Page 175 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

program, Gilbert demonstrated how he could create sudden ac-
celeration in a Toyota Avalon without the vehicle’s entering fail-
safe mode or setting a fault code. Gilbert claimed that the sudden
acceleration he had created could happen in real-world conditions
and that only Toyota vehicles were susceptible to his method.
Since Gilbert’s claims were so sensational, a number of other
media outlets as well as Toyota itself went to work to study them.
Over the course of a few weeks, a number of details emerged that
shed a great deal of doubt on the story. First, almost immediately
after the broadcast, several blogs noted that parts of the news re-
port had been altered for dramatic effect. John Cook of the popu-
lar blog Gawker wrote a post illustrating how a shot of the vehicle’s
tachometer zooming toward the red line, which supposedly hap-
pened while ABC News correspondent Brian Ross was driving,
was actually shot while the vehicle was parked with its doors open.
During another portion of the broadcast, Ross exclaims, “The
brakes don’t work, the brakes give out!” while the video shows him
bringing the car to a stop. Even Gilbert never claimed that the ve-
hicle’s brakes wouldn’t bring the vehicle to a stop.
More important, Gilbert’s basic claims—that the vehicle
should have set a fault code and that the problem was unique to
Toyota—were shown not to hold water. An investigation by Toy-
ota, Exponent [an engineering firm hired by Toyota to study any
problems related to sudden unintended acceleration (SUA)], and
a Stanford University professor showed that Gilbert had stripped
three different wires that connect the accelerator to the engine
control module and spliced other electric components into the
circuit.* Perhaps the best way to explain Gilbert’s engineering is

* “Evaluation of the Gilbert Demonstration,” Exponent, available at http://a
.abcnews.go.com/images/Blotter/ht_exponentgilbert_100305.pdf.

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