Page 101 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

If you looked in the average Toyota vehicle with properly installed
correct floor mats, you could plainly see that there was virtually
no risk of the pedal’s getting trapped. George Tatar confirmed
the skepticism, “People just didn’t take the floor mat recall seri-
ously.” This sentiment was shared by other dealers interviewed.
The skepticism may have played a role in undermining confidence
in Toyota—without the specific details, people simply didn’t be-
lieve that the Saylor accident could have been caused by floor mats,
and therefore the advisory fed speculation that Toyota didn’t know
what had caused the Saylor accident. The mishandled public com-
munication about the recall and the rebuke from the NHTSA
made things worse. By the time the police report on the Saylor ac-
cident was widely available, the public and the media had already
begun to speculate about other causes, with many pointing the
finger at the electronic throttle control and vehicle electronics.

A Brief History of Vehicle Electronics
and Sudden Acceleration

The February 2011 release of the detailed NASA investigation of
Toyota vehicle electronics has finally put to rest most of the spec-
ulation about hidden problems with Toyota’s vehicle electronics.
As U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, “We enlisted
the best and brightest engineers to study Toyota’s electronics sys-
tems, and the verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for
unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas.”* For more than a
year, until the report was released, however, there were many who
earnestly believed that vehicle electronics in Toyotas were a pos-
sible, if not a probable, cause of the reports of runaway vehicles.

* Comments by Ray LaHood at press conference, February 8, 2011.

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