Dangerous software glitches in Prius hybrids?

[Blazkowicz]

I drove 35km with the emergency brake on that car. I didn't know the car very well (controls are weirdly placed), I thought, what's the hell? It feels like a Ford T or something.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Also there's a very good reason for using a handbrake for a power slide in a rear wheel drive vehicle.

And someone even mentioned it above.

Doing the handbrake slide into a parking space along the curb. IE - a handbrake parallel park. It's impressive when done well. And makes you look like a complete idiot if you botch it.

Anyone remember one of the early episodes of Top Gear XTRA where they taught grannies how to do it? hehe.

Regards,
SB

 

[_xxx_]

Wow, you learn something new every day.
I am not sure I like the idea, but I guess you get used to it fairly quickly.

CC

Well it makes handbrake-controlled burnouts/slides impossible, but it's quite comfy for everyday use Though you can still do slides if you have enough power and turn off the ESP. In some of our newer models we had to explicitely alter the ESP software to enable burnouts, since customers missed it due to ESP reaction being too fast. Crazy world.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Well it makes handbrake-controlled burnouts/slides impossible, but it's quite comfy for everyday use Though you can still do slides if you have enough power and turn off the ESP. In some of our newer models we had to explicitely alter the ESP software to enable burnouts, since customers missed it due to ESP reaction being too fast. Crazy world.

The esp my in merc could be a big annoyance, but it was also a lifesafer (rwd sucks on anything that isn't perfectly dry). Even when you turned it off, some basic esp stuff was still on. Is it still like this, or have they given us an option to drive without esp completely?

 

[Arwin]

I discovered that when you put the Prius into Neutral (which you can do) you disable the autocharging (it explicitly told me on the osd at one point). So this might help if the problem ever happens.

 

[_xxx_]

Ostepop, it's still always somewhat on, but we included the "totally off" option in some of the new AMG models. For regular Daimler cars, they don't want it for safety reasons, thus only AMG can do it being a "sporty" part of the brand. May as well be a marketing thingy, dunno for sure.