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Patch Update Like No Other -- From Toyota

You can't miss Toyota in the news; the massive recall has put the company front and center. A side note resulting from that news is that the company is sending customers a software update that might correct the problems, at least in regards to the software. Even more interesting is this comment to a Slashdot submitter, with the mother-of-all-key-phrases:

You already took the 100 million lines of code when you bought the car. Now do you want the bug fixes, or would you rather find out what a "fatal exception" means in more physical terms?

In some ways, this reminds me of the joke, "If Microsoft built cars...", only this joke isn't funny in the least.

Posted by Michael Domingo on 02/26/2010 at 4:31 PM


Reader Comments:

Wed, Mar 3, 2010

Toyota has known about this problem for years, but has only recently had their political protection pulled, and now the gloves are off as they should be and Toyota now finds itself on the level playing field that has been missing for decades. There have been cases of runaway Toyotas dating back to 2003, but nothing was done because they could keep it hush hush. Whatever solution they are offering now has probably been on the table for a long time, but just wasn't chosen because of the obvious consumer complaints that would come about from it. Now, the lesser of two evils is easy to choose for Toyota owners, and the fixes and their related side effects will be accepted. I would install the patch. It's not been in development for 3 months, but rather years. However, I would see not being able to power brake an issue under certain circumstances and hence I'd be going for a trade if I owned one at all, which I never would.

Wed, Mar 3, 2010 RSP

However you may feel about the issue, patches do work but in fact may be subject to other problems. My personal feeling is that Toyota could not have adequately tested their software solution in the amount of time given. They would have needed to pull all the information from each complaint, analyze the issues from these cases, categorize them into test cases, implement the patch (patches), thoroughly test the patch (which would require them to know how to reproduce the problem in a repeatable manner so that when the patch is applied, it can then be determined to fix or not fix the problem). At this point, with all of the concealing of evidence and information Toyota has done, I think the safest thing to do is to bring your Toyota back to the dealer, try and enforce the lemon law so that they must buy it back, and then put your trust into a Ford or GM vehicle.

Tue, Mar 2, 2010 SANDY PA, USA

I loved this comment more than the one quoted ...

Nobody taught you that. You pulled it out of your ass so you'd sound officious and get a post on /.

The vast majority of firmware updates work, fix problems and don't brick devices. Much more of this s**t that gets by as posts and I'll be begging for Jon Katz to come back!

However the following Test Case does make you think about how the fix would react So anyone who starts from a stop on a steep incline by slowly depressing the brake while simultaneously pressing the gas to avoid rolling back into the vehicle behind them will now stall their vehicle?

Tue, Mar 2, 2010 Tom Johnston Newark, DE

As a software professional, I have seen the power of a patch. The probem is: what if the patch causes a new failure "down the road"? Will the patch work with all of the black box code sets out there in the models supposedly affected? I propose that Toyota and President Toyoda have no idea how many cars and what models are actually at risk?

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