Prius Adds to Toyota's Woes. By Micheline Maynard, NYTimes, February 3, 2010. "The hybrid-electric Prius has long been Toyota's 'green car,' the symbol of the automaker's engineering prowess and its big bet on the kind of car consumers will want to buy for decades to come. But on Wednesday, the Prius was drawn into the mounting crisis for Toyota, as Japanese officials ordered the company to investigate problems with the brakes on the 2010 model... Toyota has sold 1.2 million Priuses worldwide since 1997, about half in the United States. Last year, it was Toyota's third-best-selling American car, behind the Camry and the Corolla... Toyota received thousands of advance orders for the new Prius went it went on sale in Japan last May. Federal safety officials there received their first complaint about brakes on the car two months later. The company said that it had received 77 reports of braking problems related to the newest Prius model... In addition, in the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported at least 136 complaints involving the brakes on the 2010 Prius.
"The 2010 Prius has a new type of regenerative brake system different from the ones used in previous years' models. With regenerative braking, energy from the wheels is used to help recharge the car's battery. However, the Prius and other hybrid models also rely on complex electronic systems that combine regenerative braking with conventional brake pads, so that the battery can absorb as much energy as possible while the pads do most of the work of stopping the car. Given the Toyota recalls, questions have come from many quarters about those electronic systems. The company has emphatically denied that electronic systems are responsible for complaints of stuck pedals on eight other models, which do not include the Prius."
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