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NEW YORK – Your most expensive piece of electronics probably is not your flat panel TV or your computer. More likely, it’s your car, which can pack 50 microprocessors to control items as different as fuel mix and the rearview mirrors.
The recalls and other technical problems besetting Toyota in the last few weeks highlight the risks of relying on electronics instead of the mechanical rods and cables that controlled vehicles for most of the 20th century.
Such advancements bring many benefits, but the worry is that the car is a computer on wheels that could freeze up and potentially crash. No less a computer celebrity than Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak has said his Toyota Prius sometimes accelerates on its own.
For many years, a car’s gas and brake pedals were connected directly to the throttle and the brake assembly. Now computers and electronic sensors govern many of those functions, as well as a vehicle’s exhaust system, its inside temperature and a host of other operations.
Those design changes were reviewed last week when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began looking into 124 reports from consumers that their Toyota Priuses momentarily lost braking ability while traveling over uneven roads, potholes or bumps. Four of the reports involve crashes.
The Prius problem is part of a broader issue for Toyota: Accelerators in its non-hybrid cars can get trapped under floor mats or become stuck on their own and fail to return to the idle position. As of Friday afternoon, Toyota had recalled eight top-selling models, involving 2.3 million cars in the U.S. alone.
The wider problems appear to be conventional mechanical issues, but Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said his department would undertake a broad review of whether engines could be disrupted by electromagnetic interference caused by power lines or other sources.
In the Prius, in addition to traditional hydraulic brakes, the car has an electronically operated braking system to recover some of the energy lost as the car slows. Some of that energy is sent to the battery that powers the Prius’ electric motor. The hybrid design saves fuel and reduces emissions, but it increases the complexity of the car.
