Page 110 - Toyota Under Fire

THE RECALL CRISIS

has similar testing chambers running tests on its electronic sys-
tems. Even prior to the NASA investigation, there had never
been a documented case of EMI-induced failure of an ETC in
the field that evaded detection by the vehicle’s safety mecha-
nisms or caused unintended behavior. NASA used a similar test
chamber to test several Toyota vehicles whose owners had re-
ported incidents of SUA, but was unable to induce acceleration
in any of them (though several did enter a fail-safe mode and set
a trouble code).

SUA Allegations across the Industry

The most famous instance prior to Toyota was that of Audi in the
mid-1980s. The claim then was that Audis were prone to surging
at start-up (at that time, Audi did not use a drive-by-wire sys-
tem). Several children were killed when their parents or grand-
parents started an Audi and the vehicle surged forward. There
were media exposés, including a particularly notorious one by
60 Minutes that used compressed air to manipulate the trans-
mission of an Audi to cause the gas pedal to operate indepen-
dently and give the appearance of SUA.* Ultimately, after years
of investigation, it was conclusively determined that there was
nothing wrong with the Audi vehicles. What was happening
was that people were putting their foot on the accelerator and
shifting into gear, but then, instead of pressing on the brake pedal
to slow down, they were mistakenly pressing even harder on the

* Ed Wallace, “The Real Scandal behind the Toyota Recall,” Bloomberg Busi-
nessweek, February 11, 2010; http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content
/feb2010/bw20100211_986136.htm.

79