Steve Wozniak says his new Toyota Prius occasionally goes insane on the highway--and that it's a software problem, not a hardware problem. He has tried to tell Toyota and the US government, but they won't listen.

This is notable for three reasons.

First, it's a Prius. We haven't heard of the death-pedal problem in the Prius.

Second, it's Woz. People will listen.

Third, it's more evidence that one of the real problems here may be with Toyota's electronics. Given that Toyota is still denying that there's anything wrong with its electronics, diagnosing the problem and designing a fix could take time. And Toyota's already getting clobbered.

Bloomberg's Mehil Srivastava:

Count Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak among Toyota Motor Corp. car owners who say their vehicles accelerate unintentionally.

Wozniak’s 2010 Toyota Prius can unintentionally accelerate to as much as 97 miles (156 kilometers) per hour when he uses cruise control to increase his speed, he said in an interview yesterday. Toyota and the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration haven’t responded to his complaints in the past two months on what may be a software-related glitch, he said.

“It’s scary when it happens,” Wozniak, 59, said from San Jose, California. “I’ve had trouble getting both the government safety agency and getting Toyota to listen to me.”

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