RECALL ALERT: Toyota recalls more than 800,000 Prius and Prius v vehicles

Photo: Toyota USA newsroom.

Toyota announced a safety recall today that affects some 807,000 vehicles in the United States, including 2010-2014 model year Toyota Prius and 2012-2014 Prius v vehicles.

The automaker states that, in certain situations, the affected vehicles may not enter failsafe driving mode as they are designed to do in response to certain hybrid system faults. In this situation, the vehicle may lose power and stall. Although Toyota states that power steering and braking would remain operational, a stall at higher speeds could make a crash more likely.

"So a Camry, a Prius, and a Corvette drive onto a racetrack—" Why are you laughing? This isn't a joke.

Photo: Toyota USA Newsroom.

Seriously. The above headline is not a setup for some kind of corny car-guy punchline. It's for real. And let me preface this by saying that I'm not a Toyota basher at all. In fact, I own a Toyota.

That said, I do share a certain level of the sensibility of many in the automotive press—among them Todd Deeken and Paul Schmucker of Everyday Driver, for instance—that the Toyota Camry and Toyota Prius can be looked at as archetypes of the "appliance on wheels" concept.