Accusations of "rigged" tests aired by news organizations have turned out to be true in Audi unintended acceleration, GM side saddle gas tank fires, and Ford Explorer rollover matters.
The multi-front battle about whether at least some Toyota unintended acceleration problems are caused by an electronic glitch, which involves politics, Congressional testimony, saturation news coverage and auto industry safety and design practices, took a new turn yesterday.
Toyota claims Congressional testimony and an ABC news appearance on February 22 from Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University demonstrating apparent “unintended acceleration” are false.
“Toyota and Exponent (an electronics consultancy also used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) have provided Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University with the results of their thorough evaluations of his demonstration of apparent “unintended acceleration” in Toyota and Lexus vehicles as described in Gilbert’s Preliminary Report and in his testimony at recent Congressional hearings,” Toyota said in a statement.
“The analysis of Professor’s Gilbert’s demonstration establishes that he has re-engineered and rewired the signals from the accelerator pedal. This rewired circuit is highly unlikely to occur naturally and can only be contrived in a laboratory. There is no evidence to suggest that this highly unlikely scenario has ever occurred in the real world. As shown in the Exponent and Toyota evaluations, with such artificial modifications, similar results can be obtained in other vehicles,” Toyota said in a statement.
Toyota has also supplied the results of these evaluations to the “appropriate” Congressional Committees, which I assume are the three that have thus far held hearings on the deadly problem.
Four things are clear:
- The politicians – especially Democrats but also the Republicans– will not let this issue drop during what will be a tough mid-term election year for the party in power as well as incumbents;
- Toyota engineering practices will continue to be scrutinized;
- The media, who have no competency in this area, to put it politely (they would explain mean time between failures or a standard deviation from the mean – as it’s Toyota’s turn in the barrel.) are now in love with this story – so it will reach even more absurd levels of coverage.
- Toyota owners will continue to be baffled, and frightened, by what is going on and what to do.
Good report and analysis…
Shades of GM’s “Pickupgate” with NBC Dateline.
Ken
As for the “four things are clear”:
Would that all the mainstream news hype could be as easily sorted out as you have here. Bravo!
In my opinion, the time that once was spent fact checking seems to have been replaced by creating teaser ads that will not only tell you what they are going to tell you, but how incredibly wonderful the person is who is going to tell you something — eventually, if you watch long enough. Sigh. No wonder Twitter is gaining traction.
Jack – Thanks.
Louise – LOL on the Saturday Night Live like sketch on TV news promos.
I have said from day one that Toyota has been avoiding the real issue here. Actually there are two problems.
The first is the problem of the accelerator sticking which we experienced at our shop. This would occur while you are driving when you remove your foot from the gas pedal but the pedal would not return to an idle position. That issue was partially due to the floor mats and then complicated by the linkage problem which Toyota has addressed.
The second (more expensive) problem is the sudden unintended acceleration. Linkage and floor mats will not cause an engine to accelerate on it’s own! Computer controlled engines have and idle control solenoid that determines the engine speed at idle. It is directed by the computer and the various sensors which determine what the optimum RPM should be for a given environment. Your engine idles faster on a cold morning then it does when its warm. This component would have the ability to suddenly accelerate your vehicle if it received a random signal from the
computer. I would guess that after the dust settles it will be determined that this is the area Toyota needs to address. I am sure their engineers know where the problem is but the cost to repair or replace the culprit is most likely prohibitive. I am also sure that some accountant in an office has determined that it would be more cost effective to pay out or settle what ever lawsuits arise before admitting to and recalling 7 million computers at $500+ each.
If there is one thing I have learned in my 30+ years of being a “car guy”/automotive shop owner is when it comes to warranties and corporate honesty…..it’s always about the money!
OK, so Professor Gilbert’s testing proved the acceleration is electronically possible, maybe not through rewiring. As Al explained, the mats and linkages would HOLD a gas pedal in place and therefore maintain a speed or engine RPM but would not make a car suddenly accelerate. Toyota should take a look at some sort of mixed signals or possibly outside sources that could interrupt or change what the on board computer THINKS it is seeing.
On JerseyShoreAl’s point, do throttle-by-wire cars have a separate IAC or is it done with the throttle plate? Non-throttle-by-wire computer-controlled engines have the throttle completely closed at idel and a separate idle air control bypass with a needle valve that won’t open enough to cause problems. Maybe the same control has always had problems but it never mattered until recently?
What are the penalties for lying before a congressional committee?
Harry: In theory it’s sworn testimony. In practice, little usually happens, once the media and the Congress (and, it hopes, the voters) have moved on. – KZ, editor.
Seems it depends upon WHOM is doing the lying!
Bill: Remember Sam Spade in the Maltese Falcon – seems to me everyone is being, well, less than honest here – KZ, editor, and detective fiction fan.
Harry says:
March 8, 2010 at 12:15 pm
What are the penalties for lying before a congressional committee?
Harry..apparently none as witnessed by the Bush administration actions.
The are however penalties for withholding information from NHTSA.
In 2000 the TREAD Act authorized NHTSA to seek civil penalties of up to $5,000 per motor vehicle per day, with a maximum penalty of $15 million for all related violations, in the event that an auto manufacturer fails or refuses to comply with a NHTSA regulation.
The law also authorized criminal penalties for falsifying or withholding information with the intent to mislead the agency about a safety defect that has caused death or serious bodily injury.
In February 2010, NHTSA launched an inquiry to examine whether civil penalties would be appropriate in connection to the Toyota recall. The possiblity of criminal penalties remains open.
JerseyShoreAl… You mention linkage when referring to the electronic accelerator, would you care to elaborate? As far as I know there is no linkage only a pivot and a purpose designed friction point that now has a shim installed to reduce the friction and subsequent jamming as experienced in the faulty units. The floor mat issue is idiotic since anyone can install aftermarket ones that can and do come in contact with the pedals, its happened for years in all cars!
You sound like a hands on workshop guy but then go on to offer up another unsubstantiated remark its all down to money when Toyota is haemorrhaging money over the bad publicity. They could probably re-engineer the system for less than they will loose over this fiasco.
Maybe this is how they plan to reduce our national deficit 🙂
Check this link for yet another angle on this….
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PRIUS_PANIC?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT