The "unnatural relationship" between the Obama administration and US carmakers in the wake of the 2009 auto bailouts may have led to a delay in disclosing a potential safety defect in Chevrolet Volts, Republican lawmakers claim in a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report.
General Motors said today that a “couple dozen” Chevy Volt owners have indicated that they plan to take the company up on its offer to buy back Volts from customers worried about potential fire dangers raised by a recently announced NHTSA test.
Toyota has announced that it will recall more than 82,000 hybrid SUVs in the United States this summer, due to faulty soldering. The voluntary recall was prompted by a National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration investigation launched in February, after 32 drivers complained about their vehicles stalling unexpectedly.
Last week, we reported that Honda finally acknowledged a problem with the batteries of the Honda Civic Hybrid by issuing a “technical service bulletin.” This comes after one year of complaints—more than 100 on the HybridCars.com forum alone—about diminished fuel economy and power after a year or two driving, especially in hot weather conditions. As the first set of Honda Civic Hybrids receive the software update, the results reported in our forums are mixed.
Five months after the nation was gripped with fears about Prius brakes failing to engage and runaway hybrids flying out of control, federal investigators said Tuesday that driver error—not electronics—is to blame in a majority of safety cases they probed. The government results are not final or definitive, and critics are not convinced that the problem is resolved. Nonetheless, if further investigations continue to point to driver error rather than technical glitches, then it begs the question: What caused all the uproar?
Toyota is recalling 17,000 units of its 2010 Lexus HS250h hybrid, due to a fuel tank issue. The company will also halt production and sales until a remedy can be found. By conducting the recall, and the halt to production and sales, Toyota is exercising an immediate response and a high degree of caution. The company was criticized earlier this year for a sluggish response to widely publicized issues with runaway acceleration.
J.D. Power—the auto industry’s top source for information about vehicle dependability—yesterday reported that among compact cars, the Toyota Prius had the fewest numbers of problems experienced per 100 vehicles over the past three years. The announcement comes in the wake of new evidence that high-profile Prius accidents were caused by human error, not technical problems.
Myth #1: Toyota vehicles, like the Prius, put drivers at a high risk. Carnegie Mellon University Professor Paul Fischbeck, a risk expert, calculated the risk of driving a recalled Toyota and found that you are almost 20 times more likely to die while walking than driving a recalled Toyota. National Public Radio reported that you are 30 times more likely to get hit by lightning than to die in a crash involving a runaway Toyota. The other four myths involve misconceptions regarding how a speeding Prius can be stopped.
For the past several weeks, media and government officials have stirred widespread public concern about the safety of the Toyota Prius—publishing first and investigating later (if at all). But the truthfulness of the most publicized incident so far—what might be described as cross between the Balloon Boy Hoax and the OJ Simpson Highway Chase—is coming under increasing scrutiny. Sikes could be credited as the man who convinced the public to question if Prius safety questions are more hype than reality.
This week’s story of a San Diego man and his runaway Prius marks the turning point on when Toyota’s unintended acceleration issues crossed over into hysteria. While observers cast doubt on the truthfulness of the high-profile incident, more drivers have reported cases of Prius sudden acceleration. With each new report, there is a growing counter-movement that points to human psychology—rather than technical malfunctions—as an explanation.
