California Lemon Law Lawyer Blog

In an interview reported in today's WSJ, David Strickland, the head of the federal safety agency, says that the agency's focus will be on new technology. The agency will look at crash-avoidance technology, such as Ford's experiments with a "talking vehicle" system that warns a driver a vehicle is closing in fast from the side at a blind intersection. The agency is also researching devices to detect an elevated lood alcohol level in the driver to reduce drunk driving.

Consumer auto safety advocates have long seen the agency as doing too little, too late. Perhaps the agency will now force some major advances in auto safety.;

Are women better drivers than men? This debate has been going on since cars were invented. AOL Auto weighs in with an interesting report.

In July 2010 Honda issued new software for the 2006 through 2008 Civic Hybrid battery charging system to address complaints of diminished fuel economy and loss of power. Honda's letter to owners said the software was to prevent the integrated motor assist (IMA) battery from deteriorating and eventually fail.

The new software limits the amount of time the electric motor kicks in--prolonging batterylife but reducing the amount of assist the IMA electric-drive system provides the car's tiny four-cylinder gasoline engine.

Honda undoubtedly took this action in part to less the number of batteries it would have to pay to replace under its eight year factory battery warranty.

The problem is that after the software was installed, owners experienced reduced gas mileage (10 mpg or more) and less power. Post-software upgrade, owners said their cars were a "gutless wonder," having "less assist," the battery would not take as high a charge, at 4 bars the assist is unpredictable, and the assist will stop at critical times like when entering a freeway on-ramp.

Civic owners have many posted complaints about the impact of the software change on Internet forums, including www.greenhybrid.com, www.hybridcars.com, www.autoblog.com, and ConsumerReports.org (CR's car blog).

On behalf of a Civic hybrid owner, I have sent Honda notice that its failure to disclose the true impact of the software change violated various California consumer protection laws.