Many residents of Southern California probably see a lot of promise in hybrid vehicles. They can save their users bundles of money in fuel costs since they can be run using electricity. Moreover, they are clean and relatively good for the environment.
However, some of these vehicles, specifically the hybrid Toyota Prius, seem to have been plagued with a lot of technological problems. In fact, just recently, Toyota announced the recall of 2 million vehicles of this type. The issue in this latest recall is a possible software problem. If it works properly, the software is supposed to force the car to run solely on gasoline if the electrical system fails without warning. However, a glitch in the programming may wind up causing a car to stall instead. Should this happen while motorists are traveling on the highway, a serious collision could be the end result.
This recall comes on the heels of another recall of over 1 million Toyota hybrids last month. The reason for last month’s recall was concern that these vehicles might catch on fire.
These stories illustrate how much of the modern automotive technology that some may already take for granted still includes a lot of bugs and other kinks that still need to be worked out. While it seems at this point that these issues were caught early enough to avoid a large number of injuries, such will sadly not always be the case.
Especially given the strict liability standard, manufacturers and designers of cars must take the utmost care to ensure that the vehicles they put on the market are safe. Not matter how complicated the engineering, if it fails and causes an injury, then the designer and manufacturer may be held accountable in a products liability lawsuit.
ES