Honda "Drive by Wire" question... what if the power goes out?

LOL - I'm sure you intended "brake".

 

Do you wear seat belts or do you worry about being trapped in your
vehicle in the 0.0001% of the time that's an issue?

 

Do you wear seat belts or do you worry about being trapped in your
vehicle in the 0.0001% of the time that's an issue?

 

I remember that one - and if you put in a nickel it gives you a piece of
pie, too.

 

I remember that one - and if you put in a nickel it gives you a piece of
pie, too.

 

Also the reliability of being able to trash the transmission and still
limp along.

First off, I do not allow air bags in any vehicle I own.

Second off my point was that no vehicle priced in anywhere near an
affordable range even for the rich can have sufficient sensor inputs to
even come remotely close to the sensory inputs of a human.

The car computer can not detect ice ahead in the road, it can only
attempt to detect when the wheels are already slipping and even then it
has difficulty if you are not also attempting to brake.

The car computer can not detect potholes or other obstacles in the road
ahead where you need to swerve to avoid them.

The car computer can not detect when bumpy conditions are causing a
wheel to bounce off the road and lock during light braking as opposed to
actual wheel lockup during hard braking. This is a current problem with
ABS systems on heavier vehicles with stiff suspension.

None of the sensors on current autos are redundant and the computer
quite readily gets very confused when there is a sensor failure and can
make the wrong decision. This has been known to happen when a wheel
sensor fails on an ABS system causing the computer to think the wheel is
locking and the ABS system reduces the braking force and causes and
accident.

Simply put, sensor technology is either not sufficiently advanced to
detect a condition, or is far too expensive for deployment on a common
auto for the computer to have sufficient information to try to second
guess the human operator.

Pete C.

 

Also the reliability of being able to trash the transmission and still
limp along.

First off, I do not allow air bags in any vehicle I own.

Second off my point was that no vehicle priced in anywhere near an
affordable range even for the rich can have sufficient sensor inputs to
even come remotely close to the sensory inputs of a human.

The car computer can not detect ice ahead in the road, it can only
attempt to detect when the wheels are already slipping and even then it
has difficulty if you are not also attempting to brake.

The car computer can not detect potholes or other obstacles in the road
ahead where you need to swerve to avoid them.

The car computer can not detect when bumpy conditions are causing a
wheel to bounce off the road and lock during light braking as opposed to
actual wheel lockup during hard braking. This is a current problem with
ABS systems on heavier vehicles with stiff suspension.

None of the sensors on current autos are redundant and the computer
quite readily gets very confused when there is a sensor failure and can
make the wrong decision. This has been known to happen when a wheel
sensor fails on an ABS system causing the computer to think the wheel is
locking and the ABS system reduces the braking force and causes and
accident.

Simply put, sensor technology is either not sufficiently advanced to
detect a condition, or is far too expensive for deployment on a common
auto for the computer to have sufficient information to try to second
guess the human operator.

Pete C.

 

Wrong. Computers can react faster than humans, but without a boatload of
very expensive sensors they do not have enough information to properly
make the decisions in all cases. When one of the non-redundant sensors
fails and in a common auto they are indeed non-redundant and produced by
the low bidder, the computer makes the wrong decision and in the case of
current ABS systems has been known to cause accidents.

Pete C.

 

Wrong. Computers can react faster than humans, but without a boatload of
very expensive sensors they do not have enough information to properly
make the decisions in all cases. When one of the non-redundant sensors
fails and in a common auto they are indeed non-redundant and produced by
the low bidder, the computer makes the wrong decision and in the case of
current ABS systems has been known to cause accidents.

Pete C.

 

Actually they are not, they are extremely low relative to the number of
vehicle miles.

Clearly our current driver training and licensing is insufficient. Try
upgrading training and licensing to the level of a class A commercial
license and watch the number of accidents plummet along with the number
of clueless drivers.

<snipped>

Pete C.

 

Actually they are not, they are extremely low relative to the number of
vehicle miles.

Clearly our current driver training and licensing is insufficient. Try
upgrading training and licensing to the level of a class A commercial
license and watch the number of accidents plummet along with the number
of clueless drivers.

<snipped>

Pete C.

 

Better driver training would save more lives and cost no additional
lives, unlike failing ABS and airbags.

SUVs are *not* unstable by the wildest stretch of the imagination. Under
any normal driving conditions they are as stable as anything else on the
road. Under limited emergency conditions they can become unstable, just
as a regular car can become unstable, when in the hands of an unskilled
driver.

Note that a standard 80,000# tractor trailer has a significantly higher
center of gravity than any SUV and you do not see them rolling over at
anywhere near the rate of SUVs. This is because of better driver
training. You of course do see semis rolled over, but the factor in the
majority of those cases was not the higher COG, but rather the braking
limitations of an 80,000# vehicle that has a pivot point 1/3 of the way
down it's length.

Pete C.

 

Better driver training would save more lives and cost no additional
lives, unlike failing ABS and airbags.

SUVs are *not* unstable by the wildest stretch of the imagination. Under
any normal driving conditions they are as stable as anything else on the
road. Under limited emergency conditions they can become unstable, just
as a regular car can become unstable, when in the hands of an unskilled
driver.

Note that a standard 80,000# tractor trailer has a significantly higher
center of gravity than any SUV and you do not see them rolling over at
anywhere near the rate of SUVs. This is because of better driver
training. You of course do see semis rolled over, but the factor in the
majority of those cases was not the higher COG, but rather the braking
limitations of an 80,000# vehicle that has a pivot point 1/3 of the way
down it's length.

Pete C.

 

Bad comparison, seat belts do not have the ability to cause accidents
like a failing drive-by-wire or ABS system or airbag can.

Pete C.

 

Bad comparison, seat belts do not have the ability to cause accidents
like a failing drive-by-wire or ABS system or airbag can.

Pete C.

 

I think you're referring to the Throttle Position Sensor, a.k.a. TPS,
not electronic throttle. Engine computers have had sensors to monitor
throttle position for years, at least since the advent of fuel
injection. This has nothing to do with electronic throttle control where
the computer actually has control of the throttle position.

Pete C.

 

I think you're referring to the Throttle Position Sensor, a.k.a. TPS,
not electronic throttle. Engine computers have had sensors to monitor
throttle position for years, at least since the advent of fuel
injection. This has nothing to do with electronic throttle control where
the computer actually has control of the throttle position.

Pete C.

 

I've not seen any redundant sensors in any GM vehicle I've worked on. My
current '97 truck with the 7.4l Vortec V8 certainly has no redundancy in
it's sensors. A single sensor each for throttle position, intake air
temperature, mass air flow, etc. Certainly if it looses one of the
sensors to the extent it can detect it, it will enter limp mode, but
absent redundant sensors, there are failure modes that the computer has
no way to detect.

Pete C.

 

I've not seen any redundant sensors in any GM vehicle I've worked on. My
current '97 truck with the 7.4l Vortec V8 certainly has no redundancy in
it's sensors. A single sensor each for throttle position, intake air
temperature, mass air flow, etc. Certainly if it looses one of the
sensors to the extent it can detect it, it will enter limp mode, but
absent redundant sensors, there are failure modes that the computer has
no way to detect.

Pete C.

 

America, and indeed the world, pursue what is seen to be cutting edge
technology
just like codfish rush to bite an unbaited hook. Have things REALLY
improved
by quantum steps?

Software capabilities are not so greatly changed, and the chip technology -
though greatly evolved - has developed solely to service the software
which, indeed, has become bloated and glitchy.

You could run word processors, databases, spreadsheets, games, etc even on
the old
black and white Z80 machines. One company where I used to work ran the
whole operation
with two 10 megabyte harddrives and a Z80 network system.

Personal computers today do little that the old ones wouldn't do in some
form or
the other. Nor do they always do the job so terribly much quicker or
better,
although the microprocessors grunt along at multigigahertz speeds. We
garbage
mongers that feed the data into them are, oft as not, the limiting factor.

Mainframes had somewhat different requirements. They didnt have to cater to
the
executive gamer showoff computer-illiterate.