The Prius That Shook.. - VFAQ Prius Site

and the driving distance on the test course was almost five
times longer than other new models.
Since the development period for Prius was extremely
limited, R&D and product development advanced almost
simultaneously. With the development of ordinary cars, test
vehicles of different phases share many parts. With Prius,
however, experiences and/or manuals from previous test
vehicles could not be used for the new test vehicle because each
test car and every computer changed with every test.
For every test breakthrough, a new test vehicle was
prepared to evaluate the new idea. The first task of the
Product Audit Department was not to evaluate the car but
to get it running. A new test vehicle would almost never
work at first because of a computer bug or an error in
specifications.
Since nobody had particularly difficult experiences in
the past, no one was comfortable with the situation.
"I'm sorry but this car is not working," a young
Product Audit Department staff member complained when
he went to pick up a test vehicle at the test office on the
fifth floor of 8 th Technology Plant. He had received a call to
get the first prototype. He had assumed that a car would be
working from the very beginning.
"We assembled it as we were told, using the unit from
the Power Train & Chassis Components Production
Engineering Division. If it doesn't work, maybe there's
something wrong with the design." The test plant staff
307