Rep. Buyer attempts to undermine research critical of Toyota
By Frank Ahrens | February 23, 2010; 2:16 AM ET
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Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) is attempting to undermine the testimony of a safety expert and a college professor who have given testimony critical of Toyota.
First Buyer lit into Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategies, getting him to admit that five law firms “sponsored” his critical report of Toyota and that all five law firms are suing Toyota on behalf of clients.
Buyer then hit Southern Illinois U. tech Prof. David Gilbert, who cracked the Toyota programming and was able to induce unintended acceleration, by finding out that Kane had paid Gilbert $1,800, given him $4,000 worth of testing equipment and is paying him $150 per hour for future research.
“Whatever he’s paying me, it’s not enough,” Gilbert said, drawing laughs from the congressional hearing room.
Buyer then asked Gilbert if he “cut three wires” in the Toyota to rig his test. Gilbert responded that no, he tapped into the wires with an oscilloscope to monitor the current in the wires during the test, which is entirely different and within scientific method.
Gilbert remained steadfast in the face of Buyer’s accusations, saying, “I had the decision no whether to push the ’send’ button to NHTSA [to report his findings], on my own, I contacted Toyota, on my own, I contacted Mr. Kane,” he said. “To be quite honest, at the moment I discovered this, I was sick at my stomach.”
Buyer wrapped up with, frankly, a cheap shot: Bringing up the notorious NBC “Dateline” episode in which the show, in 1992, rigged a vehicle with explosions and suggested it was a real explosion.
Buyer noted that manipulating results to exaggerate, “that doesn’t work very well.” He concluded by saying “smart minds” are going to resolve this problem, which the witnesses probably also took as a shot.
The committee is now in recess.
College prof: Toyota’s gas pedal code was the easiest to crack
1:39 p.m.: Southern Illinois U. auto tech professor David Gilbert (read about him below) is the guy who was able to introduce a flaw into Toyota gas pedal control systems and induce runaway acceleration. Turns out, he tried to do the same to a Buick Lucerne and a Ford F-150 pickup.
“None were quite as easy as the Toyota to crack,” he said. “The Buick Lucerne, we’re still not able to crack.”
Wow. That’s a big hammer down on Toyota. Not only did this solitary college professor crack mighty Toyota’s code and cause a runaway vehicle, he said it was easy to do so.
Moments ago, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) told Gilbert that Toyota lawyers said they were able to duplicate Gilbert’s experiment, but that it amounted to “sabotage.”
DeGette asked Gilbert: Could what you did happen in real-world conditions?
Gilbert: “In my opinion, yes.”
DeGette: Why wasn’t Toyota able to find this earlier?
Gilbert: “Maybe they weren’t asking the right questions.”
Gilbert said that Toyota needs to immediately “reprogram” the electronic throttle control system in its vehicles so the fail-safes will kick in in more circumstances, such as the one he was able to induce in the lab.
College prof finds, duplicates runaway acceleration in Toyotas
12:54 p.m.: Okay, this is good stuff: One one side, you’ve got Japanese auto giant Toyota saying there’s no way, no how that electronics are to blame for the runaway Toyota issues.
On the other side, you’ve got one guy: David Gilbert, a professor of automotive technology at Southern Illinois University, who said he duplicated the runaway problem in a Toyota he tested in his lab and found that yes, there IS a possibility that electronics are to blame.
Talk about David (Gilbert) vs. Goliath.
Gilbert said that he discovered a condition in which the engine could receive an electronic request from the gas pedal to accelerate the vehicle to high speeds and keep it there WITHOUT the on-board computer deciding there is a problem underway and engaging the fail-safe systems Toyota says would shut down the engine to prevent this from happening.
Gilbert said he called Toyota North America in California to tell engineers there what he found, talked to some, but did not get a favorable response. Gilbert just said that he got a call back from Toyota days later and took part in a conference call with designers. They “took it very seriously,” he said.
The best part of Gilbert’s testimony came when committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) asked Gilbert how long it took him to discover this problem.
Gilbert: “I discovered it in about three-and-a-half hours.”
Waxman: And how much did you spend?
Gilbert: “With the equipment I had, basically very little, if anything.”
Runaway Lexus driver: I’m alive only because God intervened
12:27 p.m.: There’s some pretty gripping testimony underway right now at the Toyota hearing before the Energy and Commerce committee on the runaway Toyota problems from Rhonda Smith, the victim of a runaway Lexus ES350.
She said her car took off on its own on a highway and zoomed to maximum speed. It would not stop despite the fact she stood on the brakes with both feet. While looking for a guard rail to aim at, she called her husband on the car’s Blue Tooth phone:
“I knew he could not do anything to help me but I wanted to hear his voice one more time,” she said, tearing up. “After six miles, God intervened as the car came very slowly to a stop,” as she still had both feet on the brakes. “The motor still revved up and down…and would not shut off. Finally…I was able to turn the engine off. After my husband arrived, he found nothing unusual about the accelerator or floor mat, but the dash lights and radio were still on.”
Toyota’s response: When properly maintained, the brakes will always override the accelerator. “Well, we know that’s a lie,” Smith said. She believes, as others do, Toyotas and Lexuses have an electronics problem with their gas pedals.
She said NHTSA was no help in the investigation.
“Shame on you Toyota for being so greedy and shame on you NHTSA for not doing your job,” Smith said.
Her husband is now testifying and asked lawmakers to put themselves in his shoes and “listen to what you think are the last words you will ever hear from you wife.”
While Smith was talking to her husband on her phone, he told her to slam it into reverse to try to get it to stop: “I told her, ‘Hopefully the transmission will yank loose. Hang on and hopefully you’ll survive the crash.”
Akio Toyoda: Toyota managers will actually drive Toyotas
12:12 p.m.: Right now, Toyota’s problems are being examined in a Hill hearing before the House Energy and Commerce committee. But tomorrow, Toyota president Akio Toyoda will face the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, which just released the testimony he plans to give.
Toyoda said that he will personally makes sure managers in his company will drive Toyotas to make sure they are okay.
The grandson of Toyota’s founder begins his testimony plaintively: “I am Akio Toyoda of Toyota Motor Corporation. I would first like to state that I love cars as much as anyone, and I love Toyota as much as anyone.”
His testimony focuses on three areas: “Toyota’s basic philosophy regarding quality control, the cause of the recalls, and how we will manage quality control going forward.”
He says the company grew too fast:
“We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced.
Especially, I would like to extend my condolences to the members of the Saylor family, for the accident in San Diego. I would like to send my prayers again, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a tragedy never happens again.”
Toyoda refers to the 2009 crash of a Lexus with a stuck gas pedal that resulted in a fiery crash and the death of four family members.
Toyoda concludes by saying: “My name is on every car.”
Yoshi Inaba, head of Toyota North America, says in his testimony that: “We now understand that we must think more from a customer first perspective rather than a technical perspective in investigating complaints, and that we must communicate faster, better and more effectively with our customers and our regulators.
Is it the electronics?
11:25 a.m.: Toyota and Transportation Department officials are on Capitol Hill this morning for the first of what will likely be two very tough days of grilling from lawmakers on Toyota’s quality problems.
The big question today is: Is it possible that Toyota’s issues with runaway cars and unintended acceleration were the fault of electronic, not mechanical problems?
“Cars have become moving computers,” said House Energy and Commerce committee chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), kicking off the hearing. “The increased reliance on new electronics brings new risks and they need to be examined. But this did not happen.”
Waxman pointed to the thousands of pages of documents his committee has received from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and showing that Toyota and NHTSA ignored increased driver complaints of runaway acceleration after Toyota began installing electronic throttles. Waxman added that NHTSA “still does not have an electronics engineer on staff.”
Waxman promised “harrowing” testimony from a female Toyota owner whose car ran away from her when the gas pedal stuck.
“Toyota failed its customers and the government neglected is responsibility,” Waxman said. “Today, we will try to find out why.”
Waxman added that Toyota is a “great company and I hope it has a great future.”
Through both the fall recall (3.8 million vehicles) and the January recall (2.1 million) for unintended acceleration, Toyota has steadfastly maintained the problem is not electronic. First, it was floor mat entrapment of the gas pedal. Then, it was mechanical problems with the gas pedal.
But time and again, Toyota has said it is *not* an electronic problem. Jim Lentz, head of Toyota North American sales, who will testify before an House Energy and Commerce subcommittee beginning at 11 a.m. today, was seen in a CNBC interview earlier this year saying the electronics issue was thoroughly tested and discarded as a possible cause of the runaway cars.
And in testimony he will deliver today, Lentz says:
“We are confident that no problems exist with the electronic throttle control system in our vehicles. We have designed our electronic throttle control system with multiple fail-safe system mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure. We have done extensive testing of this system and have never found a malfunction that caused unintended acceleration.”
But the subcommittee said today that the evidence suggests there is a problem with the electronic throttle control and will rake Toyota over the coals for allegedly attempting to cover that up.
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) pointed out that Toyota did a recall 10 years ago in the U.K. for floor mat/gas pedal problems.
The House subcommittee also turned its ire toward the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration for conducting what it called a “cursory and ineffective” probe of the runaway acceleration because it lacked the expertise to run a thorough investigation.
In testimony today, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who oversees NHTSA, will say his agency did indeed look at electronics as a cause of the runaway Toyotas.
I’m live-blogging, so check back here as the hearing unspools. But to get the the freshest coverage, sign up for my Twitter feed, below, because I’ll be Tweeting the best lines as they happen.
