ruhlich

The last I heard, Porsche "techs" were coming from the factory to remove the "black box" in Paul Walker's GT to analyze the data.

Really news to me...........what is the "black box"?? Does it exist in our 991's (or like the Canbus electrical system, is it in all cars since 2008)? Where is it located? What is the information intended for and to whom?

Been waiting for an issue of Autoweek to report on the findings and a better synopsis of what actually happened and at what speed. Nothing yet.

Anyone here or across the pond have any thoughts?

Hammer911

I recall reading somewhere that all cars now collect data. also recall some debate as to who owns the information.

Just J

I don't think there's a "standard", but a lot of new cars have such a black box. A typical example will record speed, throttle input, brake input, steering angle, and miscellaneous other control and sensor data. It will record at some frequency (1-10 times a second), and store the last 5 seconds of data. Up detection of an accident, recording/overwriting is stopped, leaving data for the five seconds leading up to the event. The manufacturers' comments I have seen say they are doing it to improve safety by understanding the kinds of things that lead to a crash. There is much online chatter about whether or not the government has a right to that data, or if it is "yours" under an expectation of privacy in your car.

MarcusG

The black box in the Carrera GT is in the center of the car from what I understand. It would tell the Porsche engineers the speed at the time of the accident, driver inputs and if both airbags had operated as designed. I heard back in Dec. that there had been a request for Porsche to recover the data recorder from the car Paul and Roger passed away in. Don't know if it happened though. It wasn't Paul's Carrera GT. It was Rogers.

RIP