) machine vibration eventually loosens a screw, allowing the sensor to move out of alignment. 2) a piece of fuzz or dust lands on an optical sensor knocking it out, 3) power-failure or surge causing a processor to need to reboot. I'm sure everyone here has stories of other electronic devices that stop functioning for a bit and need to be banged or rebooted. Chaos rules.
If I were designing a vehicle and I wanted to provide the public with a way to shutdown the engine, it certainly wouldn't be a complicated electronic device/scheme. How about a valve with a handle, that you turn - just like the valve at your sink - that shuts off the gasoline. What a breakthrough on how to stop an engine! Shutoff the gas with a valve, the old mechanical way! And they even make "normally closed" spring-loaded actuated valves that could go in the gas-line, if you just want to have a button on the dash.
But adding a relatively inexpensive, simple, SEPARATE, failsafe brake over-ride is the most obvious easy answer to put the public's mind at ease. Use the brake light switch and throttle closed sensor to trigger a relay that opens the injector circuit if the throttle plate doesn't return to the idle position within "n" seconds.
Relying on the already "suspect" engine/transaxle controlling ECU's firmware for this addition SAFETY task is nothing but shear IDIOCY.
Yes, the new "stuff" might also fail but both systems failing simultaneously would be close to impossible.
In event of an SUA, do you feel so confident in trusting owning one of these Toyotas, because of the confidence you have in your own ability and your plan (that even in an unannounced emergency) would be to ultimately rely on slipping it into neutral if an SUA surfaced? Or... are you so sure that there is no such thing as SUA and you would prove it by owning that same Toyota with 2 nonnegotiable stipulations, that your gear shift lever was to be padlocked out of any neutral ability once under way, and that your key or pushbutton start button was deactivated? (you couldn't turn the car off unless you were stopped).
It seems you're "straying" a bit.
I own a Toyota Tacoma (09), so I DO drive a suspect vehicle...daily.
But, I would never be comfortable in ANY vehicle that didn't provide me with methods to terminate a UA event.... which the Tacoma has, as you described in your comment.
So, to answer your question, I believe there should always be a human factor involved in the control of a vehicle, at least until we have developed artificial intelligence to the point it can act faster, and with better judgment, than a human, as well as virtually fool-proof backup systems... remember, though, it would never be 100%... just really close to it.
And, in ways, we already do that. If your airbag deploys in an accident, you aren't asked if its ok to do so, for the obvious reasons.
A car could be built today with such systems, but it would be far, FAR too expensive to purchase, maintain and operate.
I think that for the purposes of my question to find out who is really willing to put their potential life (and others) where their mouth is, that it's a reasonable scenario. Given those two parameters, do they trust the brakes? Yup, I do, you do, millions do everyday. But now factor in a powerful (in some instances, very powerful) positive force working against your ability to brake and not being able to do anything else to stop it (save running out of gas) and all of a sudden a forward thinking person has to re-evaluate their confidence.
BTW, have been curious about this but can't figure it out for sure. I suspect you have a late 60's early 70's diesel Mercedes 200 or so? Obviously a fintail of some sort, but is it of that era? And a diesel? My Aunt bought a brand new one in 67. A NA 4 cyl diesel. I remember the price, even tho I was a kid at the time. $5000. And my Uncle (not her husband) in the same year bought a Chev SS Impala?, two door hardtop. It was a very performance oriented car. Huge power, very fast, very valuable if you could find a clean example of one today. Gold with vinyl roof...very popular type decor back in those days. I think it was around 5300 bucks? My Aunt could never understand why he would want to pay more for his Chevy, than she did for her Benz, haha. She was not rich, just had always wanted to buy a MB. It fell prey to engine troubles (she lugged the poor thing terribly...10 mph in 4th gear sorta thing) and rust.
I wouldn't want to drive any car that couldn't be taken out of gear and couldn't be turned off - no matter the make.
But, I'd drive a modern Toyolex product without any freaking out about it getting away from me. I don't buy into this hyped scandal.
Yes, I have a fintail, but slightly earlier than the one in your family - mine is a FI 6cyl (gas of course). You are very correct in that they love to rust, and the engines can be lugged down by someone who doesn't know how to drive them - they were made to be revved. Not a lot of good ones left anymore.
Has anyone actually tested to see if neutral might be locked out via firmware if the engine is current producing a HIGH level of torque...?
Or even better, moreso, even if you move the shifter to neutral and all of the ECU electronics control works properly will the drum clutch gear teeth actually disenage under the torque level of a 200HP WOT runaway engine operating AGAINST FULL/HARD braking...?
Same can be said, questioned, about the PB start/stop, will the firmware actually stop the engine when the transmission is in gear and the engine is producing copious levels of torque...?
I see nothing in the test that indicates that they did more than look at the code and check for obvious electrical faults.
Here's a test - hit the thing with a stun gun and see how the car reacts while it's running with the computer now dead or scrambled due to a lightning strike. Pour water on the thing until it shorts out (maybe there is a windshield gasket issue?) Maybe turn the voltage up to 18v or higher to simulate a bad alternator?
It's important to also know how it behaves when the computer freezes.
Most devices like your TV, stereo, printer, and so on, tend to "hard crash" when they have an issue while doing a task. Nothing short of yanking the power will actually un-freeze it and reboot the various computers and sensors inside it. The simpler components that they use to monitor the sensors are also prone to blindly getting stuck instead of gracefully shutting down in the case of a worst-case scenario.
You'll note that not one UA event has occurred in a manual transmission vehicle. If it were simply human error, you'd expect a small number of these as well. I suspect that there's something with the transmission also being computer controlled with the automatic, because I know that Toyota still makes manuals with virtually nothing electronic inside them.
Well he probably knows because a) it's never happened to him b) it's never happened to anyone he knows and c) no one has ever been able to reliably replicate the incident.
Could the telephone pole on your street suddenly collapse and crush you? Yes.
Would you be reluctant to walk down your street? No, because you know the odds are infinitesimally small.
Same for me when I drive a Prius (and I do, sometimes).
PS: I've had a UA incident with my stickshift MINI---my hiking boot hit both pedals at once, and for an instant, I didn't realize that.
Well IMO climate change is not the same thing as global warming. Of course there is climate change. Always has been, always will be. It is the nature of the beast. Humans and their activities may have a tiny effect on the weather but for the most part we are at the mercy of Mother Nature.
Rainfall is just one component of weather, but I have always been told that the same amount of rainfall falls each day worldwide. Not in the same places, of course, but somewhere. I believe the same thing is true about temps. planet wide. If it is colder than normal in one place, it is hotter than normal somewhere else. North pole gets warmer, south pole gets colder.
World wide temp measurements are a joke and certainly cannot be trusted at this time. It has become a political issue.
BUT why is it in Avionics design all the engineers know its not a good idea to operate an RF generating device like a Cell Phone inside a vehicle that uses FLY-BY-WIRE technology to operate the controls. Why would not the same principles apply to a DRIVE-BY-WIRE vehicle like TOYOTA? And it makes sense the first automobile manufacturer to experience UA would naturally BE the company that is pushing the envelope in developing new technology? TOYOTA s/b proud they uncovered this train wreck of colliding technologies BUT why are they NOT sharing their findings with the rest of us, whey are they doing a cover up? Answer is gov't don't want to do another BAILOUT because no one would buy a car that you can't use a cell phone in- DUH
I got the impression it is a daily driver? Maybe even your primary car? Does it have A/C? Gas job eh? Those sixes were not that fuel efficient if I recall. Lots of go tho.
So to keep on topic...never had any SUA I would guess?
You see? Of course you want to be in control and I couldn't agree more. I guess I should have made it a 3 car choice. One a manual trans (that's my pick every time) The second, an auto but a, let's say 1970's technology time era. And the third, a modern day auto equipped Toyota (or pick your your poison) with ESC, ABS, TC, cruise etc etc etc.
But like I said in the "I like manuals because" forum, this entire topic is a non issue in a manual transmission car. There is NOT ONE documented case of SUA in a standard transmission equipped vehicle. Not one!
So this would suggest that, at least, some (all?) of these people were naturally predisposed to pushing in the clutch in order to regain control (which makes sense as they do that constantly in the normal operation of the transmission) Compared to auto drivers who don't really put it into neutral (as in neutral-only) very often, so they would lack that natural inclination in an emergency. Some drivers, however, are on top of things enough to do that. For example, anyone who has slipped an auto into neutral when sliding on ice up to a stop sign, likely has the wherewithal to think of neutral right away when faced with a SUA. And we know that some out there do. That guy that nursed his WOT Lexus into the dealership is just one. There must be others too, or there would be greater numbers of crash instances one would assume.
Do they represent the majority though? IMO, no way. Most would be on their cell phone and freak first.
Or....one can assume that the common denominator here is the auto tranny and the many electronic controls (or EMF if you will...electro magnetic force) at play as that tranny communicates with all the other numerous vehicle 'safety' systems like ABS, ESC, TC etc etc. When you have a computer with the ability to actually apply a braking force at one or more wheels without any proactive input of the driver's foot on the brake, that in itself would suggest that there is a LOT of electronic potential intervention at work here. Now factor in a PC crash, and, well...maybe that truly does give us SUA in some of these instances.
it's not a joke to me. It is visually demonstrable and the effects are dramatic. Huge changes are taking place. Islands are sinking, ice floes the size of Manhattan are breaking off into the ocean. Science should not be ridiculed, only questioned IMO.
It's being framed politically but that's one of those "only in America" stories. Remember, we are the country who ranks with Turkey and Latvia in the % of people who believe in evolution, and 20% of us apparently speak with the dead.
So why am I not surprised that we struggle with understanding how science does, and does not, operate in its methodology?
I think Americans want science and technology to be a religion, and are very disappointed when it cannot attain that level of certainty.
Would everyone who has EVER switched off the engine using the PB 3 second technique while underway with the engine at WOT and brakes fully applied please raise their right hand...?
Now, would everyone who has attempted to shift a PB start/stop equipped car into neutral under those same conditions please raise their left hand.
It's a hobby car now...it was my primary car when I was younger, I bought it when I was 18, and still have it. No AC, few had it, always dealer installed.
It'll move along if you push it, and 100 is attainable if you have enough road and time. In normal highway driving it gets around 20-22 (US) mpg, not terrible for its age. And it's an automatic, which I don't mind - I don't care for column shift manuals.
It's had unintended deceleration a few times, but never acceleration :shades:
A) Was the errata document for the actual processor made available you.
Was the processor in question in wide enough use that an errata document would be substantially complete.
C) Was the firmware code reviewed at the high level language, compiler level, or the actual machine code, assembly language level..? If not the latter your work is useless.
D) If at the assembly language level, assuming, as would be expected, that the processor was unique and not in widespread use, how did you go about locating the maybe one or two reasonably competent software engineers available worldwide..?
E) And lastly, how much did you have to pay those/that programmer(s) to troubleshoot/debug the assembly code when their value to write/compose such code is of such high value, EXTREME value.
F) And finally...
And possibly MOST important.
What assurance do you have, were given, that the computer code listing that was handed over to you was not corrected beforehand....
Well, first, common sense would indicate heavy or hard brake application in case of a runaway engine.
And, in fact, in Saylor's case there was lot's of evidence to indicate hard/heavy brake use and that brake use would have been un-necessary unless the engine was in runaway, WOT, mode.
Science should not be ridiculed, only questioned IMO.
Agree wholeheartedly! Science is a noble field. It is the scientists and many politicians who under the bias of prestige, power, $, and fame who misuse their scientific credentials who should be ridiculed. I'll trade you my medieval scientists with their data with the Earth at the center of the universe + the (bought) scientists who put out the "smoking is good for humans" science + our government's "WMD in Iraq" scientists, for your MMGW scientists who are at the trough for $20B+ / year.
Corruption and overestimating the relative intelligence needed to grasp an issue, are 2 serious flaws of humans.
I am not impressed by NASA scientists. They have made plenty of mistakes, including having accepted a design of a relatively fragile shuttle given its environment. Most shuttle launches despite the long-time between them were delayed for various and numerous problems. They have not created a space station with gravity, thus preventing long stays in space because of health reasons, and they have not been able to progress much beyond the rockets of the 60's in terms of speed. NASA certainly isn't working to Moore's law, or making use of Moore's law, to move us forward. I'm beginning to doubt if with this bunch at NASA, if they could even get back to the moon, as well as we did in 1969!
1 - Nobody appears to be testing with the intent of purposely crashing or causing the system to hang - and what happens? Some cars simply die out, but I suspect that not all are the same, just as non-interference engines are different than interference engines. Different designs might react differently to outside forces like shorts, over-voltages, and so on.
2 - I can prove that it's not just human error. Why? ~20% of Toyota's fleet is manuals. That 100% of the claims of UA have come from vehicles with automatics means that with a sample size as large as we've seen, it is statistically provable that this is something that only is affecting vehicles with automatic transmissions. I can grab my stat calculator out of the closet and print out the numbers if you like. You would expect at least 2 or 3 cases out of nearly 100 even as outliers. But zero is a whole other problem - it simply shouldn't happen unless manual transmission vehicles are simply not part of the cause.
This means that there is another factor at work aside from human error, because human error is not going to magically disappear just because someone drives manual versus automatic.
But how would we come about knowing, finding out, how many "UA" incidents involved manual transmission vehicles...?
As I have said before, a UA incident in a manual transmission vehicle is really a NON-EVENT, a simple depression of the clutch pedal and the "event" is over, except for maybe the engine revving at the rev-limit until it is switched off.
Note: A non-event almost never gets "noted" and NEVER gets publisized.
The use of RF devices being restricted on board commercial aircraft has noting to do with FLY-BY-WIRE, and not any of the aircraft controls.
The retriction is related to the possible interference with ground based guidance systems, glideslope, ect. Above 10,000 feet this becomes a non-issue so the restriction is removed. The non-use of cellphones had more to do with the ground stations resolving the master-slave issue than anything else.
Comments
They already can do that. Had that cop in the Lexus had OnStar, he would have been better off calling them, than 911.
It's a security device (engine immobilizer) built into OnStar.
Your belief in our scientific prowess is surely optimistic, considering the centuries and millenium when scientists looked at phenomena and could not put the dots together as to what was going on. How long was it that scientists didn't realize the true cause of disease, or that there was a Milky Way and other galaxies? I'd guess that if you asked people from any of the generations I'm referring to, you would see the typical human-nature that "our scientists are vrilliant and now can solve anything". I don't buy it, anymore than I now buy the scientific data and stories from 2002 - of WMD in Iraq. Could we have some of the same government "experts/scientists" (just an example of how even a large body of our best minds get something VERY wrong).
Anyway let's go with our "better scientists" having reached the correct conclusion. How many NASA scientists worked on this? full-time? How many different scenarios of the almost infinite number did they run? 100? 1000? I'd like to know the details, not just the 1-page glossy story with the headline.
I don't believe the electronics and software in vehicles works any better than those in my HP PC, or in the Allen Bradley PLC and ladder-logic systems in the factory I work in. Stuff happens everyday that are unexplainable "glitches" - lost communication, temporary sensor failure. We have equipment in our factory that we've had for 10 years, it runs fine typically, but every few weeks it has an issue.
There's a reason that there are several million people in the global economy who do IT hardware and software support; not new design; just fixing the problems of the current designs.
So believe what government experts you want, and the headlines you're given. Believe in Al Gore's and the other biased scientific organizations' Global Warming crap, if you want. I'll side with Colin Powell now - and be a little skeptical, knowing that people WERE and ARE very fallible.
That's really nothing more than a conjecture on your part. You seem to have already made your mind up as to the cause, and if investigations - no matter how many and how thorough fail to find the explanation your are looking for, well then they just didn't dig deep enough.
So why haven't you been able to find the problem :P ?
Bet I know. Because a decision was made that the factory can just live with those glitches rather than spend the time and money on a detailed investigation to find and correct the root cause.
I bet things would be different if those glitches led to injury, loss of life, or a plant fire.
Do I trust scientific methodology? Yes. Do I trust NASA when/if it says "trust us, we did everything right", No, and they have more than enough of a record that I would like verification, or at least an audit trail of precisely what they did.
Scientific results publish the raw data and the methodology used to come to the conclusion and/or sufficient detail that any other scientist can reproduce the result.
They said they "looked" but didn't find. NASA may have a bunch of PhDs, but maybe they should find some of the FBI's forensic hackers. Maybe "looked" was printing it out and glancing at each page. Maybe it was something more detailed. I don't know but would like to.
Perhaps something will pop-up at wikileaks...
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I don't know that you can say that - cables can get hung up in all sorts of ways. Throttles used to jam in the old days; seems like they jammed at WOT too.
Science has to rely on evidence, constantly built up, refined, re-interpreted.
The reason our ancestors could not place disease with germs is not for a lack of evidence (you live near mosquito-infested ponds, you die) but for the wrong interpretation of what was right in front of them. They called it mal-aria (bad air).
Same with global warming---someone looks outside his window and see freezing sleet and says "it can't be getting warmer", but in the Arctic, which traditionally offers the "Arctic Barrier" to keep cold air from heading south---this barrier seems to be deteriorating.
Again, the evidence is there, but the interpretation is wrong.
In the case of UA, science can only rely on what is falsifiable. They cannot "disprove" an anecdote from someone delivered second-hand after the fact, unless they could actually video the person's foot on the pedal---quite unlikely.
So the scientists looked at the various theories for UA and found them all falsifiable except one.
Science doesn't know everything, certainly, but a car is something science itself *built* -- this is not an unknown entity in the universe, like "dark matter".
N. Talsoe
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/nation-world/s_722017.html
NASA won't put stamp on Toyota acceleration report -
excerpt
But in its report, NASA said it is "not realistic" to try to prove Toyota's ETC does not cause unintended acceleration. The report notes that a lack of evidence linking ETC to runaway cars "does not vindicate" Toyota's system.
NASA engineers evaluated the electronic circuitry in Toyota vehicles and analyzed more than 280,000 lines of software code for any potential flaws that could initiate an unintended acceleration incident, DOT says.
Electronic glitches, such as those involving software and electromagnetic interference, or EMI, can be difficult to duplicate, engineering experts say. EMI describes what happens when electrical signals -- from sources as diverse as cell phones, airport radar, even a car's own systems -- wreak havoc with vehicles' electronic controls.
"There are possible electromechanical failures that leave behind no trace and therefore cannot be ascertained after the fact with any certainty," said Mukul Verma, a former top safety expert for General Motors.
Keith Armstrong, a United Kingdom-based EMI and safety design consultant who has testified against automakers in unintended acceleration cases, questions the thoroughness of NASA's report. He said problems including intermittent cable connections or incorrectly torqued-up ground connections are among the problems that could have been missed.
NASA likely was strapped as well by lack of trouble codes as was Prof. Gilbert who did show with his shorting test (although not possible cause) that if there was a computer glitch there would not be a diagnostic code to say there was.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/dr-gilbert-explains-his-research-into-toyota-el- ectronics/
Key quote: ”What I have done is, I have shown that in the fault detection strategy of the Toyota systems, there is a window of opportunity where [an error] could occur and not be detected.”
Yes, that was in the 1960s and 70s. Any modern system gives you plenty of warning and feedback that there is a potential wear problem. And if it does break, the return spring will close the throttle plate. You never hear about it happening any more because it simply doesn't. Even potentiometers are fairly safe (GM uses them) - and while they do have to be replaced fairly often, they still are a simple device that is easy and well understood how to monitor and deal with if it breaks. The easy way is to throw an error if the throttle connection goes dead or if it ever gets to 100%. Maximum throttle would be limited to 90% of the potentiometer's travel so that any UA condition would be easy to spot. Getting stuck in the middle might happen, but it's always a gradual problem with them.
Compare that to a magnetic or optical sensor attached to a computer. This is exactly what your mouse uses. And it's not 100% reliable for most people - they glitch and have issues and if it decides to start doing something odd, you have to hit the reset button on it.*
*Yes, mine has a reset button, but because it's a software-controlled "switch", I have to physically yank the batteries most of the time.
My "solution" to any modern vehicle with a button or key fob for an ignition system would be to hard-wire a toggle switch to the dash that runs solely between the battery and the positive lead on the main computer. It also makes for a good anti-theft device.
And besides, even if there was a "one in a bazillion" chance of something like this happening, the percentage of risk is so low that it is quite acceptable in modern manufacturing techniques.
You cannot demand that a product be technically perfect. That is not humanely possible.
Attempting to eliminate all risk from human existence is a fruitless endeavor.
If driving a Toyota is statistically less risky than opening your refrigerator (door gets stuck, fridge falls on you as you tug) then that's more than one could ask of a car IMO.
True, when YOU are the casualty, the casualty rate is 100%, but given the man-miles driven in these cars, I'd be more worried about a shark attack than UA.
Another interesting item in the NASA report is that they were only able to VERIFY 5 deaths from alleged Toyota sua, not 93 as so widely reported.
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However, at the end of the day, NASA and every other researcher that has examined the issue of Toyota UA has been unable to reproduce a single case in its testing.
IMO...Once you, or any other person, lab or entity can do so, you are welcome to come back and tout your superiority in understanding science and technology.
I suspect we will be waiting quite a while for that to happen.
Is UA possible? Yes, of course it is. But possibility NEVER equals occurence.
Its not magic.
But I would like to put a question to those of you who are inclined to be on the ney side of the fence.
In event of an SUA, do you feel so confident in trusting owning one of these Toyotas, because of the confidence you have in your own ability and your plan (that even in an unannounced emergency) would be to ultimately rely on slipping it into neutral if an SUA surfaced? Or... are you so sure that there is no such thing as SUA and you would prove it by owning that same Toyota with 2 nonnegotiable stipulations, that your gear shift lever was to be padlocked out of any neutral ability once under way, and that your key or pushbutton start button was deactivated? (you couldn't turn the car off unless you were stopped).
Simple question, give it some serious thought within the parameters that I stipulated.
I'd be willing to bet that, if honesty is front and centre here, we lose a few ney sayers right here and now. I know that would be the deal-breaker for me if i was slipping myself in behind the wheel> And to keep the question simple, I haven't even factored in including your wife or son or daughter behind the wheel.
Remember, for the purposes of this question, neutral is locked out and not an option, nor is being able to turn the engine off.
But the fact is that science like archeology is only as good as "where you dig". I don't know what sort of effort NASA or any other testing organization put forth; all I see is a headline. If NASA did a small sampling and SOME testing and declared "No problems found", it may have been as thorough as digging some random holes in the desert in Egypt and declaring there are no lost-cities or pyramids to be found! They would be correct that - they found no problems; but not correct in stating - that there is no problem. Unless NASA wants to come out with the details of how their testing is representative of all the Toyota vehicles made, and the different operating factors and sequences they tested. I bet you'd find so many things they didn't test for, it could fill a book.
Science would say that if UA is just a human-issue, then Probability says that each brand should have an equal percentage of people reporting the problem. Is that true? Are all brands having the same rate of reports?
Anyway, I have yet to see any credible refutation to the measurements shown that the earth is getting hotter *globally* (this is not about local weather). Most counter-arguments are not from qualified sources, even if they are intelligent people otherwise, and some are merely contrarian displays.
Besides, I feel certain that in a few years climate change will be so readily apparent that it will no longer be in dispute.
More to the topic: You do, however, bring up a very good point---wouldn't UA be the same for all vehicles if human error were the cause?
Answer? probably not.
Why not? Because of the ergonomic variety among different cars. Pedal placement, type of transmissions, etc.
But UA *does* happen to all kinds of cars. We can see these incidents sprinkled throughout the Edmunds Forums.
Avantageous, that's why.
A) Idle air bypass mechanism/electronic control can be eliminated.
C) TC/VSC, F/awd and "virtual" LSD systems can "modulate" the engine power rather the cutting the fuel supply, opening the injector circuits.
D) Gas pedal / throttle plate opening "gain" can be modified for "snow" mode.
Others....??
"Glitches" or errors can occur in an otherwise perfectly operating system. There are problems that go undetected in the design - even after the years of testing in Alpha and Beta stages, software vendors like MS, still find errors and have to issue patches for years. Even after hundreds of thousands of hours of scrubbing out intermittent problems, there are still issues with a lot of software we use. The more complicated the software the more errors are likely there.
But to some specific problems I've seen with sensors, that have otherwise been working fine and no problem is expected - 1) machine vibration eventually loosens a screw, allowing the sensor to move out of alignment. 2) a piece of fuzz or dust lands on an optical sensor knocking it out, 3) power-failure or surge causing a processor to need to reboot. I'm sure everyone here has stories of other electronic devices that stop functioning for a bit and need to be banged or rebooted. Chaos rules.
If I were designing a vehicle and I wanted to provide the public with a way to shutdown the engine, it certainly wouldn't be a complicated electronic device/scheme. How about a valve with a handle, that you turn - just like the valve at your sink - that shuts off the gasoline. What a breakthrough on how to stop an engine! Shutoff the gas with a valve, the old mechanical way! And they even make "normally closed" spring-loaded actuated valves that could go in the gas-line, if you just want to have a button on the dash.
WOW...
My very first hands-on computer experience. Measuring machine at Boeing.
Relying on the already "suspect" engine/transaxle controlling ECU's firmware for this addition SAFETY task is nothing but shear IDIOCY.
Yes, the new "stuff" might also fail but both systems failing simultaneously would be close to impossible.
It seems you're "straying" a bit.
I own a Toyota Tacoma (09), so I DO drive a suspect vehicle...daily.
But, I would never be comfortable in ANY vehicle that didn't provide me with methods to terminate a UA event.... which the Tacoma has, as you described in your comment.
So, to answer your question, I believe there should always be a human factor involved in the control of a vehicle, at least until we have developed artificial intelligence to the point it can act faster, and with better judgment, than a human, as well as virtually fool-proof backup systems... remember, though, it would never be 100%... just really close to it.
And, in ways, we already do that. If your airbag deploys in an accident, you aren't asked if its ok to do so, for the obvious reasons.
A car could be built today with such systems, but it would be far, FAR too expensive to purchase, maintain and operate.
BTW, have been curious about this but can't figure it out for sure. I suspect you have a late 60's early 70's diesel Mercedes 200 or so? Obviously a fintail of some sort, but is it of that era? And a diesel? My Aunt bought a brand new one in 67. A NA 4 cyl diesel. I remember the price, even tho I was a kid at the time. $5000. And my Uncle (not her husband) in the same year bought a Chev SS Impala?, two door hardtop. It was a very performance oriented car. Huge power, very fast, very valuable if you could find a clean example of one today. Gold with vinyl roof...very popular type decor back in those days. I think it was around 5300 bucks? My Aunt could never understand why he would want to pay more for his Chevy, than she did for her Benz, haha. She was not rich, just had always wanted to buy a MB. It fell prey to engine troubles (she lugged the poor thing terribly...10 mph in 4th gear sorta thing) and rust.
But, I'd drive a modern Toyolex product without any freaking out about it getting away from me. I don't buy into this hyped scandal.
Yes, I have a fintail, but slightly earlier than the one in your family - mine is a FI 6cyl (gas of course). You are very correct in that they love to rust, and the engines can be lugged down by someone who doesn't know how to drive them - they were made to be revved. Not a lot of good ones left anymore.
I'm not so sure...
Has anyone actually tested to see if neutral might be locked out via firmware if the engine is current producing a HIGH level of torque...?
Or even better, moreso, even if you move the shifter to neutral and all of the ECU electronics control works properly will the drum clutch gear teeth actually disenage under the torque level of a 200HP WOT runaway engine operating AGAINST FULL/HARD braking...?
Same can be said, questioned, about the PB start/stop, will the firmware actually stop the engine when the transmission is in gear and the engine is producing copious levels of torque...?
How do you know you're not, what assurance do you have that those things will happen reliably under the conditions defined in post 1541..?
Here's a test - hit the thing with a stun gun and see how the car reacts while it's running with the computer now dead or scrambled due to a lightning strike. Pour water on the thing until it shorts out (maybe there is a windshield gasket issue?) Maybe turn the voltage up to 18v or higher to simulate a bad alternator?
It's important to also know how it behaves when the computer freezes.
Most devices like your TV, stereo, printer, and so on, tend to "hard crash" when they have an issue while doing a task. Nothing short of yanking the power will actually un-freeze it and reboot the various computers and sensors inside it. The simpler components that they use to monitor the sensors are also prone to blindly getting stuck instead of gracefully shutting down in the case of a worst-case scenario.
You'll note that not one UA event has occurred in a manual transmission vehicle. If it were simply human error, you'd expect a small number of these as well. I suspect that there's something with the transmission also being computer controlled with the automatic, because I know that Toyota still makes manuals with virtually nothing electronic inside them.
Could the telephone pole on your street suddenly collapse and crush you? Yes.
Would you be reluctant to walk down your street? No, because you know the odds are infinitesimally small.
Same for me when I drive a Prius (and I do, sometimes).
PS: I've had a UA incident with my stickshift MINI---my hiking boot hit both pedals at once, and for an instant, I didn't realize that.
Rainfall is just one component of weather, but I have always been told that the same amount of rainfall falls each day worldwide. Not in the same places, of course, but somewhere. I believe the same thing is true about temps. planet wide. If it is colder than normal in one place, it is hotter than normal somewhere else. North pole gets warmer, south pole gets colder.
World wide temp measurements are a joke and certainly cannot be trusted at this time. It has become a political issue.
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operate an RF generating device like a Cell Phone inside a vehicle that uses
FLY-BY-WIRE technology to operate the controls. Why would not the same
principles apply to a DRIVE-BY-WIRE vehicle like TOYOTA? And it makes sense
the first automobile manufacturer to experience UA would naturally BE the
company that is pushing the envelope in developing new technology?
TOYOTA s/b proud they uncovered this train wreck of colliding technologies
BUT why are they NOT sharing their findings with the rest of us, whey are
they doing a cover up? Answer is gov't don't want to do another BAILOUT
because no one would buy a car that you can't use a cell phone in- DUH
Gas job eh? Those sixes were not that fuel efficient if I recall. Lots of go tho.
So to keep on topic...never had any SUA I would guess?
I guess I should have made it a 3 car choice. One a manual trans (that's my pick every time) The second, an auto but a, let's say 1970's technology time era. And the third, a modern day auto equipped Toyota (or pick your your poison) with ESC, ABS, TC, cruise etc etc etc.
But like I said in the "I like manuals because" forum, this entire topic is a non issue in a manual transmission car. There is NOT ONE documented case of SUA in a standard transmission equipped vehicle. Not one!
So this would suggest that, at least, some (all?) of these people were naturally predisposed to pushing in the clutch in order to regain control (which makes sense as they do that constantly in the normal operation of the transmission) Compared to auto drivers who don't really put it into neutral (as in neutral-only) very often, so they would lack that natural inclination in an emergency. Some drivers, however, are on top of things enough to do that. For example, anyone who has slipped an auto into neutral when sliding on ice up to a stop sign, likely has the wherewithal to think of neutral right away when faced with a SUA. And we know that some out there do. That guy that nursed his WOT Lexus into the dealership is just one. There must be others too, or there would be greater numbers of crash instances one would assume.
Do they represent the majority though? IMO, no way. Most would be on their cell phone and freak first.
Or....one can assume that the common denominator here is the auto tranny and the many electronic controls (or EMF if you will...electro magnetic force) at play as that tranny communicates with all the other numerous vehicle 'safety' systems like ABS, ESC, TC etc etc. When you have a computer with the ability to actually apply a braking force at one or more wheels without any proactive input of the driver's foot on the brake, that in itself would suggest that there is a LOT of electronic potential intervention at work here. Now factor in a PC crash, and, well...maybe that truly does give us SUA in some of these instances.
It's being framed politically but that's one of those "only in America" stories. Remember, we are the country who ranks with Turkey and Latvia in the % of people who believe in evolution, and 20% of us apparently speak with the dead.
So why am I not surprised that we struggle with understanding how science does, and does not, operate in its methodology?
I think Americans want science and technology to be a religion, and are very disappointed when it cannot attain that level of certainty.
Until the clutch actuation comes under the control of a computer there will be NO UA that is even really worrisome, let alone life threatening.
No life threatening....NO NEWS WORTHINESS.
Would everyone who has EVER switched off the engine using the PB 3 second technique while underway with the engine at WOT and brakes fully applied please raise their right hand...?
Now, would everyone who has attempted to shift a PB start/stop equipped car into neutral under those same conditions please raise their left hand.
No hands showing..?
I thought not.
And cars current enough to have the PS start/stop...?
It'll move along if you push it, and 100 is attainable if you have enough road and time. In normal highway driving it gets around 20-22 (US) mpg, not terrible for its age. And it's an automatic, which I don't mind - I don't care for column shift manuals.
It's had unintended deceleration a few times, but never acceleration :shades:
Do we really know the true conditions that are claimed? Some of the people doing the claiming don't seem to be the ones I'd put money on.
Why don't you or someone else go test drive a Prius or Camry etc and see what you can do? I can't believe someone out there hasn't tried it out.
C) Was the firmware code reviewed at the high level language, compiler level, or the actual machine code, assembly language level..? If not the latter your work is useless.
D) If at the assembly language level, assuming, as would be expected, that the processor was unique and not in widespread use, how did you go about locating the maybe one or two reasonably competent software engineers available worldwide..?
E) And lastly, how much did you have to pay those/that programmer(s) to troubleshoot/debug the assembly code when their value to write/compose such code is of such high value, EXTREME value.
F) And finally...
And possibly MOST important.
What assurance do you have, were given, that the computer code listing that was handed over to you was not corrected beforehand....
Well, first, common sense would indicate heavy or hard brake application in case of a runaway engine.
And, in fact, in Saylor's case there was lot's of evidence to indicate hard/heavy brake use and that brake use would have been un-necessary unless the engine was in runaway, WOT, mode.
Agree wholeheartedly! Science is a noble field. It is the scientists and many politicians who under the bias of prestige, power, $, and fame who misuse their scientific credentials who should be ridiculed. I'll trade you my medieval scientists with their data with the Earth at the center of the universe + the (bought) scientists who put out the "smoking is good for humans" science + our government's "WMD in Iraq" scientists, for your MMGW scientists who are at the trough for $20B+ / year.
Corruption and overestimating the relative intelligence needed to grasp an issue, are 2 serious flaws of humans.
I am not impressed by NASA scientists. They have made plenty of mistakes, including having accepted a design of a relatively fragile shuttle given its environment. Most shuttle launches despite the long-time between them were delayed for various and numerous problems. They have not created a space station with gravity, thus preventing long stays in space because of health reasons, and they have not been able to progress much beyond the rockets of the 60's in terms of speed. NASA certainly isn't working to Moore's law, or making use of Moore's law, to move us forward. I'm beginning to doubt if with this bunch at NASA, if they could even get back to the moon, as well as we did in 1969!
1 - Nobody appears to be testing with the intent of purposely crashing or causing the system to hang - and what happens? Some cars simply die out, but I suspect that not all are the same, just as non-interference engines are different than interference engines. Different designs might react differently to outside forces like shorts, over-voltages, and so on.
2 - I can prove that it's not just human error. Why? ~20% of Toyota's fleet is manuals. That 100% of the claims of UA have come from vehicles with automatics means that with a sample size as large as we've seen, it is statistically provable that this is something that only is affecting vehicles with automatic transmissions. I can grab my stat calculator out of the closet and print out the numbers if you like. You would expect at least 2 or 3 cases out of nearly 100 even as outliers. But zero is a whole other problem - it simply shouldn't happen unless manual transmission vehicles are simply not part of the cause.
This means that there is another factor at work aside from human error, because human error is not going to magically disappear just because someone drives manual versus automatic.
As I have said before, a UA incident in a manual transmission vehicle is really a NON-EVENT, a simple depression of the clutch pedal and the "event" is over, except for maybe the engine revving at the rev-limit until it is switched off.
Note: A non-event almost never gets "noted" and NEVER gets publisized.
The retriction is related to the possible interference with ground based guidance systems, glideslope, ect. Above 10,000 feet this becomes a non-issue so the restriction is removed. The non-use of cellphones had more to do with the ground stations resolving the master-slave issue than anything else.
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