Toyota began fixing the 2010 Prius even though it said it only was investigating a possible "issue" with the vehicle's brakes.
Toyota owners may still be saying, “Oh, what a feeling,” but likely not for the same reason they did in the past, as the automaker’s growing problems with safety and corporate credibility emerge, Toyota officials in Japan now confirming that they have known about a defect with the brakes on their high-technology halo car, the Prius.
That problem, which can cause the brakes on the third-generation, 2010 Prius to apparently release for up to about a second, was first reported by TheDetroitBureau.com in late December. (Click here) While Toyota acknowledged receiving reports of complaints to editor Ken Zino, the maker secretly was developing a fix for the problem, one that it quietly put into place on versions of the popular hybrid that it has been building since sometime in January.
The latest setback for Toyota comes in sharp contrast to news that the maker earned $1.7 billion during the October-December quarter, ironically due, in large part to hefty sales of its greener models, including the Prius, which is the best-selling vehicle in Japan and the top-selling hybrid-electric vehicle worldwide.
The FT-HC concept vehicle is expected to become part of a Prius hybrid brand-within-a-brand for Toyota.
It remains unclear what the automaker will now do with versions of the Prius produced before then. But the Japanese Ministry of Transportation is ordering an investigation and urging a recall.
Here in the United States, the news is only likely to worsen a situation rapidly spiraling out of control for a company that desperately hoped to maintain some sense of having a handle on things in the wake of a series of recalls, including one ongoing issue requiring more than 4 million vehicles around the world to be repaired to correct a potentially sticky accelerator that can lead to Toyota products racing out of control.
Yesterday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told a Capitol Hill subcommittee owners of the defective Toyota vehicles shouldn’t drive them, but later said he “misspoke” and said motorists should get them repaired as soon as possible. LaHood earlier in the week called Toyota “safety deaf,” and regulators were already looking at the possibility of levying civil fines against the company even before the possibility of a Prius cover-up was announced.
Owners of the 2010 Toyota Prius have been reporting problems with the vehicle’s brakes since shortly after it reached market, last year, with dozens of complaints already on file with American safety regulators. A number of owners have also described the experience to TheDetroitBureau.com. Owners of earlier versions of the Prius are also coming forward with similar complaints.
“I hit a bump, pothole or bumpy road surface, apply the brakes at the time and they seem to either not catch at all or catch and release,” explained owner George Kasica. “It’s like a feeling of no braking action at all. Zero. Releasing the pedal and reapplying the brakes seems to fix the issue.”
The explanation has to do with the compound nature of the brakes on the Prius, it turns out. Initially, the vehicle tries to recapture energy through a process known as regeneration, sending current to the car’s battery pack. Under more aggressive braking, or if the Prius loses traction – on an icy surface, for example, or after hitting a bump – conventional hydraulic brakes kick in. There can be a lag that leaves a driver feeling like the brakes have stopped working.
Reprogramming the computer controlling the brake function on the Prius was among the steps apparently taken by Toyota to address the problem, last month. The question the company has yet to answer is how it plans to fix versions of the 2010 Prius or earlier models already on the road.
Industry analysts, including Dave Sargent, head of automotive research at J.D. Power and Associates, have warned that adding Prius to the growing list of Toyota’s safety problems could be devastating to the automaker’s image. Though it is a relatively modest part of the overall line-up in the States, the hybrid is the heart of Toyota’s campaign to present itself as a customer and environmentally-friendly manufacturer. It was the centerpiece of a record $1 billion U.S. marketing campaign during the fourth quarter.
Problems with the Prius, said Sargent, would send the message to consumers that Toyota’s problems were “not just a one-time problem but systemic.”
The damage to the Prius nameplate itself couldn’t come at a worse time. At the Detroit Auto Show, last month, Toyota unveiled a smaller dedicated hybrid that is expected to become part of a Prius brand-within-a-brand of gasoline-electric vehicles.
Mounting criticism led Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, to stage a media blitz, this past Monday, the same day the maker announced the details of it planned fix for the sticky accelerator. But Toyota’s defensive mea culpa quickly became the target for comics and commentators, including CBS Late Night host David Letterman and the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, who used clips of Lentz in a skit dubbed “The Toyota Telethon of Death.”
In Japan, following the latest revelations about Prius, Toyota Senior Managing Director Takahiko Ijichi told the Associated Press, “”We have not sacrificed the quality for the sake of saving costs. Quality is our lifeline. We want our customers to feel safe and regain their trust as soon as possible.”
How soon that could happen is increasingly uncertain, what with new revelations about safety defects – and the way the Japanese maker has handled them – surfacing every day. But what Toyota has regained is profitability, after posting a record loss last year. And though it was originally expecting to drop into the red again during the fiscal year ending March 31, Toyota officials now say they expect to be back in the black.
For how long is uncertain, however. The company is offering its first estimate of the cost of its recalls, a figure Lentz, on Monday, said it had not yet calculated. On a global basis, the latest accelerator recall is expected to cost $2 billion, including about $1.1 billion for direct repairs. The rest will cover lost sales, and is just an estimate. It could be much higher.
After announcing the problem with sticky accelerators, Toyota said it would halt sales of eight U.S. models – a figure later matched in Europe – and temporarily shutter five North American assembly plants. Those facilities will be back in operation next week, just in time for a Congressional hearing about its conduct in safety recall matters.
What can I say they knew they had a problem and chose to tell no one
but dealers who apparently didn’t feel it was important or didn’t
understand it because they sure didn’t tell the owners, or just
outright lied to them to make a sale (gee what’s new). Doesn’t exactly
get them an A for the trust department in my book.
So it fails to have braking action for up to a second according to
Toyota – why should I believe ANYTHING that they say at this point
they have a credibility rating about that of a used car salesman or a
lawyer – in my book close to zero.
They have a serious problem here with a major system on the cars and
its bigger than they want to admit, they are doing MAJOR PR and damage
control to save their own behinds.
George,
On 12/28, I cautioned that a problem with this halo car could be the real body blow to Toyota. That was before the sticky accelerator recall, the mounting questions about what Toyota knew, and when, and the face slaps from Transpo Sec Ray LaHood. But who could’ve imagined the latest, which has the smell of a full cover-up? Did Toyota not think this would get out? Or think that it might not have to repair 2010 Priuses already in the field?
We’ll be watching to see what the maker does next.
Paul A. Eisenstein
Publisher, TheCarConnection.com
The Prius was my first venture into buying an import because Toyota’s hybrid was the best on the market at the time (so I thought). This brake failure situation is all unfolding so quickly and I am livid about Toyota’s deception. Tomorrow I have a brake inspection appointment at the dealership where I purchased the car. I have experienced brake release early on since taking delivery in June 09. I had mentioned this several times to my salesperson but he had not heard of any issues even as of last week. The Customer Experience Center in Torrance, CA told me as of this morning that nothing concrete was noted yet in service bulletins regarding a brake fix, I am not sure what they can do for me. She also noted, she is not a mechanic so could not say what they may do for a fix. To be honest, I would like to leave the car at the dealership and never look back.
I will update with my results after I visit the dealership tomorrow.
You know they’re talking about the 2010 Prius models and what if anything they are going to do with these cars, but my questions (admittedly self-serving) is what about the older models that have this issue? Are we just out of luck and stuck here?
Right now I can’t believe that I could even trade in this 2006 car with a blue book of about $8900 for anything close to that given the current issues-never mind what I owe is about double that – so much for retained value.
Related to the 1 second pause issue I did some math here (OK, I’m an IT guy and an EMT so I know a bit about reaction time and following distances and I can use a calculator):
The Prius is 175″ long (14.5 feet)
At 30mph you’ll cover 44′ every second or about 3 car lengths.
At 55mph (we never speed do we :)) you’ll cover 80′ every second or 5.5 car lengths.
Assume you have ZERO reaction time (you don’t but lets go with it) and that the brake delay is 1 second as stated in the AP report)
Recommendations for following distances are sometimes given in car lengths MANY people use 1 car length per 10mph rather than a 3 second rule…not good but its out there and VERY common especially amonng the older target market of Toyota’s Prius drivers – given that advice BOTH of these cases will put you squarely in the back end of whatever you’re following if the defect should happen to occur while you are driving.
Not a good day for someone and who’s fault is it? Driver? I’d say no, they applied the brakes and they didn’t activate as designed…back on Toyota…HUGE legal issues here….this is going to get alot uglier before it goes away.
George do the older models have this issue? I’m not aware of any reports over the last ten years.
If you have doubts of getting blue book value I suggest putting a for sale sign on it instead of speculating you might be in for a shock.
Your calculations do not allow for any initial braking or slowing down before the one second release. The delay allegedly only happens in certain circumstances which can be at any point during the braking period. If you are being scientific this should be considered.
Angry consumers remind me of the Nader era and GM’s Corvair. Everything has to be perfection where the car is concerned yet they the human driver can be exempt from this requirement.
We mix with imperfect drivers daily multitasking with cell phones,i-pods,eating drinking etc etc.
This lethal mix of drivers doesn’t get a second thought or comment but let one mistake from a manufacturer be it car or computer co and all hell breaks loose. We have become a nation of hypocrites.
Yes, I’m driving a 2006 wit the problem, my wife had a 2004 with the same issue here and others are reporting similar issues on older models it seems. Check the NHTSA database there are well over 100 reports.
As to blue book on the car, I called 3 metro milwaukee dealers today and was told at this time that they are not taking any Toyota vehicles in trade as they are swamped, plus one told me, “I don’t think I could sell your Prius for scrap right now with both an accelerator AND a braking issue”.
You are correct the problem happens at any point in the cycle, its not a delay though, its a LOSS of braking as well when a bump or such is encountered also. I’ve personally experienced it.
I’m not asking for perfection, I’m asking for a system that needs to work to work correctly..would you fly on an airplan that has flaps that work 90% of the time? Probably not, and the FAA won’t allow them to use that…why should the auto industry be any different? Yes, humans can be imperfect by nature we are, mechanical systems should by design perform the same way every time at a certain level of reliability that’s wht so much time and money is supposedly spent on their design and construction and (hopefully) testing.
As to your metion of multi taking while driving, you just show why these same systems have to be even more reiable as you cut the margins for time to react/respond even closer due to delays in the uman response time.
I’m not a hypocrite at all, but when a manufacturer tells me everything is fine and they KNOW its not that has a simple word in most people vocabulary – LYING.
Your faith in the FAA is commendable but there are mishaps there as well.
There is no such thing as perfection which is what your asking. Perfection in design,in use,in performance,in efficiency is what we expect of these cars and manfacturers 100% of the time.
Nothing on this planet works that way so why don’t you just accept it. We can strive for it but historically its never happened
Yes, we are all hypocrites…the consumer must be perfect in his every use of the product, but the advertised and legally required safety systems provided by the manufacturer can be exempt from this requirement.
DGate…who do you work for? Lawyer or car company? LOL…
I paid well over $50K for two new vehicles that I bought with the assumption that they were built correctly and when I noticed something apparently wrong and brought it to a trained individuals attention (dealer service mgr) was told that they were functioning correctly and as designed – even though that individual KNEW that was in fact not correct based on Toyota’s own technical data that was not given to the people that purchased the vehicles….thats simply a lie in my book plain and simple what do you want to call it when you tell someone something you know is false?
This has nothing to do with perfection – I know systems fail, I’ve worked on four and five 9 reliability systems and also Criticality-1 systems with NASA for over 20 years (if they fail its a “bad day” to quote the document “failure of a criticality-1 system will likely result in loss of vehicle and/or crew”) I’m all too familiar with that area sadly.
I’m talking about a culture of people here that chose to hide the fact that they had a problem and continue on with business as usual (ie gain market share and make money) rather than slow down and fix it…maybe they really DID learn too much from the USA…sounds like something we’d do in the mid-80’s that led us to kill 7 astronauts and blow up a space shuttle….”the O-rings are fine…well we knew there were issues when tey got cold but…”
Its all about taking responsibility and I’m still not seeing Toyota even barely admitting there is an issue here or how big it is on two important systems of the vehicle acceleration and braking – they JUST got to the acceration one now after months of debate and foot-dragging and a portion of that is still unaddressed.
I’m not angry with the fact that the vehicle has a technical issue – that’s life – you find and fix it and move on – I’m annoyed by the attitude I’m seeing. THAT is what gets people hurt and killed and is unacceptable in any engineering, car, aircraft or whatever…ignoring problems and hoping that they go away is bad business.
Further to previous comments, the 124 complaints made to the NHTSA are levelled at the 2010 model not the second generation car. Of these there were four crashes that were “alleged” to be caused by this problem.
NHTSA currently has 40 open defect investigations running of which 3 involve Toyota.
As to my comment about humans that still stands, we are the weak link, makes no difference if we are driving, designing or
building cars mistakes are made but we tend not to accept this imperfection only lay blame elsewhere.
GK did this by twisting my multitasking remark into his own concept of mechanical perfection overcoming our own inadequacies.. Again passing the buck. We may use devices that give us an edge over our own shortfalls but there will always be malfunctions and in the end we are to blame since humans design, build and use these systems.
Jim if you are being sarcastic I could point out a lot of things legally required have not been enforced in recent years so even in this realm there is human influence.
I intend no malice just trying to look at the situation logically and without anger or singling out a sole manufacturer to flogg.
Look on the positive side its being addressed and owners can return to happy times or take the slant of a spoiled child and go play with something else which may have the same problem.
I didn’t twist anything – I just took what you said – the driver had other distractions – which cut into their time to react and applied them to the process of stopping the vehicle. If you are distracted you react even slower as your time to perceive the problem is longer, time to react is delayed, etc.
I’m not debating any single manufacturer here or flogging anyone that doesn’t deserve it. I frankly don’t care if it’s Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Kia, Boeing, Airbus or what have you – if you make a product and you KNOW it has a problem that can affect its safety in a way such as this is doing and you choose to willfully hide that fact from the users/purchasers of the product to further enhance your own sales/profits/market share you deserve what you get.
As for complaints getting leveled at one model year vs. another – I think you’ll see that expaned because the system affected has not changed in design except for software that was updated in January 2010 since the first generation Prius – and that’s coming from a Toyota technician I spoke with here last evening. He also said that this same combination of hardware and software is in use in more than just the Toyota Prius so that may expain the issues popping up with the Lexus and Ford vehicles.
You’re not getting it DGate I don’t dislike the car or Toyota – I purchased both of these vehicles because I like the Toyota brand and think its a well built product, I still do even after this mess.
What I don’t like here is the company’s ATTITUDE towards safety and its customers. To even get Toyota to start to address these problems (and there are more than one) took outside pressure from TWO nations safety organizations – Japan and the US. It should NEVER have gotten that far. Ford came out immediately yesterday with admissions of a possible problem and a fix is in work. And they didn’t build the parts they bought the tech from Toyota, I’d guess it might be a bit harder to reprogram somene elses gear but not impossible – depends on how much access they have into the code and hardware or how locked down it is from Toyota.
I don’t blame the engineers that built it – as they say stuff happens, fix it and move on. I blame the management for covering it up and telling the users all was well when they knew it wasn’t. That’s my real gripe here and having someone tell me that they are going to set up a committee to study how to improve future quality is just not where its at – that’s BS I expect from a guy in Washington D.C. thats running for reelection not someone who is head of a company that is getting grilled over multiple safety issues.
I didn’t twist anything – I just took what you said – the driver had other distractions – which cut into their time to react and applied them to the process of stopping the vehicle. If you are distracted you react even slower as your time to perceive the problem is longer, time to react is delayed, etc.
I’m not debating any single manufacturer here or flogging anyone that doesn’t deserve it. I frankly don’t care if it’s Ford, GM, Toyota, Honda, Kia, Boeing, Airbus or what have you – if you make a product and you KNOW it has a problem that can affect its safety in a way such as this is doing and you choose to willfully hide that fact from the users/purchasers of the product to further enhance your own sales/profits/market share you deserve what you get.
As for complaints getting leveled at one model year vs. another – I think you’ll see that expaned because the system affected has not changed in design except for software that was updated in January 2010 since the first generation Prius – and that’s coming from a Toyota technician I spoke with here last evening. He also said that this same combination of hardware and software is in use in more than just the Toyota Prius so that may expain the issues popping up with the Lexus and Ford vehicles.
You’re not getting it DGate I don’t dislike the car or Toyota – I purchased both of these vehicles because I like the Toyota brand and think its a well built product, I still do even after this mess.
What I don’t like here is the company’s ATTITUDE towards safety and its customers. To even get Toyota to start to address these problems (and there are more than one) took outside pressure from TWO nations safety organizations – Japan and the US. It should NEVER have gotten that far. Ford came out immediately yesterday with admissions of a possible problem and a fix is in work. And they didn’t build the parts they bought the tech from Toyota, I’d guess it might be a bit harder to reprogram somene elses gear but not impossible – depends on how much access they have into the code and hardware or how locked down it is from Toyota.
I don’t blame the engineers that built it – as they say stuff happens, fix it and move on. I blame the management for covering it up and telling the users all was well when they knew it wasn’t. That’s my real gripe here and having someone tell me that they are going to set up a committee to study how to improve future quality is just not where its at – that’s BS I expect from a guy in Washington D.C. thats running for reelection not someone who is head of a company that is getting grilled over multiple safety issues.
Who’s being the adult or child here – and adult admits a mistake take blame and fixes it, a child is the one who tries to hide the evidence and come up with a good story so that mom & dad don’t find out they broke the window with a baseball. Right now Toyota is sitting pretty much on the kid with a baseball side from here.
Consumers are not looking for perfection, but, at a minimum, we’d like to have confidence that the car is going to stop when it supposed to stop – that’s one of the non-negotiable safety issues for any car.
I went back to my dealership today, Parkway Toyota, in New Jersey, and they are still holding strong to the brakes are functioning as designed and that there is no saftey issue. In fact, the GM of the Dealership said he has not received any complaints about the brakes and is only aware of what he has heard from the media. You’ve got to be kidding. Obviously, that’s an outright lie. I’ve been trying to get my car fixed at his dealership since 2 weeks after taking ownership back in July 2009.
This article has gotten to the heart of the matter – Toyota has been trying to keep the safety issues under rapse and they are only acting now amid being in the spotlight.
Folks,
I’ll leave some of the issues for others to debate but I do want to point out something critical: it’s up to a manufacturer NOT to bring to market (or fix if the product has already been brought to market) a vehicle that can worsen the likelihood of driver error or distraction.
That is what Toyota did with the braking problems on the 2010 Prius. As best as the company will now confirm to me it appears that a programming issue results in as much as a 1-second gap when brakes might not engage (or disengage).
Let’s put that into perspective: at 30 mph, about what most folks are doing on urban roads, you’ll travel 44 feet in that time or, just short of three car-lengths. At 70, the speed limit here, you’ve gone a bit over 100 feet…and may have rammed the person in front of you if they’ve hit their own brakes aggressively.
Paul A. Eisenstein
Publisher, TheDetroitBureau.com