NHTSA finds no electronic defect in Toyotas
David Shepardson / The Detroit News
Washington -- Federal investigators said Tuesday an initial review indicates driver error -- not electronics -- is to blame in a majority of cases they probed for suspected unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles.
Representatives of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration told members of Congress that brakes weren't applied in 35 of the 58 cases they reviewed -- suggesting motorists hit the accelerator when they intended to apply the brake pedal.
The preliminary findings, based on so-called black box data taken from vehicles, may bolster Toyota Motor Co.'s long-held assertion that there is nothing wrong with its cars' electronics. Toyota maintains that motorists or mechanical glitches are responsible for thousands of reports of unintended acceleration.
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The results are not definitive and NHTSA and other agencies are continuing to investigate.
Safety advocates argue that the data is just one aspect of the investigation, and that sudden acceleration incidents due to electronic faults may occur in cases in which the auto black box recorded nothing.
"Reviewing event data recorders is one small part of (NHTSA's) effort to get to the bottom of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles," said Transportation Department spokeswoman Olivia Alair.
"At this early period in the investigation, engineers have not identified any new safety defects in Toyotas, other than sticking gas pedals or pedal entrapment."
NHTSA emphasized that it is conducting a wide-ranging, ongoing investigation into the issue, and said its investigators "are continuing to study whether there are potential electronic or software defects in these vehicles."
A comprehensive report, including work from NASA and the National Academy of Sciences, is to be issued next year.
In the 58 cases under review, partial braking was noted in 14 cases; pedal entrapment was involved in one; and in one case, the brakes and accelerator were both applied.
Toyota said in a statement that NHTSA's results backed its findings.
The automaker emphasized that after "more than 4,000 on site vehicle inspections, in no case have we found electronic throttle controls to be a cause of unintended acceleration."
Furthermore, Toyota said, its "own vehicle evaluations have confirmed that the remedies it developed for sticking accelerator pedal and potential accelerator pedal entrapment by an unsecured or incompatible floor mat are effective."
Critics remain skeptical
Sean Kane, president of Massachusetts-based Safety Research & Strategies Inc., a group that works with plaintiffs' attorneys on auto safety cases, said the NHTSA findings may be not representative of all incidents.
"We're dealing with a small sliver of complaints," Kane said. In low-speed cases, or incidents where an air bag doesn't deploy, no data will be recorded, he said.
Furthermore, according to NHTSA, most Toyota models before 2007 were not equipped with recorders capable of storing pre-crash data.
Toyota faces hundreds of lawsuits over sudden acceleration issues, and some of its critics aren't easily convinced that electronics aren't a problem.
B. Craig Hutson, an analyst at the research firm Gimme Credit, said vehicle black boxes "are not designed to identify these types of problems" -- and that trouble may be buried in Toyota's software.
"An electronics problem likely lurks in the millions of lines of software code found in a typical vehicle," Hutson said.
"We believe that plaintiffs' attorneys' best chances in the hundreds of legal cases filed against Toyota rests with finding a problem with the electronics."
Complaints date to 2000
Toyota has recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles worldwide, including 6 million in the United States, for sudden acceleration issues. NHTSA has received more than 3,000 complaints since 2000 alleging more than 90 deaths linked to sudden acceleration complaints involving Toyotas.
The Japanese automaker paid a record $16.4 million fine over its delay in recalling 2.3 million vehicles for sticky pedal concerns and it faces a criminal probe by a federal grand jury in New York over its handling of several safety issues.
The problems have prompted Congress to consider legislation mandating sweeping reform of auto safety regulations.
The briefing of House Energy and Commerce Committee members was conducted by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and NHTSA Administrator David Strickland.
A Michigan lawmaker who attended the briefing, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, told reporters that he hadn't reached any conclusions as a result of the preliminary report.
NHTSA is partnering with NASA in further researching the issue. NHTSA and NASA are conducting vehicle tests at the Chrysler Group LLC Test Facility in Auburn Hills to determine if electromagnetic interference may play a role in causing unintended acceleration.
As part of the research, vehicles are bombarded with electro-magnetic radiation in custom-made chambers to determine whether that could produce unintended acceleration incidents.
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