AFAIK Volkswagen still idiot-proofs their driver's doors with that feature. The lock button will disengage if the driver uses it and then shuts the door. You have to leave by some other door to lock the keys in the car. AAA has a card-key gizmo for getting back into your car; it's like a thick credit card, you keep it in your wallet. At need, pull it out, flex the plastic key out of the plane of the card, get in your car.

Link
Now its Honda's turn . . .
Can they do anything else to make GM's look more attractive?

glatt predicted this would keep going and affect other carmakers.

Speaking as a firmware engineer, I have been waiting for this sort of computer-initiated failure for a looooooong time. It's not mechanical; it's the almost mystical capability for computers, sensors & computer code to interact in a non-reproducible, non-deterministic fashion. We call it 'emergent behavior'.

When your computer blue-screens, you can reboot it. (Ask lj.) When your car insists that nothing is wrong and refuses to be rebooted, while doing 90mph down the interstate... well then, you're screwed.


Then add the fact that mathematical modeling cannot possibly encompass everything that might happen to your particular car -- crosstalk on cables, manufacturing irregularities, cosmic rays fer chrissakes! Battery levels, failing alternators. Squirrel nests.

I think I better buy a bicycle. :tinfoil:

"Can't be reproduced" is what they always say to me the first time something fucks up in my jeep. I don't think they try very hard.

It would be helpful if the media, you know, told people how to stop a car that was having this happen. The media is happy to get all breathless saying how terrible these incidents are, but I haven't heard anyone say to just switch it into neutral, pull over, stop, and turn it off.

I can understand parking lot accidents where there isn't time to react before hitting anything, but some dude on the highway who can't stop his car is incompetent.

Glatt -- they have tried this. The car 'believes' it is not in drive, and won't respond to the shifter. Since everything is computer controlled (steering, gas, brake, transmission), there is no direct way for the operator to force the car to stop. :worried:

If, however, the problem is mechanical (stuck gas pedal or floor mat jammed) this will work just fine.

If that's the case, then why does Toyota's recall fix this by mechanically adjusting the gas pedal?

Because they're in denial, and can't afford to track down all the code problems. They're hoping people will go away mollified and won't sue. It's called the placebo effect.

Are you basing what you are saying on the ABC/David Gilbert test where they rigged a car to suddenly accelerate by doing very specific things to the wiring? If so, I thought that had been generally debunked.

Or are you talking about something else?

I didn't realize transmissions in cars were controlled by wire these days, but I'm out of my element there, driving an older model manual transmission car.

Are these computers different than those in other makes? Do they all have their own brand of computer or is this more of a systemic problem?

In the Prius, the transmission is electronic, not mechanical.

Glatt, I was referring to the San Diego story from last week, though that's shaping up to be uncreditable.

Your 'debunking' article also has this conclusion:
Toyota stands to lose billions if they don't control the spin of this story.

Yeah, Toyota is certainly biased. No argument here. But so is the media. They are desperate for profits, and nothing sells papers or tv advertising like a good scandal.

Why is this not happening in other countries?

Every automaker has its own computers. GM used a stripped down variation of the Motorola - forgot if it was the PowerPC or 68000. Many of the early problems because GM used a measuring standard that was different from Motorola and other semiconductor industry benchmarks.

Ford used a customized design from Intel. One of the computers I once tried to design with was the Intel 80196 - a variation of the computer also found in Fords then.

It always amazed me. Japanese automakers used computers about as powerful as the computer inside every keyboard. GM used a more powerful computer equivalent to that in Apple computers. So Japanese engines therefore had superior control and performance. Go figure.

One feature finally appearing in cars is the CAN bus - pioneered by Intel, if I remember, in the 1980s. It finally begin appearing because Japanese automakers tend to use stifled American innovations ten and twenty years later.