LA Times: Toyota Calls in the Big Guns

Toyota calls in the big guns - latimes.com

"In the Toyota study, Exponent purchased six Toyota and Lexus vehicles from the 2002 through 2008 model years, testing them and comparing their performance to a 2008 Honda Accord.

The report describes how the Toyota electronic throttle control system operates and a few experiments that attempted to disrupt the normal function of the throttle, with no results.

"In all cases, the vehicle either behaved normally or entered a fail-safe mode where engine power was significantly reduced or shut off," the study found.

But the tests described by Exponent did not appear to duplicate the sophisticated methods that automotive engineers say are needed to ensure that electromagnetic interference does not cause failure of the hardware or software of engine controls. Indeed, Exponent did not say it placed any Toyota vehicle in a test chamber that automakers routinely use to bombard cars with high-powered electromagnetic signals known to disrupt automotive electronics."

I'm not surprised that a test of six used vehicles yielded negative results.

I don't understand why Exponent has not tested vehicles that are alleged to have suffered an unintended acceleration incident, if the company really desires to identify additional reasons beyond driver error, accelerator pedals sticking, and floor mats getting in the way.

For example, there have been a few Prius incidents of unintended acceleration reported in the media. We know that when the hybrid system is working properly, the Prius brake should always override the accelerator.

It has been reported that the brakes suffered heat damage in some of these incidents. This seems to provide evidence the driver had depressed the brake pedal in an effort to stop - thus ruling out driver error.

Even if the Prius accelerator pedal was trapped by the floor mat, as soon as the brake pedal was depressed the powertrain should cut power. Apparently this did not happen.

Why not repurchase and test one or two of those vehicles?