Video: Toyota demonstrates safe hybrid vehicle stopping techniques

Video: Toyota demonstrates safe hybrid vehicle stopping techniques
By Mark Kleis - Posted March 12th 2010

Toyota now has produced a high quality video that clearly demonstrates how to stop any Toyota hybrid vehicle in the event of unintended acceleration, following their distribution of a low budget video, apparently created by a Toyota car salesman earlier this week. This new video demonstrates how a Toyota hybrid – any model – should function under normal conditions if the vehicle is accelerating out of control.

Toyota’s latest video is a quick response to the incident involving a second generation Toyota Prius that allegedly sped out of control while covering 30 miles of a San Diego, California, freeway earlier this week. Following that incident, many consumers voiced concerns that braking and/or gear engagement systems in push-button start and hybrid vehicles may be different, and therefor react dangerously in an unintended acceleration event.
The video covers the multiple options that a driver has if they feel their Toyota hybrid is accelerating without their input, including the brake override function, how to shift into neutral and the last option of shutting the vehicle off entirely.
(More after the video)
As the video points out, Toyota’s hybrid models feature a brake override system, unlike the rest of its current lineup. This feature, if functioning as intended, should override the accelerator in the event that the brakes and accelerator are applied at the same time. When the computer receives both a braking and acceleration signal simultaneously for more than one second, the engine will stop accelerating and return the engine to an idle position.
This video demonstrates that the recent incident in San Diego was either the result of abnormal function of the vehicle’s computer, or complete operator error on the part of the driver, James Sikes.
39 COMMENTS
1. leftwingagenda140 days ago
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  “if functioning” and “should override”…never good signs for a safety video…sorry, that’s all i got for this at this time of night…it’s late, and it’s a prius safety video…i can’t possibly think of anything worse right now…
  
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2. howsmydriving140 days ago
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  “This video demonstrates that the recent incident in San Diego was either the result of abnormal function of the vehicle’s computer, or complete operator error on the part of the driver, James Sikes.”
  
  In other words, the driver is a retard or is trying to shake down Toyota.
  
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3. leftwingagenda140 days ago
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  well, isn’t that what toyota should be saying, whether it’s true or not?
  
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4. wyVern140 days ago
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  I hv a great idea for Toyota, they should add this to all their models (even recall old 1s). U ride ur toyota, u push the ignition, the car woun’t start, first it plays this safety video on the screen, AFTER that car starts and then u can drive safely. LOL
  We all got sick from flight safety video but u hv to watch it every time (even if u had a short connection flights).
  
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5. 4thyrkindergarten139 days ago
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  One holy ****, two holy ****, three holy ****- that’s a long time to hold the “start” button when you’re white knuckling it along twice as fast as you have probably ever driven before. I might call it driver error for a Left lane subscriber but for a Prius owner- not a chance. With out a doubt, the guy over heated his brakes in his first attempts to stop and from there he was in trouble. Most of us have experienced brake fade from heat and it really isn’t something that you would wish on a Prius driver. And shifting to neutral is more like a two count. One second doesn’t do it.
  
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6. Special K139 days ago
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  Is it just me or are we all looking at this wrong. Why in the hell would Toyota issue a video showing you how to stop the car if you have problems with it. Why not fix the issue so you dont have to create a video like this.
  
  “Um yes, we dont believe our cars ECU’s are to blame, but hey we made a video for everyone just in case the cars act up”, says Toyota.
  
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7. BennySuts139 days ago
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  Special K, you took the words out of my mouth. But since common sense isn’t all that common anymore, I expect people to look at this like it is always the drivers fault. We should follow Obama’s lead and apologize for our arrogance, and now crappy driving.
  
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8. Tigers Wood139 days ago
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  4thyr, I wouldn’t wish a Prius on any driver, but then again some of them deserve it.
  
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9. swamp donkey139 days ago
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  …..the result of abnormal function of the vehicle’s computer…..
  
  So it was the computer all along!
  
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10. ajm11139 days ago
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  swamp donkey – It definitely sounds like it. As Toyota said, if their systems in the prius are functioning correctly the brake and gas pushed together the engine should return to idle. However, apparently the driver in San Diego’s Prius must not have had a normally functioning computer as he was standing on the brakes and the engine power was not cut.
  
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11. elviososa139 days ago
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  leftwingagenda…obviously you your comments are abnormal because your name gives it all out.
  
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12. johnnycanuck139 days ago
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  All I saw was a bunch of shiny new Toyotas doing mall parking lot speeds… now show me how effective these measures are when you hit the parking lot doing 80.
  
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13. Tigers Wood139 days ago
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  ajm, no one knows whether he as standing on the brakes, including the police officer, because Mr. Sikes was the only one in the car. His personal account is hearsay and means nothing. The only thing that matters in this case is the evidence that will be gleaned from an impartial examination of the car and it’s systems. Even if the computer completely failed it is highly unlikey that the car suffered simultaneous hydraulic failure of the braking system. Of course anything is possible, but I would expect Mr Sikes will eventually be discovered to be a fraud.
  
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14. ajm11139 days ago
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  Tigers Wood – No one can confirm if he is brakes? Cars do have this nice feature called brake lights. They go on when apply the brakes. I am pretty sure people would be able to tell if he was riding the brakes on that car. That and the fact that you could smell the brunt brakes from what the news reports say. If the system was working properly he would have had to just touch normally and it would have cut the power to the engine.
  
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15. torquemonster139 days ago
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  Bottomline, if the San Diego driver faked the whole incident, how did/would/could he do it? If his ECU really cut engine power after a second of riding the brakes, how long before it reset and accelleration power came back on while his lead foot was still to the floor? And can you totally fry your brakes by applying them for 1 second at 80 mph, and then again a few seconds later, over and over, like in thick traffic? To heat them up enough you might have to get on them really hard each time, for a few seconds, but then you slow down considerably, and then it takes some time off the brakes to get back up to speed (and everyone sees some idiot yo-yoing between 50 and 80 mph, which would spoil the illusion of constant unintended acceleration).
  
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16. nastacio139 days ago
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  A high-resolution version of the same flawed argument. It would be the same as videotaping someone stopping a 2002 Ford Explorer from 60mph and claiming all people who died in tire blow-out rollover accidents were incompetent drivers who could not handle the pedals.
  
  That Toyota so far could no recreate the incident shows how close they are to a final solution. Sure, there is a chance than less than 0.1% of their models out there have developed the problem, but if this glitch is aggravated by wear/age, most Toyota owners out there are riding death-traps.
  
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17. Sgt Pepper139 days ago
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  For everyone saying “OHH just throw it in neutral”. I have seen people freeze and even throw up in high pressure situations. So its not a stretch that when it happens to people they freak out and just stomp on the breaks while riding into a brick wall.
  
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18. Tigers Wood139 days ago
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  ajm, brake lights go on with the lightest pressure. Burnt smell could be the result of applying emergency brake as was stated in officers report. Just the facts, not speculation will lead to the truth.
  
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19. Tigers Wood139 days ago
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  ajm, ride in the lane next to me at 80 mph and then tell me how much pressure I am putting in my brake pedal.
  
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20. Mark Kleis139 days ago
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  According to Toyota, if you brake and accelerate – it doesn’t specify a need to brake with full force – the engine will return to idle. So, if Sikes supposedly just “lightly” road the brakes, wouldn’t it have still overridden the accelerator completely?
  
  In time we will find out the condition of the brakes after they are inspected – lightly applying brakes over 30 miles would not have worn them out in the same manner as holding them down.
  
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21. Spingood Tanoya139 days ago
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  I’m not a Toyota fan, but come on! The driver in the San Diego incident says he didn’t try to put his Prius in neutral because he thought he might “flip the car.” When the CHP showed up, his Prius miraculously was able to shift to neutral with no problems at all, and the brakes worked to stop the car — he stopped on his own, the CHP car didn’t come in contact with the Prius until it was virtually standing still.
  
  Toyota may have quality issues and they have interior design issues that make their cars hard to deal with in emergencies (weird shift gates and bad labeling, I’m looking at you). However, drivers who are unskilled, inattentive, neurologically impaired or publicity-seeking don’t deserve any sympathy.
  
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22. nastacio139 days ago
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  @Mark
  
  What happens if *you* brake and the *computer* is accelerating? The whole brake override fix only works if the pedal is entrapped by the mats or if the pedal is stuck.
  
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23. oldraven139 days ago
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  “PSA. How to survive driving one of our cars.”
  
  I can’t believe people are still buying Toyota’s.
  
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24. ajm11139 days ago
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  Spingood Tanoya – He wasn’t afraid he would flip the car by putting it in Neutral. He was afraid to put it in Neutral because he might accidentally hit reverse and flip the car which we here on this site know that would not happen. Yes, he stopped the car on his own. The CHP office told him over the loud speaker to apply the brakes and e-brake at the same time while going up a hill. The driver according to most news articles when the car slowed to approximately 50mph then shut the motor off.
  
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25. Spingood Tanoya139 days ago
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  ajm11: Going from Drive to Neutral in a Prius requires moving the lever straight to the left. Going from Drive to Reverse requires moving the lever straight to the left (hitting Neutral amazingly enough) and then moving 90-degrees up in an “L” pattern. There is *no way* to shove the lever into Neutral and accidentally “overshoot” like one could theoretically do in most conventional cars.
  
  The driver claims he was afraid to move the lever (he was, after all, going maybe 20 mph over the usual traffic speed on that freeway) but he had no trouble making a 911 call from his hand-held cell phone while presumably driving one-handed.
  
  There are plenty of reasons to pile on Toyota, but this bizarro incident isn’t one of them.
  
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26. ajm11139 days ago
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  Spingood Tanoya – This is an excellent situation to try and find the solution for and pile on Toyota as you said. The reason I say this, is due to the fact that none of this should have been possible according to Toyota. If it comes out that they guy faked it, then I am sure a lot of people would like to know how and he should be brought up on charges. But until then I give him the benefit of the doubt and it was a real issue.
  
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27. bluesmobile139 days ago
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  “abnormal function of the vehicle’s computer…” You mean like an electronic problem causing unintended acceleration? I thought only floormats caused that. (wink)
  
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28. rarson139 days ago
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  “It would be the same as videotaping someone stopping a 2002 Ford Explorer from 60mph and claiming all people who died in tire blow-out rollover accidents were incompetent drivers who could not handle the pedals.”
  
  Except the Firestone problem was preventable by simply maintaining proper tire pressure. Sure, Ford recommended something like 20 psi but it should be easy to tell that such a number is severely underinflated.
  
  Mark, you said something about them not mentioning using full force to brake the car, but I laughed as I noticed in the video they showed two feet being used on the brake pedal. They didn’t outright say it, but they definitely demonstrated it.
  
  Spingood, I agree with you exactly. These cars shouldn’t be having such issues, but the real problem is people act like complete morons when a relatively common problem (and I’m not just talking about Toyota) occurs in their car. Licensing does the bare minimum when it comes to preparing people to operate a vehicle. All the DMV cares about is that you pay your registration fees.
  
  I continually point out the ignorance of drivers that fail to deal properly with the case of UA and I’m told that the car shouldn’t be doing that in the first place. Well it shouldn’t. but **** happens, and **** will continue to happen, so the important thing is that people know what to do since Toyota seems unable to figure out what the hell their problem is. In the meantime, the least they can do is inform their customers of what to do in the small chance that it actually happens in their car. At least then people will be able to operate their vehicles safely whether there is a defect or not.
  
  And I also keep hearing the “panic” argument, but I fail to see how a panicked person can operate a cell phone but not a shift lever or a button.
  
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29. oldraven139 days ago
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  rarson, you seem to forget one thing. We hear about maybe 1% of the UA issues causing crashes. The rest of those people seem to know how to get their car back under control. The incident in New York is maybe the third I’ve heard of since the cop in the Lexus, where it resulted in a crash. The rest of the complaints have been about their cars taking off on them, not that they went 100mph, or hit a wall. Trust me when I say that if half of those incidents resulted in a crash, we would have read about every single one of them.
  
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30. rarson139 days ago
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  Oh yeah, I know, but I keep reading comments about these 54 deaths “caused by” this problem that other people seem perfectly capable of dealing with, and I definitely think the average driving ability of people in this country is abysmally low.
  
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31. plainspoken139 days ago
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  Yeah, people’s driving skills are just abysmal as proved by this little nugget. http://www.leftlanenews.com/nhtsa-u-s-traffic-related-deaths-hit-60-year-low.html#more-27470
  
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32. rarson139 days ago
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  Yeah, they are. I actually even agree with LaHood:
  
  “This is exciting news, but there are still far too many people dying in traffic accidents.”
  
  “Although the final data is not in, the projected death count for 2009 is 33,963″
  
  33,963 deaths in one year, that’s outstanding.
  
  Other significant sentences which seem worth noting:
  
  “The NHTSA report does attribute some of the gains to increased public campaigning for seat belt use, ads against drunk driving, safer roads through better engineering and drivers simply driving less. The reduction in driving is likely a result of the poor economy and higher fuel prices, but that does explain the lower deaths per mile figure, which is likely a better indicator of actual safety than any other figure.
  
  The report does acknowledge safer vehicles, but falls short of highlighting the significant advancement in safety technology by many manufacturers, with more five star crash tested vehicles on the road than ever before. Safety advancements are particularly common in high-end and luxury vehicles, which boast more airbags, more sophisticated restraint systems and more application of higher strength steel, on average, than entry-level vehicles.”
  
  (I think that should say “doesn’t explain the lower deaths per mile figure”.)
  
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33. oldraven138 days ago
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  I agree, people don’t know how to drive, on the whole.
  
  But, and I’m repeating myself here, that does NOT excuse Toyota of anything. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll say that those 54 deaths were CAUSED by Toyota, and not PREVENTED by the drivers.
  
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34. rarson138 days ago
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  They weren’t caused by Toyota any more than a death caused by someone driving a car directly into a brick wall at 100 mph. Toyota builds the product. What people do with it is their own responsibility.
  
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35. oldraven137 days ago
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  Someone really should point out to you that Toyota admits fault for those deaths. Thus the safety recalls. It must be nice to have so many lemmings fight for your innocence, when you don’t even believe in it yourself.
  
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36. oldraven137 days ago
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  WAT?
  
  In Norway? Isn’t that one of those countries where they make you learn to drive a car before they let you drive a car?
  
  I suggest blending your hat into a smoothie, to make it easier to ingest.
  
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37. rarson137 days ago
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  Yes, please do point it out to me where Toyota admitted fault. A link would be nice. Considering that UA doesn’t directly lead to death unless the driver fails to take one of several simple actions, it’ll take more than just hearsay to convince me that they did so.
  
  You think I’m a lemming because I’m analyzing the situation rationally. That’s interesting. I know there’s something wrong with Toyota’s cars that they’ve failed to fix thus far, and that’s a major problem. However, UA is not a life-or-death situation if the driver is even moderately prepared to operate a vehicle (the function of the neutral position should be basic driver knowledge). People are calling Toyota’s cars “death traps” when they simply aren’t.
  
  It never ceases to amaze me how rigid people’s thinking can be. Something is either A or B. If it is not A, then it is B. Critical thinking is apparently a skill that most people are no longer taught in school. I’m not shouting for the downfall of Toyota so therefore I must be a lemming. Sorry, but that’s just not the way people of higher intelligence think.
  
  You can keep blaming Toyota for the deaths, and people can keep dying while Toyota tries to figure out what is causing the problem, and people can keep dying in other vehicles with the same problem, or we can accept that this is a problem that can be dealt with by improving driver training so that fewer deaths will occur in the future regardless of which brand vehicle is exhibiting it. Personally, I think some people would rather see an increasing death toll in Toyota vehicles just to tarnish Toyota’s image, and that would be quite despicable if true.
  
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38. oldraven137 days ago
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  Rarson! It’s called a RECALL! Toyota taking responsibility for their defective cars, that caused deaths. You might have a thicker skull than Dr. Fill. You’re a lemming because you’re making excuses for Toyota, puting the blame on the drivers for their cars having a mind of their own. When a car does what it’s not supposed to do, especially brand new cars doing potentially fatal things, it is the fault of the company that designed and built it. The drivers simply didn’t do everything in their power to prevent the worst in those cases. It’s still not their fault that their cars took off down the highway, just that they didn’t know how to stop them. Yes, that’s embarrassing from the point of view of a fellow human.
  
  I’m also not hoping for the downfall of Toyota. I just want to make sure they get their fair share of **** for creating garbage and telling us it’s a diamond. For ignoring their own workers who warned them of falling quality standards. For KNOWING about these defects and effectively suppressing all data that would implicate them. For SIX YEARS! They used to be an incredible car maker. Now they’re not. (the most reliable car I’ve ever owned was a 1995 Tercel) Critical thinking? Hardly. More like wishful thinking and ignoring what’s right in front of your face.
  
  Pretty much the only part of that argument that I agree with is the better part of the last paragraph. Better driver training is needed for North American drivers on the whole, regardless of these issues from Toyota.
  
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39. rarson136 days ago
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  A recall admits fault with the vehicles. It doesn’t take accountability for the deaths that occurred. Use your head.
  
  Making excuses for Toyota? Certainly not. I’ve stated on more than one occasion that Toyota has a problem that it should have figured out already. I’m just not naive enough to think that the problem of UA will go away once Toyota solves its current problem. Seriously, wake the **** up. Toyota is not the only car company with UA complaints. I don’t want some idiot slamming into my car on the highway at 120 mph because they couldn’t think or figure out how to shift into neutral.
  
  The cars are only exhibiting “potentially fatal” behavior if the person operating them is a total moron. Personally, I don’t think morons should be allowed to operate vehicles on public roads.
  
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