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Government investigation: No evidence Toyota electronic throttles malfunctioned

54 points by m_myers 16y ago

misterbwong 16y ago
This doesn't mean that Toyota was in the right all along. I still think they got a bad rap for what happened, but apparently I'm in the minority. More context: The probe by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA engineers found that the only causes of the unwanted acceleration were the previously identified sticking accelerator pedals and loose floormats that could jam the pedals.
- jameskilton 16y ago
  Exactly. This unintended acceleration was complete media hype from the beginning, which snow-balled out of control after a report of I think 2 times where condensation caused the gas pedal to stick open for a short period of time. Whether this was a hidden or subconscious effort to discredit a non-US car company probably can't ever be proven but the damage is done. But that's ok. American's historically have the worst memory of anyone on this planet. In a year no-one is even going to remember this fiasco, much less care.
  - Semiapies 16y ago
    Going by Toyota sales, Americans have already forgotten (or simply dismissed) the hype.
  - kjhgfdfgh 16y ago
    So a foreign car gets blamed when old people stand on the gas instead of the brake - and a bunch of lawyers and politicians jump on the bandwagon. That couldn't have been forseen - it hasn't happened for a generation.
  - sunchild 16y ago
    I was in Japan when this controversy was on the front page of every American paper. The people in Nagoya were talking about what puppets of their news Americans are. It's not as if Japanese people are any different. Local people weren't even slightly worried about it. They knew they could ride it out. They knew the claims were total bullshit. It was a transparent effort by the media to drive consumers to the failing American brands. In the end, it failed to persuade Americans to buy mediocrity.
- yason 16y ago
  The floormats are pretty obvious and that has happened before. Given that, how hard is it then, if your car doesn't stop accelerating, to simply push the clutch down or switch to neutral, depending on your type of transmission?
  - cperciva 16y ago
    Lots of people have done exactly what you suggest -- but the news media don't report on near-miss vehicular incidents.
  - lutorm 16y ago
    My VW will cut the gas if you are pushing on both gas and brake at the same time. That also seems like a reasonable prioritization.
    - cma 16y ago
      That adds complexity; it could falsely trigger when someone was making a left turn in front of oncoming traffic causing them to stall and get creamed. Not saying it isn't still the best choice, but it does have potential downsides.
      - yason 16y ago
        Who will ever press the brake pedal with their left foot? That sounds like remixing all the routes of neural impulses for braking/accelerating. I sometimes do it consciously on a parking lot after a good car wash during winter to slightly warm and dry the brake pads to prevent them from getting frozen, and I have to carefully think my foot-pedalling logic twice--no, three times!--to only apply a slight pressure on the brakes while my right foot keeps pushing the accelerator. If I did that during driving in the traffic, I'd probably alternate between jumping to a 100% halt and rear-ending somebody with screaming tyres.
        cma 16y ago
        I was saying adding the mechanism adds complexity and the mechanism could fail; I was not saying we should worry about the person pressing both pedals at the same time during a turn.
- eli 16y ago
  And note that they didn't pay a fine for having unsafe cars. They paid a fine because they illegally concealed accident and problem reports from regulators. Even if it turns out that none of these crashes were Toyota's fault, that's pretty inexcusable behavior.
mrcharles 16y ago
Anyone else kind of scared by the fact that there's 280000 [0] lines of code in a car? I mean, I know there's computers in there, and that they are necessary nowadays, but that seems like an awful lot of code to handle some lights and engine timings. [0] http://detnews.com/article/20110208/AUTO01/102080381/Feds-clear-Toyota-of-electronic-causes http://detnews.com/article/20110208/AUTO01/102080381/Feds-cl...
- archangel_one 16y ago
  It's possible that quite a lot of those lines of code might support mostly unnecessary UI-type stuff, eg. the interfaces that let you configure how long the lights remain on for after you remove the key which Top Gear take such pleasure in criticising. But yeah, it is kind of scary. I'm not really sure I want my car to be "smarter" - keeping it simple seems good. But I guess it is a credit to the industry that AFAIK there haven't been any software disasters that have led to brakes failing and people being killed or similar.
  - brc 16y ago
    While you're right in that computers control all that integration, you're wrong about being integrated within the car. The 'body' computer (which handles door lights, stereo controls, instrumentation, etc etc) is a completely separate system to the engine management system. One thing most people don't realise is that there isn't one 'central' computer for a car. Rather there are separate computers for each control system - one for the engine, transmission, body, ABS, airbags, suspension (in some cases) - etc etc etc. It's done like this both for separate points of failure and mixing and matching across different model ranges. Most of the things Top Gear loves to hate can actually be programmed out of your car if you can get a control system that interfaces with it. Things like warning chimes, reminders, etc are generally market-regulation specific, and can easily be switched off as an option within the computer if you have the right gear. One pet hate of mine is auto-locking doors, and in many cars you can turn this off. There is essentially zero chance of me getting carjacked, so it's definitely more trouble thant is worth.
- CoachRufus87 16y ago

54 points by m_myers 16y ago

This doesn't mean that Toyota was in the right all along. I still think they got a bad rap for what happened, but apparently I'm in the minority. More context: The probe by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA engineers found that the only causes of the unwanted acceleration were the previously identified sticking accelerator pedals and loose floormats that could jam the pedals.

jameskilton 16y ago
Exactly. This unintended acceleration was complete media hype from the beginning, which snow-balled out of control after a report of I think 2 times where condensation caused the gas pedal to stick open for a short period of time. Whether this was a hidden or subconscious effort to discredit a non-US car company probably can't ever be proven but the damage is done. But that's ok. American's historically have the worst memory of anyone on this planet. In a year no-one is even going to remember this fiasco, much less care.
- Semiapies 16y ago
  Going by Toyota sales, Americans have already forgotten (or simply dismissed) the hype.
- kjhgfdfgh 16y ago
  So a foreign car gets blamed when old people stand on the gas instead of the brake - and a bunch of lawyers and politicians jump on the bandwagon. That couldn't have been forseen - it hasn't happened for a generation.
- sunchild 16y ago
  I was in Japan when this controversy was on the front page of every American paper. The people in Nagoya were talking about what puppets of their news Americans are. It's not as if Japanese people are any different. Local people weren't even slightly worried about it. They knew they could ride it out. They knew the claims were total bullshit. It was a transparent effort by the media to drive consumers to the failing American brands. In the end, it failed to persuade Americans to buy mediocrity.
yason 16y ago
The floormats are pretty obvious and that has happened before. Given that, how hard is it then, if your car doesn't stop accelerating, to simply push the clutch down or switch to neutral, depending on your type of transmission?
- cperciva 16y ago
  Lots of people have done exactly what you suggest -- but the news media don't report on near-miss vehicular incidents.
- lutorm 16y ago
  My VW will cut the gas if you are pushing on both gas and brake at the same time. That also seems like a reasonable prioritization.
  - cma 16y ago
    That adds complexity; it could falsely trigger when someone was making a left turn in front of oncoming traffic causing them to stall and get creamed. Not saying it isn't still the best choice, but it does have potential downsides.
    - yason 16y ago
      Who will ever press the brake pedal with their left foot? That sounds like remixing all the routes of neural impulses for braking/accelerating. I sometimes do it consciously on a parking lot after a good car wash during winter to slightly warm and dry the brake pads to prevent them from getting frozen, and I have to carefully think my foot-pedalling logic twice--no, three times!--to only apply a slight pressure on the brakes while my right foot keeps pushing the accelerator. If I did that during driving in the traffic, I'd probably alternate between jumping to a 100% halt and rear-ending somebody with screaming tyres.
      - cma 16y ago
        I was saying adding the mechanism adds complexity and the mechanism could fail; I was not saying we should worry about the person pressing both pedals at the same time during a turn.
eli 16y ago
And note that they didn't pay a fine for having unsafe cars. They paid a fine because they illegally concealed accident and problem reports from regulators. Even if it turns out that none of these crashes were Toyota's fault, that's pretty inexcusable behavior.

mrcharles 16y ago

Anyone else kind of scared by the fact that there's 280000 [0] lines of code in a car? I mean, I know there's computers in there, and that they are necessary nowadays, but that seems like an awful lot of code to handle some lights and engine timings. [0] http://detnews.com/article/20110208/AUTO01/102080381/Feds-clear-Toyota-of-electronic-causes http://detnews.com/article/20110208/AUTO01/102080381/Feds-cl...

archangel_one 16y ago
It's possible that quite a lot of those lines of code might support mostly unnecessary UI-type stuff, eg. the interfaces that let you configure how long the lights remain on for after you remove the key which Top Gear take such pleasure in criticising. But yeah, it is kind of scary. I'm not really sure I want my car to be "smarter" - keeping it simple seems good. But I guess it is a credit to the industry that AFAIK there haven't been any software disasters that have led to brakes failing and people being killed or similar.
- brc 16y ago
  While you're right in that computers control all that integration, you're wrong about being integrated within the car. The 'body' computer (which handles door lights, stereo controls, instrumentation, etc etc) is a completely separate system to the engine management system. One thing most people don't realise is that there isn't one 'central' computer for a car. Rather there are separate computers for each control system - one for the engine, transmission, body, ABS, airbags, suspension (in some cases) - etc etc etc. It's done like this both for separate points of failure and mixing and matching across different model ranges. Most of the things Top Gear loves to hate can actually be programmed out of your car if you can get a control system that interfaces with it. Things like warning chimes, reminders, etc are generally market-regulation specific, and can easily be switched off as an option within the computer if you have the right gear. One pet hate of mine is auto-locking doors, and in many cars you can turn this off. There is essentially zero chance of me getting carjacked, so it's definitely more trouble thant is worth.
CoachRufus87 16y ago