Toyota seems well on its way to fixing the failures it recognizes and acknowledges. It has begun to repair 2.3 million vehicles it says were built with potentially sticky gas pedals that could cause unintended acceleration. It has warned owners of 4.8 million vehicles that loose floor mats could trap gas pedals and cause the same disastrous problem. With its recalls and mea culpas, it’s trying to repair its reputation, too.
But the Japanese automaker has yet to figure out how to cope with growing suspicions about a failure it continues to deny: that some cases of unintended acceleration could be caused by a third, so-far-unidentified electronic problem.
Toyota says it has tested and retested its electronic systems, especially the chief suspect in unintended-acceleration cases not easily explained by trapped or sticky pedals: the “drive-by-wire” electronic throttle control that Toyota began introducing to its fleet in 2002.
Outside experts in automobiles, electronics, and computers say it’s plausible that an electronic problem could emerge in rare circumstances and cause unintended acceleration. Perhaps a software bug, or some odd source of electromagnetic interference.
The Alberto lawsuit is one of more than two dozen that have so far been filed against Toyota over unintended acceleration, according to news reports. The suit says complaints about the phenomenon “began to take on epidemic proportions” after the automaker introduced electronic linkages between the gas pedal and engine in its luxury Lexus line in 1998. Four years later, Toyota adopted the technology for its own nameplate.
The most troubling irony in this story is that a solution to the problem is already available: a technology known as a “brake override” or “smart pedal.”
Snyder says similar systems have been used for years by German automakers. Toyota itself plans to introduce it soon on some Lexus and Camry models, and even to add it as a retrofit on some of those same cars. By the end of the year, Toyota plans to install brake-override technology throughout its lineup.
The brake override is a fairly simple concept – essentially just a software upgrade. It tells the car that when a driver is pressing on the brake pedal and somebody – or something – appears to be calling for more gas, the brake gets priority.
It’s not just a smart pedal. It’s a smart fix to a problem that, fully explained or not, has bedeviled this leading automaker for years.
So here’s a bit of unsolicited advice to Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s president and grandson of its founder, who stood up Friday to “apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the concern that we have given to so many customers”:
Upgrading all recent cars might not be cheap. But it still may be the right thing to do.
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Comments
I’ve witnessed unattended speed up or reving of an engine as far back as 1987. As an embedded software engineer the drive-by-wire systems to concern me. They always have.
#Do you Want to say something?