"So Toyota's perceived problems became reality, and we needed to devote 10 months of the brightest engineering minds in the world to change that."
Sadly, that's not how it works. People will forever remember that Toyota had horrible safety problems, and not that they were actually exonerated in the end.
Indeed. I still won't touch an Audi even decades after the 60 Minutes episode, even though it turned out to be false. Logically I know but logic only goes so far.
The interesting part of this is that NASA did a study. I used to work for NASA as a contractor. I never met anyone with automotive engineering experience. Not that there weren't any, but wouldn't it make more sense to hire an automotive engineering consulting company to do a study? Come to think of it, I wonder who NASA hired to do the study. I bet dollars to donuts it wasn't government (NASA) employees.
But people (and therefore politicians) see NASA and think smart. It just shows you how political this whole mess was.
I think some of the people working on all those rovers keep up with automotive technology. Also, when it comes to the specific systems involved they know more about sensors, robotics, and real time systems than just about any organization on the planet.
Well, those rovers don't have engines. But the interference makes a lot of sense. Radiation/interference is a major issue for space electronics.
Interesting side note: The Hubble Space Telescope used a basically stock (totally stock?) intel 486 in its computer - mainly, I'm told, because they came out of the box with remarkable radiation resistance. I was a mechanical guy, however, so don't quote me on that.
NASA does have a large continent of forensic engineers which is actually more relevent to the discussion than automotive engineers. Though so does the NTSB, so honestly I'd rather see a study done by the NTSB.
An automotive engineer will know how automotive companies usually design braking and acceleration systems. They can tell you if Toyota did something out of the ordinary compared to the industry standard. Assuming they didn't, the automotive engineer is no more qualified to go deeper than that than any other mechanical engineer. So bringing in a forensic engineer who knows how to deconstruct accidents is probably far more relevent than bringing in an automotive engineer who knows how to create a braking system by stiching together vendor components.
NHTSA has been convinced all along that there are no real issues with the cars and the commissioned study was really just for show. NASA is the best agency to tap for this (read superstars of science and engineering). Average Joe on the radio is not going to go "they got NASA for this? Why?", he's going to say "NASA! Wow, they really mean business now"
The author does not mention the advantages that would come to GM as a result of this recall. Since the gov is an owner of GM, you could argue there was a potential conflict of interest here.
See this ->>>
"GM isn't wasting any time taking advantage of Toyota's weakened position after its massive recall and sales stoppage. The General has just announced new incentives for current Toyota customers.
In a phone call to Inside Line, a GM official said the new offer consists of zero percent financing for 60 months on most Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac models. Cash buyers get $1,000 toward a down payment and lease customers can get a waiver of three payments up to $1,000.
To qualify for the incentives, customers must show proof that they own or lease a Toyota.
I remember also reading a piece in Stratfor about how the American leadership was disappointed with Japanese diplomacy. This sort of boring stuff is actually important in real-world policy enforcement.
Is the floor mat really a Toyota specific problem? What is so damn awful about their floor mats that you end up in an accident?
I had a Ford and I put in rubber floor mats on top of the OEM carpet ones. No problem upon installation, but overtime they slipped up behind my pedals and I had problems with braking/acceleration. I stopped, got out, pull the floor mat back 3", and everything was fine. Now if I feel the floor mat creeping up I just pull it back. If you took 3 seconds to open your door and look at the mat behind the pedals it was an obvious problem.
I've had the exact same problem with the rubber floor mats on a Mazda 6, Subaru Forester, and Ford Explorer. The solution everytime is the same, pull the floor mat back into its proper position. It really isn't that hard.
So Toyota gets blamed for something that can happen to anyone, anytime, using any car and any floor mat. Why is that?
(On the other hand, Toyotas are far from perfect, on my girlfriends Toyota the sun visor is so far out of position in order to lower it you need to rotate the rearview mirror out of its way about 2". How did that pass QA?)
The floor mat replacement was a red herring. I've used aftermarket mats in cars without proper pins, and it's a matter of using your brain to not get them tangled up in the accelerator (which is actually hard to do). Stupid people do stupid things, and the stupid media celebrates stupidity for the sake of stupid viewers.
My '09 Toyota Corolla has hooks that keep the floor mats in place. The only way to jam the mat underneath the brake pedal would be to do it deliberately.
It was a floor mat from a suv(bigger) put in a Lexus sedan. The reason the thing was such a media darling because it had all the trappings for news ratings: Borrowed luxury vehicle, police officer off duty, 911 call up until the end, 90 plus mph, flying off a cliff to a huge crash and fire that killed the whole carload of passengers. If it was an accelerator getting stuck and crashing into a pole from a red light it wouldn't have gotten nearly the attention.
The first time I read this account, my immediate response was that the police officer was an idiot. Regardless of why the accelerator is stuck, it seems as though a trained police officer should know that you can shift a moving car into neutral with the flick of a wrist. Yes it might ruin the engine, but who cares.
The fact that he had time to call 911 and didn't do this first is shocking to me. I knew this trick since I was 16 - and cars aren't even my thing.
I've read that when the engine is racing, it can take some force to get the transmission into neutral. Don't know if that's actually true (never tried, and I usually drive a manual), but it would explain the failure.
Nope, usually pretty easy. In 1999 I had the the throttle linkage break on a 5-ton truck I was driving up I-10. It instantly went to full throttle, accelerating as madly as a heavy truck can, and I simply put it in neutral and signaled for the next exit and pulled over to the shoulder. The engine was screaming, it wouldn't shut off with the key (diesel) and I finally got it off by putting a book over the intake. Then I fixed the linkage with some wire and drove home.
My biggest gripe with this is that when the truth finally comes out, it gets no attention. The perceptions that changed rapidly from "toyota = safety" to "toyota = death" will be slow to switch back. It will take years, although Toyota has done a good job marketing themselves since the incident.
How completely unreliable our media can be when it comes to anything not having to do with Jersey Shore or American Idol?
Forgive the snark, but the idea that a company lost all that money, sustained such damage to their brand and image built over so many years simply because of a media that failed to do their jobs makes my blood boil.
I would hesitate to call it a conspiracy, which ascribes some true malice to the media. I think it's probably more of institutional bias towards the sensational and a catering to people's beliefs out of desire for more viewers.
I wonder how much pull Toyota has with the Japanese media? (ie how much ad time they buy).
ANA is the launch customer for the 787, a few stories about safety concerns could end up with an 18month delay while the Japanese space agency does a study.
This would also hit Toyota's rivals (Mitsubish and Fuji) who are building parts for the 787.
It's not their style. Toyota got to where they are today by patiently building up an organization that beats their competition. They play fair and square, even when their enemies don't.
I was recently at the Toyota museum in Nagoya. Toyota was originally founded to bring pride back to post-war Japan, and I think that principle is still at work in the company today.
Do you think this incident is unique and isolated? Perhaps everyone should re-investigate any of their beliefs that they've arrived at solely through media coverage.
The events that led Toyota to recall 10 million vehicles may go down in industrial history as the biggest mountain of a crisis ever made out of the smallest molehill of a technical glitch. We now have verifiable facts, rather than conclusions drawn by the media based on assumptions, innuendo and fear.
Here's a list of relevant articles:
+ The Washington Post editorial - "NHTSA Report Clears up Mystery - and Hysteria - on Toyota Cars"
+ Harvard Business Review - "Toyota's Recall Crisis: What Have We Learned?"
+ Bloomberg BusinessWeek - "Toyota: The Media Owe You an Apology"
+ Automotive News "One Year Later: Let's Get Beyond Toyota Speed Scare"
+ Fortune "The Safety Police Go after Toyota Again"
So, from the executive summary, it appears that NASA looked at the throttle system and was unable to find a systematic explanation for it being stuck open. A stuck throttle, by itself, is quite awkward but if you have a working brake override system, an awkward lurch will be as bad as it gets.
But regardless of what NASA did or did not find, there were real accidents involving throttles which were stuck open for minutes at a time with the engine completely overpowering the brakes. Recall that in the 100mph LA crash which set off the investigation the brakes were completely destroyed.
That is a real design flaw, an error of commission by Toyota. Other cars, for example VWs, have a brake override and the drivers manual documents an accelerator "double-tap" protocol for giving the accelerator priority, say when starting on a steep hill.
Furthermore, in the week after the recall, the president of Toyota announced that Toyota throttle systems would henceforth include a brake override. Here's their official press release making good on that promise:
So I can't develop too much sympathy for Toyota. They made a basic design mistake in a safety critical system, and then refused to acknowledge the problem. That mistake and their mishandling of it cost them a ton of money and that is exactly as it should be.
36 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 88.6 ms ] thread"Their perception is your reality."
He was talking about management, and maintaining a good image to your employees, but the phrase applies to everything.
People's perception was that Toyota had some terrible electrical problems, and the news media, being a for-profit endeavor, ran with it.
So Toyota's perceived problems became reality, and we needed to devote 10 months of the brightest engineering minds in the world to change that.
Unfortunately, that's how things work.
Sadly, that's not how it works. People will forever remember that Toyota had horrible safety problems, and not that they were actually exonerated in the end.
But people (and therefore politicians) see NASA and think smart. It just shows you how political this whole mess was.
PS: NASA engineers were contracted to conduct research into whether electronic systems or electromagnetic interference played a role in incidents of unintended acceleration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHTSA-NASA_Study_of_Unintended_...
Interesting side note: The Hubble Space Telescope used a basically stock (totally stock?) intel 486 in its computer - mainly, I'm told, because they came out of the box with remarkable radiation resistance. I was a mechanical guy, however, so don't quote me on that.
An automotive engineer will know how automotive companies usually design braking and acceleration systems. They can tell you if Toyota did something out of the ordinary compared to the industry standard. Assuming they didn't, the automotive engineer is no more qualified to go deeper than that than any other mechanical engineer. So bringing in a forensic engineer who knows how to deconstruct accidents is probably far more relevent than bringing in an automotive engineer who knows how to create a braking system by stiching together vendor components.
The author does not mention the advantages that would come to GM as a result of this recall. Since the gov is an owner of GM, you could argue there was a potential conflict of interest here.
See this ->>>
"GM isn't wasting any time taking advantage of Toyota's weakened position after its massive recall and sales stoppage. The General has just announced new incentives for current Toyota customers.
In a phone call to Inside Line, a GM official said the new offer consists of zero percent financing for 60 months on most Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac models. Cash buyers get $1,000 toward a down payment and lease customers can get a waiver of three payments up to $1,000.
To qualify for the incentives, customers must show proof that they own or lease a Toyota.
This is starting to get interesting. "
http://blogs.insideline.com/straightline/2010/01/toyota-reca...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:JziQfDN...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t5XDNqP...
I had a Ford and I put in rubber floor mats on top of the OEM carpet ones. No problem upon installation, but overtime they slipped up behind my pedals and I had problems with braking/acceleration. I stopped, got out, pull the floor mat back 3", and everything was fine. Now if I feel the floor mat creeping up I just pull it back. If you took 3 seconds to open your door and look at the mat behind the pedals it was an obvious problem.
I've had the exact same problem with the rubber floor mats on a Mazda 6, Subaru Forester, and Ford Explorer. The solution everytime is the same, pull the floor mat back into its proper position. It really isn't that hard.
So Toyota gets blamed for something that can happen to anyone, anytime, using any car and any floor mat. Why is that?
(On the other hand, Toyotas are far from perfect, on my girlfriends Toyota the sun visor is so far out of position in order to lower it you need to rotate the rearview mirror out of its way about 2". How did that pass QA?)
The fact that he had time to call 911 and didn't do this first is shocking to me. I knew this trick since I was 16 - and cars aren't even my thing.
How completely unreliable our media can be when it comes to anything not having to do with Jersey Shore or American Idol?
Forgive the snark, but the idea that a company lost all that money, sustained such damage to their brand and image built over so many years simply because of a media that failed to do their jobs makes my blood boil.
ANA is the launch customer for the 787, a few stories about safety concerns could end up with an 18month delay while the Japanese space agency does a study.
This would also hit Toyota's rivals (Mitsubish and Fuji) who are building parts for the 787.
I was recently at the Toyota museum in Nagoya. Toyota was originally founded to bring pride back to post-war Japan, and I think that principle is still at work in the company today.
But regardless of what NASA did or did not find, there were real accidents involving throttles which were stuck open for minutes at a time with the engine completely overpowering the brakes. Recall that in the 100mph LA crash which set off the investigation the brakes were completely destroyed.
That is a real design flaw, an error of commission by Toyota. Other cars, for example VWs, have a brake override and the drivers manual documents an accelerator "double-tap" protocol for giving the accelerator priority, say when starting on a steep hill.
Furthermore, in the week after the recall, the president of Toyota announced that Toyota throttle systems would henceforth include a brake override. Here's their official press release making good on that promise:
http://pressroom.toyota.com/pr/tms/toyota-extends-brake-over...
So I can't develop too much sympathy for Toyota. They made a basic design mistake in a safety critical system, and then refused to acknowledge the problem. That mistake and their mishandling of it cost them a ton of money and that is exactly as it should be.