In modern cars, pressing the gas pedal sends a signal to a computer, and the computer makes a determination as to how much fuel to send to the engine. In older vehicles, the gas pedal was tied to a mechanical linkage that would allow more fuel to flow into the engine. A black box system is a system in which inputs and outputs can be observed, but the way in which those outputs are created is an unknown. To the average consumer, a modern vehicle is essentially a black box system. What bothered me about this particular problem (aside from the obvious) was that the mechanics at the dealership couldn’t tell me why it was happening, and essentially just dismissed the problem as a computer glitch. I can accept that cars, like any other machine, require periodic maintenance and sometimes break down. Thankfully, I always managed to hit the brakes before anything bad happened, but things could have very easily turned out differently. There were a few different incidents in which the car put itself in gear while I was sitting in a parking space. The reason why I got rid of the car was because those seemingly innocuous electronic gremlins not only became more prevalent but also dangerous. In fact, it was all of the high-tech gadgetry that first attracted me to the vehicle.įor the first couple of years that I owned it, everything was fine aside from a few quirky bugs in the electronics. What is important is that at the time that I bought it, it was one of the most technologically advanced hybrids on the market. Let me tell you about a car that I used to own.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |