Free Republic

Reports of sudden acceleration in the Toyota Prius have spiked across the country. But that doesn't mean there's an epidemic of bad gas pedals in the popular hybrid. Experts on consumer psychology say the relentless negative media attention Toyota has received since the fall makes it much more likely that drivers will mistake anything unexpected -- or even a misplaced foot -- for actual danger. "When people expect problems, they're more likely to find them," said Lars Perner, a professor of clinical marketing at Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California. In just the first 10 weeks of...

Auto Safety: As a Toyota Prius with a stuck accelerator races down a California freeway, no one mourns the victims of the fuel economy standards imposed by Congress. Forced into smaller cars, thousands have died. We can barely imagine the panic felt by James Sikes, 61, as his Toyota Prius accelerated uncontrollably while he drove down Interstate 8 in San Diego County. We can imagine the continuation of the grandstanding by the owners of "government motors" as they further browbeat a competitor of government-run GM and Chrysler. We do not minimize the safety issues here that need to be addressed,...

Before he called 911, James Sikes says he reached down with his hand to loosen the "stuck" accelerator on his 2008 Toyota Prius, his other hand on the steering wheel. The pedal didn't move. "My car can't slow down," he began when a California Highway Patrol dispatcher answered his call. [...] During the two 911 calls, Sikes ignored many of the dispatcher's questions, saying later that he had to put his phone on the seat to keep his hands on the wheel. Leighann Parks, a 24-year-old dispatcher, repeatedly told him to throw the car into neutral but got no answers....

Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday that the Prius involved in a highly publicized acceleration incident on a California freeway along with hundreds of thousands of others will be recalled to prevent floor mats from pinning down the gas pedal. But the recall hasn't been issued because Toyota "hasn't developed the remedy yet," said Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons. In November, Toyota recalled several models including the Toyota Camry and Avalon sedans and the Lexus ES sedan to reshape the floor and gas pedals to prevent unsecured or ill-fitting floor mats from entrapping the pedal in an open position. As part of...

Runaway Toyota Prius reached 90 mph - police Tue Mar 9, 2010 3:46pm GMT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The driver of a 2008 Toyota Prius said his car uncontrollably accelerated to over 90 miles per hour on a San Diego County freeway before a California Highway Patrol officer helped him stop the car, police said. The driver, 61-year-old James Sikes, was not injured in the Monday incident, which is another claim of unintended acceleration that has caused the greatest image crisis for Toyota Motor Corp in its history. The incident occurred in the same county where an off-duty California Highway...

Every single news agency has turned their attention to a car crash in California involving a Toyota Prius. The driver claimed the accelerator got stuck on a California freeway and Patrol offers had to slow them down. It's a story that makes an instant celebrity, and the media loves to hype it. However: Anyone that has driven a Prius knows that such a car has not the power to 'JUMP' forward no matter how quick and hard you press the gas pedal. Furthermore, the ability to accelerate in a Prius is so modest, not even the most paranoid driver would...

EL CAJON, Calif. (AP) -- A California Highway Patrol officer helped slow a runaway Toyota Prius from 94 mph to a safe stop on Monday after the car's accelerator became stuck on a San Diego County freeway, the CHP said. Prius driver James Sikes called 911 about 1:30 p.m. after accelerating to pass another vehicle on Interstate 8 near La Posta and finding that he could not control his car, the CHP said. "I pushed the gas pedal to pass a car and it did something kind of funny...

California Highway Patrol officers say their patrol car acted as a brake for a Toyota Prius with a stuck accelerator Monday. The car, headed eastbound on Interstate 8, was going at a high rate of speed because the accelerator was stuck, according to CHP spokesperson Brian Pennings. The patrol car moved in front of the Prius and engaged its brakes to bring the Prius to a stop, according to CHP. The car eventually stopped on the highway near the La Posta Bridge in the area of the Golden Acorn Casino.

Be honest. It's what we're all thinking about the tree huggers' favourite vehicle and the tree huggers who drive them, ever since it was revealed just how easy it is to wrap one round a tree. The Toyota Prius "Not So Bloody Smug Now" Special Edition. Coming to a brick wall near you soon.

TOKYO – Toyota's president apologized Friday for the massive global recalls over sticking gas pedals as the automaker scrambles to repair a damaged reputation and sliding sales. But Akio Toyoda, appointed to the top job at Toyota Motor Corp. last June, said the company is still deciding what steps to take to fix brake problems in the popular Prius gas-electric hybrid. Speaking at a hastily announced news conference that lasted an hour, a stern-looking Toyoda promised to beef up quality control. "We are facing a crisis," he said, publicly confronting the automaker's safety problems for the first time since the...

Toyota USA says it is evaluating brake problems with the 2010 Prius gas-electric hybrid, but no decision has been made about a recall. Company spokesman Brian Lyons says it's too soon to talk about a recall. He says the automaker is cooperating fully with a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration probe into the brake troubles. The government is investigating reports that antilock brakes can fail momentarily on some 2010 Prius models in slippery conditions or on rough roads. The company says it made a change in the 2010 braking system last month to correct cars in production. The company has...

The hybrid-electric Prius has long been Toyota’s “green car,” the symbol of the automaker’s engineering prowess and its big bet on the kind of car consumers will want to buy for decades to come. But on Wednesday, the Prius was drawn into the mounting crisis for Toyota, as Japanese officials ordered the company to investigate problems with the brakes on the 2010 model. American safety officials also said they had received dozens of similar complaints. The new questions surrounding the Prius raise doubts about a different problem in a model that was not part of the recent global recalls of...

In the future, the anti-fun police will ensure that cars won't go fast, they'll just look fast. Comrades, we give you the Toyota Prius Custom Plus Concept.

With the announcement today by Government Motors (GM) that it's closing the books, the last chapters of which are written in red ink, on the cult-car Saab brand, the delightfully irreverent car blog Jalopnik asks, "What Will Latté-Swilling Liberal Northeasterners Drive Now?" Actually, now that Saab has gone the way of Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Plymouth, one of Jalopnik's readers asked the question, and blogger Matt Hardigree recommended a used Saab, a Volvo Wagon or a Subaru Legacy. Apologies, but that just won't do. That won't do at all. A used Saab is simply out of the question. Used cars are...

The report alleges that Toyota exploits guest workers, mostly shipped in from China and Vietnam. According to the NLC, these workers are “stripped of their passports and often forced to work — including at subcontract plants supplying Toyota — 16 hours a day, seven days a week, while being paid less than half the legal minimum wage.” Workers are forced to live in company dormitories and deported for complaining about poor treatment, the report finds.

Could the Prius and other Toyota hybrids be banned from the U.S.? It seems unthinkable, but that's one possible ending to a patent investigation launched this week. This case centers around Paice, a tiny Florida company that has patented a way to apply force to a car's wheels from the electric motor or the internal combustion engine.

Q: Are you tempted to get out the shotgun and blow a large smoking hole in the middle of your flatscreen TV if you are forced to watch that damned Prius commercial one more time?? You know the one I mean....

Alternative Energy: A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another..."If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The Prius hybrid automobile is popular for its fuel efficiency, but its electric motor and battery guzzle rare earth metals, a little-known class of elements found in a wide range of gadgets and consumer goods. That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells. Worldwide demand for rare earths, covering 15 entries on the periodic table of elements, is expected to exceed supply by some 40,000 tonnes annually in several years unless...