2007ShelbyCobra
02-22-2010, 09:18 PM
House panel determines Toyota misled public
02/22/2010, 4:27 PMBy Mark Kleis
Toyota is set to attend a hearing tomorrow, but today the House panel has announced its findings based on the documentation it received from Toyota so far. According to the panel’s findings, Toyota repeatedly ignored the possibility that electronics could have played a role in unintended acceleration cases.
Henry Waxman and Bart Stupek, leading democrats from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent an 11-page letter to Toyota’s president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Jim Lentz, outlining the findings from the investigation. Waxman and Stupek said that Toyota relied on a flawed study and wrongly dismissed the possibility of computer related sources for unintended acceleration, and then made misleading statements to the public concerning repairs made to the affected vehicles.
The findings were based on more than 75,000 pages of documents subpoenaed by the committee, including 20,000 pages in Japanese.
The committee also found that Toyota bragged in internal documents that it had saved $100 million by negotiating with regulators and limiting the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES recall concerning unintended acceleration. These were the same vehicles later named in the multi-million vehicle recall in late 2009.
In addition to the committee finding Toyota at fault, the committee also sent a letter to transportation secretary Ray LaHood, noting concerns that the investigations into Toyota’s problems were questionable at best.
“NHTSA’s response to complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles appears to have been seriously deficient,” the committee said in a letter to transportation secretary Ray LaHood. “Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report and made misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls to address the risk of sudden unintended acceleration.”
One possible reason may be the fact that NHTSA lacks any electrical or software engineers, leaving them ill-equipped to properly handle the investigations into the vehicles’ computers and electronics. NHTSA has received over 2,600 complaints related to unintended acceleration in Toyota products since 2000, which are attributed to no less than 34 deaths. In 2004, when Toyota began using a throttle-by-wire system, the number of incidents reported jumped by 400 percent.
The committees’ findings certainly go both ways, as NHTSA was documented as having also dismissing the possibility that even floor mats could have been a possible cause for the unintended acceleration. A former NHTSA official, who now works for Toyota, said in August 2007 that he witnessed NHTSA officials dismiss floor mats as a possible cause when it was introduced during a meeting.
“When I told them [I was there] for the ES350 floor mats, they either laughed or rolled their eyes in disbelief.”
02/22/2010, 4:27 PMBy Mark Kleis
Toyota is set to attend a hearing tomorrow, but today the House panel has announced its findings based on the documentation it received from Toyota so far. According to the panel’s findings, Toyota repeatedly ignored the possibility that electronics could have played a role in unintended acceleration cases.
Henry Waxman and Bart Stupek, leading democrats from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, sent an 11-page letter to Toyota’s president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Jim Lentz, outlining the findings from the investigation. Waxman and Stupek said that Toyota relied on a flawed study and wrongly dismissed the possibility of computer related sources for unintended acceleration, and then made misleading statements to the public concerning repairs made to the affected vehicles.
The findings were based on more than 75,000 pages of documents subpoenaed by the committee, including 20,000 pages in Japanese.
The committee also found that Toyota bragged in internal documents that it had saved $100 million by negotiating with regulators and limiting the 2007 Toyota Camry and Lexus ES recall concerning unintended acceleration. These were the same vehicles later named in the multi-million vehicle recall in late 2009.
In addition to the committee finding Toyota at fault, the committee also sent a letter to transportation secretary Ray LaHood, noting concerns that the investigations into Toyota’s problems were questionable at best.
“NHTSA’s response to complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles appears to have been seriously deficient,” the committee said in a letter to transportation secretary Ray LaHood. “Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report and made misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls to address the risk of sudden unintended acceleration.”
One possible reason may be the fact that NHTSA lacks any electrical or software engineers, leaving them ill-equipped to properly handle the investigations into the vehicles’ computers and electronics. NHTSA has received over 2,600 complaints related to unintended acceleration in Toyota products since 2000, which are attributed to no less than 34 deaths. In 2004, when Toyota began using a throttle-by-wire system, the number of incidents reported jumped by 400 percent.
The committees’ findings certainly go both ways, as NHTSA was documented as having also dismissing the possibility that even floor mats could have been a possible cause for the unintended acceleration. A former NHTSA official, who now works for Toyota, said in August 2007 that he witnessed NHTSA officials dismiss floor mats as a possible cause when it was introduced during a meeting.
“When I told them [I was there] for the ES350 floor mats, they either laughed or rolled their eyes in disbelief.”