I've seen a few posts on here about accidents, and I must first say that I feel very sorry that this happened to those people. The other side of my head is thinking that this could be an opportunity of some sort. There is skilled a developer in Japan who is willing to work out some mods for use on US cars, but he does not have access to a US car. We originally talked about shipping a car to him, but that was not feasible due to costs and volunteering a car. We also toyed with the idea of bringing him over to the US for a while, but the costs are still high and the legalities are complex. NEW IDEA: What about salvaging the computer(s) from a few of the Prii that have been totaled in accidents? Those could easily be shipped to Japan. Just an idea . . . . What do you think?
That sounds interesting. What kind of mods were you thinking about? Assuming you could get a car as salvage for not too much money, and cannibalise the parts you need, and the electronics aren't damaged by the impact, then, yeah. Not that I'm trying to discourage you, because I'm not, but I would worry about all that effort spent on broken parts. If there's some way you can verify what you need is in working order, go for it. In any case, this sounds much easier and cheaper than sending a whole car back to Japan.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Aug 21 2006, 07:05 PM) [snapback]307088[/snapback]</div> Take a look at THIS POST to see what I mean. I think we could collectively come up with a couple of computers to ship back and forth as needed for development/testing efforts.
I'm a little confused as to why you/he/she needs a US car/computer. Aren't the basics of the car similar worldwide, with only packages differing?
:huh: Hmmmmmmm... What with the multiple computers in the Prius and the interrelationships between them and the overall design, It's difficult to see how "a computer" could be hacked to change the operating characteristics of the Prius. Not just that... but what of the warranties?
I don't know how different they would be - I DO know that programmers are generally more efficient when they have a bench-unit to play with - that allows them the freedom to try out new stuff without possible disabling their own car and/or voiding the warranty. I'm just trying to find a way to help the developer(s) so they can get new stuff to us faster!
www.car-part.com they usually have ECM's and random other ECU's like the HV its all junkyards all over uSA
