LA Times: Toyota US Chief Defends Electronics

I received this in my inbox this morning

BizConnect - The right questions to be asking about Toyota

makes sense to me

 

They say they've done the tests but Ralph Nader and the Center for Auto Safety doesn't believe them. Other than the testing protocol, how do you provide data showing there isn't a problem?

 

It is impossible to prove a negative.

 

I don't know what Toyota has been apologizing about.

The Prius floormat is a bogus issue, the brake "problem" seems to be a quirk of regenerative braking that is a perception more than anything else, and the sudden acceleration/no brakes can't be reproduced on the Camry in independent tests by Car and Driver (3/10 issue).

I'll repeat. Toyota has built the best reliability record in the industry with decades of
safe and reliable cars. What has changed? The American car industry needs to be saved. That's what has changed.

 

I wouldn't trust Nader. He has lost credibility with his radical left anti-corporation politics. He's a real socialist--unlike those manufactured by the wingnuts out there.

 

Precisely. That's the only thing I disagree with within that article.


Toyota has been attacked in the hearings and the media with a onslaught of accusation. To me the onus for proof should be on the accuser.

Wozniaks "problem" using his cruise control and a very questionable test by an "expert" on ABC which I thought was simple theatrics with intent to cause more sensationalism and fear aside, all I hear is "Could", "Might" "Maybe" and "Probably".

You can't defend against accusation.

Show me proof that Toyota's testing is not adequate, they evidently have done inhouse and independent testing of their own systems.

And show me proof of a the existence of the problem.

Anything and everything else just becomes empty accusation.

It's cliche, but it then becomes the automotive world equivalent to a witch hunt. Accusation to which proof of innocence is not accepted or the standards of innocence are not revealed or defined is primative in it's unfairness.

 

Intermittent problems are hard to reproduce and quantify.

Here's a great test, and one that Akio Toyoda should order immediately:

Every Toyota North America executive must drive one of the Toyotas reported with the issue INDEFINITELY.

Then we will see for real if a problem is found.

 

Maybe they already do.

 

What do you think every executive in NA is probably already driving? What would you drive if you were an executive for Toyota? I would expect that Toyota would make a vehicle available to all of its executives.