Re:Irresponsible article! (Score 3, Interesting)

I had this exact same glitch in my 2004 Toyota Prius 6 days ago. I was driving down the 57 South (I live in socal), merging onto the 91 West. I was in "stealth" mode at the time (where the gas engine is off, and electric engine is on), since the traffic usually backs up on the 57-91 onramp. Suddenly, my whole dashboard lights up like a christmas tree, and my nav system flashes "PROBLEM" on the screen. I notice that ICE (the gas engine) no longer kicked it when I depressed my gas pedal, but the electric engine was still operating fine. Fortunately, I was only a mile away from the next exit, so I coast there in electric mode... fortunately, it was still rush-hour, so I didn't hold up traffic, and my battery "tank" was full.

After pulling into a Denny's parking lot, I hit the power button to "reboot" the car... fortunately, most of the lights disappeared, and the gas engine kicked in, but there was still a few alert and check-engine lights on. I was able to drive the car another 15 or so miles at full highway speeds to the dealership, who were able to pull the problem codes (P3191 P0A0F) and reprogrammed my computer... and all is great again!

While I agree that the problem is alarming, it wasn't as bad as the article claims... the electric engine still gave me all the power I need to pull over safely. And this was the only problem I've ever encountered with the Prius, after 13 months and 18000 miles!