What Toyota Needs To Do

All the evidence points to a coverup by Toyota in dealing with the more than 1,600 complaints and 34 deaths, alleged to be caused by their cars suddenly accelerating. The company told complaining owners for 7 years that their problems were due to faulty floor mats, including one owner that later died when his car crashed after suddenly accelerating ... with his floor mats stored in his trunk.

And new evidence just uncovered from internal Toyota memos shows how company executives bragged about saving $100 million in repairs and recalls by successfully negotiating with regulators to curtail some of these investigations.

Just last week a Toyota Vice President, Bob Carter, said at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando, FL that "Testing by Toyota, NHTSA, and Exponent, an outside consulting firm hired by Toyota, has found no evidence of problems with Toyota's electronics."

"There is no problem with the electronic throttle system in Toyotas," Carter said. "There's not anything that can even remotely lead you in that direction." Carter said Exponent was told to tear the components apart to try to find anything wrong and initial tests could find nothing.

While it may be true that during the short time Exponent ran their tests they found no evidence of unintended acceleration caused by the electronics, Carter's conclusion that "there is no problem" is neither accurate nor a logical conclusion. Two months of testing six or eight cars does not prove that there is not a problem. Statements like these continue to mislead the public and show Toyota is still not serious about discovering the true cause of unintended acceleration.

It's now time for Mr. Toyoda to move aside their marketing, PR and damage control people that just obfuscate the issue, and to take personal charge and do what's in the best interests of his customers, making safety the first priority, ahead of profit.

Here's what I would advise him to do:

1. Instruct every engineer that has had any involvement in the design, manufacturing or testing of unintended acceleration to come forward with what they know and report their findings to you, Mr. Toyoda, directly.
2. Request that every customer that's experienced the problem of unintended acceleration to bring their car into their Toyota dealer in exchange for a loaner.
3. Bring 1,000 of Toyota's best engineers to the U.S. to fan out and examine the cars that have been turned in to the dealers. Subject these cars to extensive testing to try replicate the reported problems. It's much more likely that a population of cars that have experienced the problems will yield better results than testing a few new cars.
4. Buy back samples of these cars that indicate anomalies and subject them to additional testing in Japan.
5. Have this team of Toyota engineers present their findings for peer review to a team of U.S. experts in electronics, software, testing, and quality control from academia, the automotive industry, and NHTSA, and then report their findings directly to the public.

When Mr. Toyoda testifies in front of Congress this week, he has one chance to do the right thing. If he's smart he'll turn to his engineers to get to the bottom of the problems, not to those executives like Mr. Carter who still want us to believe there is not a problem.

 

Follow Philip G. Baker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pbaker

Comments

[lastpost]

09:31 AM on 02/25/2010

“Here's what I would advise him to do”

6. If you intend to build vehicles that function using the same principles as modern aircraft (drive-by-wire = fly-by-wire), then perhaps you should also consider incorporating other aspects of that methodology.
a) Redundancy: If an accelerator pedal utilises a single potentiometer. Then a fault is likely to equate to an accident. If three potentiometers were banked, the engine control computer could average those readings. Thus two similar readings would negate one erroneous reading. The detected fault could be indicated, and attended to without safely ever being compromised. Also consider "Fail into Safe Mode"
b) Faulting: The computer tuning socket could be used to provide an access point for data-logging. An intermittent, and therefore difficult to find fault, could be persued by a black-box unit on loan from the local Toyota agent. This would monitor and record readings until the customer reported that the situation in question had reoccurred.
c) Improvement: You might also give thought to one more item. If a “Bluetooth Transponder” type system was incorporated into the EMS. Then police vehicles might be equipped to remotely monitor road use tax/insurance status. And also, possibly, the coded ability to safely shutdown engines of stolen or escaping vehicles.

[Soylent Green]

12:31 PM on 02/23/2010

If Toyota, GM, and Chrysler (now, all poster children for failure) were to simply close their doors there would still be more than enough cars for the entire world. Toyota's shortcomings only help to realize this reality. If we aren't being killed by technolgy, then we are being asked to empty our wallets to pay for bailouts. Lose/lose situations all around.

[onenation]

09:50 AM on 02/23/2010

"News" lazies - malpractice.
What the press needs to do is tell the whole facts. The famous trouper death case needs to be told for facts. 1. the car history - prior rental - report-rerent-problem. 2. Troupers actions- drove how long at what soeed - phone call how long - what should he have done. 3. Toyota actions and non-actions. Not be inuendo, but compared to tobaco, which we still sell to foreign countries.
Toyota- Gross actions & inactions. - But would putting on the breaks full force have stoped the car? Are we helpless? Should we make Toyota as the only bad guy? We do not and cannot know on our own and without the "news" may never know.
"News" lazies - malpractice.

[MThomasNC]

04:52 PM on 02/22/2010

I read where Toyota is claiming that the Obama admin is not friendly toward business. So this is what Toyota want - a govt that helps cover up their crimes, defective equipment, deaths of its customer, all for the mighty dollars.
I remember during the Bush43, all the uncovered toxic ingredients that had been placed in consumer products for world consumption. I remember seeing congressional testimony where the head of this agency saying that she did not have enough staff to do the product testing/checking that is required to keep the consumers safe. This agency head had been working for that industry in question.
But industry wants the likes of Bush people who did not give a darn about providing good, safe products for the consumer. They care about the industry's bottom line.
Had Toyota corrected the problems when it was uncovered by in 2003, they would not have these problems today. There is an old adage - pay now to correct the problem, or pay later big time. Most businesses pay big time later in tarnished image, lawsuits, customers' deaths.

[spinns17]

05:34 PM on 02/22/2010

and then they add it to the price.so then we end up paying for there greed and dumb ideas