Media about Toyota UA
#1
03-01-2010, 06:25 AM
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Tucson, AZ
Posts: 661
Media about Toyota UA
I thought this would be a good place to post and comment on the ongoing issues.
This article is dated 2/25/2010 from Businessweek magazine. Provides an interesting prospective into the reported cases of UA
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...rss_topStories
This article is dated 2/25/2010 from Businessweek magazine. Provides an interesting prospective into the reported cases of UA
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...rss_topStories
#2
03-01-2010, 01:33 PM
Re: Media about Toyota UA
I thought this would be a good place to post and comment on the ongoing issues.
This article is dated 2/25/2010 from Businessweek magazine. Provides an interesting prospective into the reported cases of UA
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...rss_topStories
This article is dated 2/25/2010 from Businessweek magazine. Provides an interesting prospective into the reported cases of UA
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...rss_topStories
#3
03-02-2010, 04:50 AM
Re: Media about Toyota UA
Acceleration Probe Beyond Toyota Asked by Edmunds.com
By Jeff Plungis and Jeff Green
March 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators should expand their investigation of unintended vehicle acceleration beyond Toyota Motor Corp., because the largest automakers all have reported similar episodes, data company Edmunds.com said.
Complaints about sudden, unintended acceleration stretch back decades, Edmunds.com Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Anwyl said in a Feb. 25 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released yesterday. Anwyl wrote after the automotive information Web site reviewed consumer comments in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s database.
Federal regulators “should take the lead in coordinating an effort that involves all manufacturers,” Anwyl said. “Sharing data and working collaboratively, perhaps together an answer can be found.”
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today holds the third congressional hearing into Toyota’s recalls and NHTSA’s role in them. The Toyota City, Japan-based automaker has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide to fix floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals. Last week, Toyota President Akio Toyoda, 53, the grandson of the company’s founder, told lawmakers he’d work to restore consumers’ trust...
Ford Motor Co., ... had the second highest rate of acceleration complaints among the top six U.S. automakers, with 3.12 per 100,000 vehicles, Santa Monica, California-based Edmonds.com said. Toyota led with 4.8 complaints per 100,000 vehicles, it said....
By Jeff Plungis and Jeff Green
March 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators should expand their investigation of unintended vehicle acceleration beyond Toyota Motor Corp., because the largest automakers all have reported similar episodes, data company Edmunds.com said.
Complaints about sudden, unintended acceleration stretch back decades, Edmunds.com Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Anwyl said in a Feb. 25 letter to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released yesterday. Anwyl wrote after the automotive information Web site reviewed consumer comments in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s database.
Federal regulators “should take the lead in coordinating an effort that involves all manufacturers,” Anwyl said. “Sharing data and working collaboratively, perhaps together an answer can be found.”
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee today holds the third congressional hearing into Toyota’s recalls and NHTSA’s role in them. The Toyota City, Japan-based automaker has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide to fix floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals. Last week, Toyota President Akio Toyoda, 53, the grandson of the company’s founder, told lawmakers he’d work to restore consumers’ trust...
Ford Motor Co., ... had the second highest rate of acceleration complaints among the top six U.S. automakers, with 3.12 per 100,000 vehicles, Santa Monica, California-based Edmonds.com said. Toyota led with 4.8 complaints per 100,000 vehicles, it said....
Last edited by haroldo; 03-02-2010 at 04:53 AM.
#4
03-02-2010, 06:07 AM
Re: Media about Toyota UA
Toyota plans competitive sales incentives for March
By Soyoung Kim and Bernie Woodall
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp is planning an aggressive incentive program for March to lure U.S. consumers sidelined by a damaging product safety crisis, executives said on Monday.
The world's largest automaker, reeling from the largest recall in its history, said most of the vehicles at its U.S. showrooms have been repaired and are back for sale, adding it is evaluating a range of options to support next month's sales.
"We are studying everything," U.S. sales chief Bob Carter told reporters after a meeting with nearly 300 Toyota dealers at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention. "All are under evaluation."
Don Esmond, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said Toyota will be as aggressive as needed to help dealers keep existing customers and attract new ones...
By Soyoung Kim and Bernie Woodall
ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp is planning an aggressive incentive program for March to lure U.S. consumers sidelined by a damaging product safety crisis, executives said on Monday.
The world's largest automaker, reeling from the largest recall in its history, said most of the vehicles at its U.S. showrooms have been repaired and are back for sale, adding it is evaluating a range of options to support next month's sales.
"We are studying everything," U.S. sales chief Bob Carter told reporters after a meeting with nearly 300 Toyota dealers at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention. "All are under evaluation."
Don Esmond, senior vice president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, said Toyota will be as aggressive as needed to help dealers keep existing customers and attract new ones...
#6
03-03-2010, 01:38 PM
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Tucson, AZ
Posts: 661
Re: Media about Toyota UA
Some owners say Toyota recall fix not curing sudden acceleration problem.
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/03/r...n-accelerat%2F
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/03/03/r...n-accelerat%2F
#7
03-06-2010, 08:16 PM
Re: Media about Toyota UA
From Popular Mechanics
Quote:
Anatomy of Toyota's Problem Pedal: Mechanic's Diary
What's the real problem behind Toyota's unintended acceleration? Is it
simply a sticky pedal, or is the trouble more fundamental? PM senior
automotive editor Mike Allen delves into modern car tech, explaining why
widespread theories about electrical throttle problems and electromagnetic
interference are misguided.
By Mike Allen
Published on: March 3, 2010
Toyota has recalled millions of cars and trucks—4.2 million to replace
floor mats that might impede throttle-pedal travel, and 2.4 million to
install a shim behind the electronic pedal assembly. All of the affected
pedal assemblies were made by Canadian supplier CTS. Toyota's boffins have
documented a problem that can make a few of these pedals slow to return,
and maybe even stick down. Problem solved.
But the media, Congress—and personal-injury lawyers—smell the blood in the
water. Not to diminish the injuries and a few deaths attributable to these
very real mechanical problems, but they're statistically only a very small
blip, which may explain why Toyota took so long to identify the issue,
especially when it has symptoms similar to the similarly documented floor
mat recall. Plus, sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) s notoriously
difficult to diagnose because, more often then not, the problem can't be
repeated in front of a mechanic. Let's not forget the Audi SUA episode back
in the '80s; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration eventually
concluded that there was no mechanical problem. The culprit, as hard as
this is to admit, was most likely driver error. To put the issue into
context, in the last decade, there were about 24,000 customer complaints
about SUA involving almost every major automaker. The NHTSA investigated
fewer than 50.
The issue now is whether there's a more insidious problem unrelated to the
two recalls already extant. Specifically, whether there's some design flaw
n the entire concept of electronic throttle control. Some are questioning
whether electromagnetic interference from devices like cellphones could be
contributing to the acceleration problems.
It used to be that there was a steel cable that ran from the pedal itself
through the firewall and attached to the throttle blades that admitted air
to the intake manifold. A sticking throttle could be the result of friction
anywhere—in the pedal pivot, between the cable itself and its nylon-lined
sheath, or in the carburetor or fuel-injection throttle blades. (Does
anybody remember carburetors?). Modern cars, which make up the majority on
the market today, use a throttle pedal assembly that is connected to the
engine only electronically. Signals are carried over wires to the engine
management computer, which in turn sends electrical impulses to the stepper
motor that actually controls the throttle blades.
Sounds like there are plenty of places for gremlins to seize control of the
works, right? And that's where pundits who don't really understand the
architecture of throttle-by-wire systems go wrong. It's all in the
engineering.
Let's start at bottom of it all—your foot, which moves the pedal fore and
aft in relation to the firewall. Inside the pedal assembly is a spring to
make it return as you lift off, a device to add a little friction that
dampens the movement (Your foot would tire in short order if there wasn't
some damping), and a transducer of some sort that turns the movement of the
pedal into an electrical signal. That transducer is a simple device,
invented in 1879 by Edwin Hall (not 1979; 1879). It consists of only a
single slab of semiconductor with a few wires attached to its edge, one on
each end and one in the middle. With a voltage applied to the end wires, it
acts as a voltage divider. Placing a magnet near the sensor changes the
magnetic lines of flux, which literally push the electrons away from the
electrodes and changes the voltage at the center wire. The magnet, in the
Toyota case, is on the pedal arm. As the pedal moves, it alters the voltage
at the semiconductor and that's how the engine computer knows the position
of the pedal. The benefit of Hall-effect sensors is that there's no
mechanical connection to corrode, no internal resistance, and other
electronics, such as amplifiers, aren't needed. You could make one on your
kitchen table with a refrigerator magnet and some doorbell wire.
There are two discrete Hall-effect sensors in the Toyota/CTS pedal, which
is common industry practice. Just to make sure the sensors aren't confused,
they run on totally separate circuits back to the ECM, three wires each.
They don't even share an electrical ground. Like many onboard automobile
sensors, they are also completely isolated from the vehicle ground. To
reduce the potential for interference or mistakes, they operate at
different voltages. The first sensor, known as ACCEL POS #1, has a nominal
voltage range from 0.5 volts to 1.1 volts at idle and 2.5 volts to 4.5
volts at wide-open-throttle (WOT). The second sensor, ACCEL POS #2,
delivers from 1.2 volts to 2.0 volts at idle and 3.4 volts to 5.0 volts at
WOT. Why such a wide range of permissible voltages? The engine computer
(ECM) recalibrates the sensor regularly, every time you start the car and
the ECM goes through its power-on self-test.
Both accelerator-pedal-position Hall-effect sensors have to agree fairly
closely, or the ECM will go into its limp-home mode, which turns on the
Check Engine light and sets a trouble code.
There's more. If Toyota's engine-management scheme is anything like that of
most other car companies, firmware inside the ECM also monitors the airflow
into the engine, the throttle blade position and engine rpm, and calculates
backwards to what the throttle pedal position should be. Any discrepancy,
and a trouble code is set, the Check Engine light on the dash goes on, and
you're dialing the service manager to make an appointment.
Bottom line: The system is not only redundant, it's double-redundant. The
signal lines from the pedal to the ECM are isolated. The voltages used in
the system are DC voltages—any RF voltages introduced into the system, by,
say, that microwave oven you have in the passenger seat, would be AC
voltages, which the ECM's conditioned inputs would simply ignore. Neither
your cellphone nor Johnny's PlayStation have the power to induce much
confusion into the system.
These throttle-by-wire systems are very difficult to confuse—they're
designed to be robust, and any conceivable failure is engineered to command
not an open throttle but an error message.
So what to make of the unintended acceleration cases popping up by the
dozens? Not the ones explainable by problem sticky pedals, but the ones
documented by people who claim their vehicle ran away on its own, with no
input, and resisted all attempts to stop it? Some can probably be explained
as an attempt to get rid of a car consumers no longer desire. Some are
probably the result of Audi 5000 Syndrome, where drivers simply lost track
of their feet and depressed the gas instead of the brake. It's happened to
me: Luckily I recognized the phenomenon and corrected before it went bang.
Others may not have the presence of mind.
But the possibility that a vehicle could go from idling at a traffic light
to terrific, uncalled-for and uncontrollable acceleration because the guy
next to you at a traffic light answered his cellphone? Or some ghost in the
machine or a hacker caused a software glitch that made your car run away
and the brakes suddenly simultaneously fail? Not in the least bit likely.
Toyota deserves a better deal than the media and Congress are giving it.
Quote:
Anatomy of Toyota's Problem Pedal: Mechanic's Diary
What's the real problem behind Toyota's unintended acceleration? Is it
simply a sticky pedal, or is the trouble more fundamental? PM senior
automotive editor Mike Allen delves into modern car tech, explaining why
widespread theories about electrical throttle problems and electromagnetic
interference are misguided.
By Mike Allen
Published on: March 3, 2010
Toyota has recalled millions of cars and trucks—4.2 million to replace
floor mats that might impede throttle-pedal travel, and 2.4 million to
install a shim behind the electronic pedal assembly. All of the affected
pedal assemblies were made by Canadian supplier CTS. Toyota's boffins have
documented a problem that can make a few of these pedals slow to return,
and maybe even stick down. Problem solved.
But the media, Congress—and personal-injury lawyers—smell the blood in the
water. Not to diminish the injuries and a few deaths attributable to these
very real mechanical problems, but they're statistically only a very small
blip, which may explain why Toyota took so long to identify the issue,
especially when it has symptoms similar to the similarly documented floor
mat recall. Plus, sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) s notoriously
difficult to diagnose because, more often then not, the problem can't be
repeated in front of a mechanic. Let's not forget the Audi SUA episode back
in the '80s; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration eventually
concluded that there was no mechanical problem. The culprit, as hard as
this is to admit, was most likely driver error. To put the issue into
context, in the last decade, there were about 24,000 customer complaints
about SUA involving almost every major automaker. The NHTSA investigated
fewer than 50.
The issue now is whether there's a more insidious problem unrelated to the
two recalls already extant. Specifically, whether there's some design flaw
n the entire concept of electronic throttle control. Some are questioning
whether electromagnetic interference from devices like cellphones could be
contributing to the acceleration problems.
It used to be that there was a steel cable that ran from the pedal itself
through the firewall and attached to the throttle blades that admitted air
to the intake manifold. A sticking throttle could be the result of friction
anywhere—in the pedal pivot, between the cable itself and its nylon-lined
sheath, or in the carburetor or fuel-injection throttle blades. (Does
anybody remember carburetors?). Modern cars, which make up the majority on
the market today, use a throttle pedal assembly that is connected to the
engine only electronically. Signals are carried over wires to the engine
management computer, which in turn sends electrical impulses to the stepper
motor that actually controls the throttle blades.
Sounds like there are plenty of places for gremlins to seize control of the
works, right? And that's where pundits who don't really understand the
architecture of throttle-by-wire systems go wrong. It's all in the
engineering.
Let's start at bottom of it all—your foot, which moves the pedal fore and
aft in relation to the firewall. Inside the pedal assembly is a spring to
make it return as you lift off, a device to add a little friction that
dampens the movement (Your foot would tire in short order if there wasn't
some damping), and a transducer of some sort that turns the movement of the
pedal into an electrical signal. That transducer is a simple device,
invented in 1879 by Edwin Hall (not 1979; 1879). It consists of only a
single slab of semiconductor with a few wires attached to its edge, one on
each end and one in the middle. With a voltage applied to the end wires, it
acts as a voltage divider. Placing a magnet near the sensor changes the
magnetic lines of flux, which literally push the electrons away from the
electrodes and changes the voltage at the center wire. The magnet, in the
Toyota case, is on the pedal arm. As the pedal moves, it alters the voltage
at the semiconductor and that's how the engine computer knows the position
of the pedal. The benefit of Hall-effect sensors is that there's no
mechanical connection to corrode, no internal resistance, and other
electronics, such as amplifiers, aren't needed. You could make one on your
kitchen table with a refrigerator magnet and some doorbell wire.
There are two discrete Hall-effect sensors in the Toyota/CTS pedal, which
is common industry practice. Just to make sure the sensors aren't confused,
they run on totally separate circuits back to the ECM, three wires each.
They don't even share an electrical ground. Like many onboard automobile
sensors, they are also completely isolated from the vehicle ground. To
reduce the potential for interference or mistakes, they operate at
different voltages. The first sensor, known as ACCEL POS #1, has a nominal
voltage range from 0.5 volts to 1.1 volts at idle and 2.5 volts to 4.5
volts at wide-open-throttle (WOT). The second sensor, ACCEL POS #2,
delivers from 1.2 volts to 2.0 volts at idle and 3.4 volts to 5.0 volts at
WOT. Why such a wide range of permissible voltages? The engine computer
(ECM) recalibrates the sensor regularly, every time you start the car and
the ECM goes through its power-on self-test.
Both accelerator-pedal-position Hall-effect sensors have to agree fairly
closely, or the ECM will go into its limp-home mode, which turns on the
Check Engine light and sets a trouble code.
There's more. If Toyota's engine-management scheme is anything like that of
most other car companies, firmware inside the ECM also monitors the airflow
into the engine, the throttle blade position and engine rpm, and calculates
backwards to what the throttle pedal position should be. Any discrepancy,
and a trouble code is set, the Check Engine light on the dash goes on, and
you're dialing the service manager to make an appointment.
Bottom line: The system is not only redundant, it's double-redundant. The
signal lines from the pedal to the ECM are isolated. The voltages used in
the system are DC voltages—any RF voltages introduced into the system, by,
say, that microwave oven you have in the passenger seat, would be AC
voltages, which the ECM's conditioned inputs would simply ignore. Neither
your cellphone nor Johnny's PlayStation have the power to induce much
confusion into the system.
These throttle-by-wire systems are very difficult to confuse—they're
designed to be robust, and any conceivable failure is engineered to command
not an open throttle but an error message.
So what to make of the unintended acceleration cases popping up by the
dozens? Not the ones explainable by problem sticky pedals, but the ones
documented by people who claim their vehicle ran away on its own, with no
input, and resisted all attempts to stop it? Some can probably be explained
as an attempt to get rid of a car consumers no longer desire. Some are
probably the result of Audi 5000 Syndrome, where drivers simply lost track
of their feet and depressed the gas instead of the brake. It's happened to
me: Luckily I recognized the phenomenon and corrected before it went bang.
Others may not have the presence of mind.
But the possibility that a vehicle could go from idling at a traffic light
to terrific, uncalled-for and uncontrollable acceleration because the guy
next to you at a traffic light answered his cellphone? Or some ghost in the
machine or a hacker caused a software glitch that made your car run away
and the brakes suddenly simultaneously fail? Not in the least bit likely.
Toyota deserves a better deal than the media and Congress are giving it.
#8
03-06-2010, 08:17 PM
Re: Media about Toyota UA
From Popular Mechanics
Quote:
Anatomy of Toyota's Problem Pedal: Mechanic's Diary
What's the real problem behind Toyota's unintended acceleration? Is it
simply a sticky pedal, or is the trouble more fundamental? PM senior
automotive editor Mike Allen delves into modern car tech, explaining why
widespread theories about electrical throttle problems and electromagnetic
interference are misguided.
By Mike Allen
Published on: March 3, 2010
Toyota has recalled millions of cars and trucks—4.2 million to replace
floor mats that might impede throttle-pedal travel, and 2.4 million to
install a shim behind the electronic pedal assembly. All of the affected
pedal assemblies were made by Canadian supplier CTS. Toyota's boffins have
documented a problem that can make a few of these pedals slow to return,
and maybe even stick down. Problem solved.
But the media, Congress—and personal-injury lawyers—smell the blood in the
water. Not to diminish the injuries and a few deaths attributable to these
very real mechanical problems, but they're statistically only a very small
blip, which may explain why Toyota took so long to identify the issue,
especially when it has symptoms similar to the similarly documented floor
mat recall. Plus, sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) s notoriously
difficult to diagnose because, more often then not, the problem can't be
repeated in front of a mechanic. Let's not forget the Audi SUA episode back
in the '80s; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration eventually
concluded that there was no mechanical problem. The culprit, as hard as
this is to admit, was most likely driver error. To put the issue into
context, in the last decade, there were about 24,000 customer complaints
about SUA involving almost every major automaker. The NHTSA investigated
fewer than 50.
The issue now is whether there's a more insidious problem unrelated to the
two recalls already extant. Specifically, whether there's some design flaw
n the entire concept of electronic throttle control. Some are questioning
whether electromagnetic interference from devices like cellphones could be
contributing to the acceleration problems.
It used to be that there was a steel cable that ran from the pedal itself
through the firewall and attached to the throttle blades that admitted air
to the intake manifold. A sticking throttle could be the result of friction
anywhere—in the pedal pivot, between the cable itself and its nylon-lined
sheath, or in the carburetor or fuel-injection throttle blades. (Does
anybody remember carburetors?). Modern cars, which make up the majority on
the market today, use a throttle pedal assembly that is connected to the
engine only electronically. Signals are carried over wires to the engine
management computer, which in turn sends electrical impulses to the stepper
motor that actually controls the throttle blades.
Sounds like there are plenty of places for gremlins to seize control of the
works, right? And that's where pundits who don't really understand the
architecture of throttle-by-wire systems go wrong. It's all in the
engineering.
Let's start at bottom of it all—your foot, which moves the pedal fore and
aft in relation to the firewall. Inside the pedal assembly is a spring to
make it return as you lift off, a device to add a little friction that
dampens the movement (Your foot would tire in short order if there wasn't
some damping), and a transducer of some sort that turns the movement of the
pedal into an electrical signal. That transducer is a simple device,
invented in 1879 by Edwin Hall (not 1979; 1879). It consists of only a
single slab of semiconductor with a few wires attached to its edge, one on
each end and one in the middle. With a voltage applied to the end wires, it
acts as a voltage divider. Placing a magnet near the sensor changes the
magnetic lines of flux, which literally push the electrons away from the
electrodes and changes the voltage at the center wire. The magnet, in the
Toyota case, is on the pedal arm. As the pedal moves, it alters the voltage
at the semiconductor and that's how the engine computer knows the position
of the pedal. The benefit of Hall-effect sensors is that there's no
mechanical connection to corrode, no internal resistance, and other
electronics, such as amplifiers, aren't needed. You could make one on your
kitchen table with a refrigerator magnet and some doorbell wire.
There are two discrete Hall-effect sensors in the Toyota/CTS pedal, which
is common industry practice. Just to make sure the sensors aren't confused,
they run on totally separate circuits back to the ECM, three wires each.
They don't even share an electrical ground. Like many onboard automobile
sensors, they are also completely isolated from the vehicle ground. To
reduce the potential for interference or mistakes, they operate at
different voltages. The first sensor, known as ACCEL POS #1, has a nominal
voltage range from 0.5 volts to 1.1 volts at idle and 2.5 volts to 4.5
volts at wide-open-throttle (WOT). The second sensor, ACCEL POS #2,
delivers from 1.2 volts to 2.0 volts at idle and 3.4 volts to 5.0 volts at
WOT. Why such a wide range of permissible voltages? The engine computer
(ECM) recalibrates the sensor regularly, every time you start the car and
the ECM goes through its power-on self-test.
Both accelerator-pedal-position Hall-effect sensors have to agree fairly
closely, or the ECM will go into its limp-home mode, which turns on the
Check Engine light and sets a trouble code.
There's more. If Toyota's engine-management scheme is anything like that of
most other car companies, firmware inside the ECM also monitors the airflow
into the engine, the throttle blade position and engine rpm, and calculates
backwards to what the throttle pedal position should be. Any discrepancy,
and a trouble code is set, the Check Engine light on the dash goes on, and
you're dialing the service manager to make an appointment.
Bottom line: The system is not only redundant, it's double-redundant. The
signal lines from the pedal to the ECM are isolated. The voltages used in
the system are DC voltages—any RF voltages introduced into the system, by,
say, that microwave oven you have in the passenger seat, would be AC
voltages, which the ECM's conditioned inputs would simply ignore. Neither
your cellphone nor Johnny's PlayStation have the power to induce much
confusion into the system.
These throttle-by-wire systems are very difficult to confuse—they're
designed to be robust, and any conceivable failure is engineered to command
not an open throttle but an error message.
So what to make of the unintended acceleration cases popping up by the
dozens? Not the ones explainable by problem sticky pedals, but the ones
documented by people who claim their vehicle ran away on its own, with no
input, and resisted all attempts to stop it? Some can probably be explained
as an attempt to get rid of a car consumers no longer desire. Some are
probably the result of Audi 5000 Syndrome, where drivers simply lost track
of their feet and depressed the gas instead of the brake. It's happened to
me: Luckily I recognized the phenomenon and corrected before it went bang.
Others may not have the presence of mind.
But the possibility that a vehicle could go from idling at a traffic light
to terrific, uncalled-for and uncontrollable acceleration because the guy
next to you at a traffic light answered his cellphone? Or some ghost in the
machine or a hacker caused a software glitch that made your car run away
and the brakes suddenly simultaneously fail? Not in the least bit likely.
Toyota deserves a better deal than the media and Congress are giving it.
Quote:
Anatomy of Toyota's Problem Pedal: Mechanic's Diary
What's the real problem behind Toyota's unintended acceleration? Is it
simply a sticky pedal, or is the trouble more fundamental? PM senior
automotive editor Mike Allen delves into modern car tech, explaining why
widespread theories about electrical throttle problems and electromagnetic
interference are misguided.
By Mike Allen
Published on: March 3, 2010
Toyota has recalled millions of cars and trucks—4.2 million to replace
floor mats that might impede throttle-pedal travel, and 2.4 million to
install a shim behind the electronic pedal assembly. All of the affected
pedal assemblies were made by Canadian supplier CTS. Toyota's boffins have
documented a problem that can make a few of these pedals slow to return,
and maybe even stick down. Problem solved.
But the media, Congress—and personal-injury lawyers—smell the blood in the
water. Not to diminish the injuries and a few deaths attributable to these
very real mechanical problems, but they're statistically only a very small
blip, which may explain why Toyota took so long to identify the issue,
especially when it has symptoms similar to the similarly documented floor
mat recall. Plus, sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) s notoriously
difficult to diagnose because, more often then not, the problem can't be
repeated in front of a mechanic. Let's not forget the Audi SUA episode back
in the '80s; the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration eventually
concluded that there was no mechanical problem. The culprit, as hard as
this is to admit, was most likely driver error. To put the issue into
context, in the last decade, there were about 24,000 customer complaints
about SUA involving almost every major automaker. The NHTSA investigated
fewer than 50.
The issue now is whether there's a more insidious problem unrelated to the
two recalls already extant. Specifically, whether there's some design flaw
n the entire concept of electronic throttle control. Some are questioning
whether electromagnetic interference from devices like cellphones could be
contributing to the acceleration problems.
It used to be that there was a steel cable that ran from the pedal itself
through the firewall and attached to the throttle blades that admitted air
to the intake manifold. A sticking throttle could be the result of friction
anywhere—in the pedal pivot, between the cable itself and its nylon-lined
sheath, or in the carburetor or fuel-injection throttle blades. (Does
anybody remember carburetors?). Modern cars, which make up the majority on
the market today, use a throttle pedal assembly that is connected to the
engine only electronically. Signals are carried over wires to the engine
management computer, which in turn sends electrical impulses to the stepper
motor that actually controls the throttle blades.
Sounds like there are plenty of places for gremlins to seize control of the
works, right? And that's where pundits who don't really understand the
architecture of throttle-by-wire systems go wrong. It's all in the
engineering.
Let's start at bottom of it all—your foot, which moves the pedal fore and
aft in relation to the firewall. Inside the pedal assembly is a spring to
make it return as you lift off, a device to add a little friction that
dampens the movement (Your foot would tire in short order if there wasn't
some damping), and a transducer of some sort that turns the movement of the
pedal into an electrical signal. That transducer is a simple device,
invented in 1879 by Edwin Hall (not 1979; 1879). It consists of only a
single slab of semiconductor with a few wires attached to its edge, one on
each end and one in the middle. With a voltage applied to the end wires, it
acts as a voltage divider. Placing a magnet near the sensor changes the
magnetic lines of flux, which literally push the electrons away from the
electrodes and changes the voltage at the center wire. The magnet, in the
Toyota case, is on the pedal arm. As the pedal moves, it alters the voltage
at the semiconductor and that's how the engine computer knows the position
of the pedal. The benefit of Hall-effect sensors is that there's no
mechanical connection to corrode, no internal resistance, and other
electronics, such as amplifiers, aren't needed. You could make one on your
kitchen table with a refrigerator magnet and some doorbell wire.
There are two discrete Hall-effect sensors in the Toyota/CTS pedal, which
is common industry practice. Just to make sure the sensors aren't confused,
they run on totally separate circuits back to the ECM, three wires each.
They don't even share an electrical ground. Like many onboard automobile
sensors, they are also completely isolated from the vehicle ground. To
reduce the potential for interference or mistakes, they operate at
different voltages. The first sensor, known as ACCEL POS #1, has a nominal
voltage range from 0.5 volts to 1.1 volts at idle and 2.5 volts to 4.5
volts at wide-open-throttle (WOT). The second sensor, ACCEL POS #2,
delivers from 1.2 volts to 2.0 volts at idle and 3.4 volts to 5.0 volts at
WOT. Why such a wide range of permissible voltages? The engine computer
(ECM) recalibrates the sensor regularly, every time you start the car and
the ECM goes through its power-on self-test.
Both accelerator-pedal-position Hall-effect sensors have to agree fairly
closely, or the ECM will go into its limp-home mode, which turns on the
Check Engine light and sets a trouble code.
There's more. If Toyota's engine-management scheme is anything like that of
most other car companies, firmware inside the ECM also monitors the airflow
into the engine, the throttle blade position and engine rpm, and calculates
backwards to what the throttle pedal position should be. Any discrepancy,
and a trouble code is set, the Check Engine light on the dash goes on, and
you're dialing the service manager to make an appointment.
Bottom line: The system is not only redundant, it's double-redundant. The
signal lines from the pedal to the ECM are isolated. The voltages used in
the system are DC voltages—any RF voltages introduced into the system, by,
say, that microwave oven you have in the passenger seat, would be AC
voltages, which the ECM's conditioned inputs would simply ignore. Neither
your cellphone nor Johnny's PlayStation have the power to induce much
confusion into the system.
These throttle-by-wire systems are very difficult to confuse—they're
designed to be robust, and any conceivable failure is engineered to command
not an open throttle but an error message.
So what to make of the unintended acceleration cases popping up by the
dozens? Not the ones explainable by problem sticky pedals, but the ones
documented by people who claim their vehicle ran away on its own, with no
input, and resisted all attempts to stop it? Some can probably be explained
as an attempt to get rid of a car consumers no longer desire. Some are
probably the result of Audi 5000 Syndrome, where drivers simply lost track
of their feet and depressed the gas instead of the brake. It's happened to
me: Luckily I recognized the phenomenon and corrected before it went bang.
Others may not have the presence of mind.
But the possibility that a vehicle could go from idling at a traffic light
to terrific, uncalled-for and uncontrollable acceleration because the guy
next to you at a traffic light answered his cellphone? Or some ghost in the
machine or a hacker caused a software glitch that made your car run away
and the brakes suddenly simultaneously fail? Not in the least bit likely.
Toyota deserves a better deal than the media and Congress are giving it.
#9
03-26-2010, 04:27 AM
Re: Media about Toyota UA
Toyota and the Complaint Bandwagon
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
A Long Island doctor crashes his BMW into a storefront Hanukkah party. A Rhode Island man rams his pickup into a house. An Arizona woman drives her Pontiac into a burger joint. An Australian football pro launches his truck into a parked car in which an elderly woman is sleeping in the backseat.
What these accidents (and many like them) have in common is that they didn’t involve a Toyota and the drivers freely blamed themselves for stepping on the wrong pedal or getting a foot entangled in an out-of-place floor mat. Such incidents happen all the time—and would make apt fodder for complaints to regulators about “unintended acceleration” if anyone cared to file them. Herein may lie the beginning of wisdom about Toyota’s mysteriously high level of sudden-acceleration complaints compared to most (but not all) car makers.
Then there’s this: In 2001, at least four papers were presented at the annual meeting of the Trial Lawyers Association urging a revival of sudden unintended acceleration litigation, insisting that such cases could prevail in absence of evidence of a defect, and even amid evidence of driver error, simply by harping in front of a jury on a record of “Other Similar Incidents” (OSI).
That’s the roadmap being followed now, as lawyer Randy Roberts told CNBC this week: “Toyota is very good at taking one consumer complaint about sudden unintended acceleration and dissecting it and convincing you that it may have been a floor mat or driver error or a sticky pedal. But when you put all those complaints out on the table, then you can see the big picture. That’s how you connect the dots.”
Huh? The logic here is ridiculous. To wit: 15 examples of X causing Y are proof that something other than X must cause Y.
Industrious bloggers lately have shown that drivers in many Toyota incidents were disproportionately old—and an electronic gremlin shouldn’t discriminate by age. Then again, older drivers may be more inclined to complain, or more likely to respond badly to vehicular misbehavior that wouldn’t trouble a younger driver. One pattern, though, is unmistakable: Complaints beget complaints.
When a similar fury engulfed Audi in the 1980s, complaints flooded in about virtually all auto makers’ cars. In 1987, more complaints were filed about sudden unintended acceleration than in the previous 20 years combined. Surely this was evidence of a widespread defect involving then-new vehicle electronics, concluded many in the media, citing as an authority Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety.
Not mentioned was that Mr. Ditlow himself was a factor in fostering the media coverage that stimulated the complaint deluge, just as he’s doing today. Sure enough, careful studies by several governments, including the U.S. government, concluded there was no defect behind the 1987 complaint surge except the bandwagon effect.
Now it’s Toyota complaints that are going through the roof in response to media coverage, so the company perhaps should strike a medal in honor of Jim Sikes, whose runaway Prius in San Diego this month increasingly appears to have been a hoax concocted by Mr. Sikes. It could award a runner-up ribbon to the New York woman whose Prius made national headlines when it inexplicably launched itself into a stone wall. Subsequent investigation showed that the gas pedal had been pressed to the floor at the time of the accident. The brake was untouched.
None of this means auto makers don’t have a duty to minimize unintended acceleration whatever its cause. But it’s also true that perceptions that Toyotas are unusually unsafe may be entirely a product of a “complaint” bandwagon partly under no one’s control, partly encouraged by trial lawyers and activists like Mr. Ditlow, who then flog the “other similar incidents” non sequitur.
Toyota is not the first target of the “OSI” gambit. A 10-year battle against Ford over a 1999 Aerostar minivan crash ended four weeks ago when a jury rendered a verdict in favor of Ford after just two hours of deliberation.
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
A Long Island doctor crashes his BMW into a storefront Hanukkah party. A Rhode Island man rams his pickup into a house. An Arizona woman drives her Pontiac into a burger joint. An Australian football pro launches his truck into a parked car in which an elderly woman is sleeping in the backseat.
What these accidents (and many like them) have in common is that they didn’t involve a Toyota and the drivers freely blamed themselves for stepping on the wrong pedal or getting a foot entangled in an out-of-place floor mat. Such incidents happen all the time—and would make apt fodder for complaints to regulators about “unintended acceleration” if anyone cared to file them. Herein may lie the beginning of wisdom about Toyota’s mysteriously high level of sudden-acceleration complaints compared to most (but not all) car makers.
Then there’s this: In 2001, at least four papers were presented at the annual meeting of the Trial Lawyers Association urging a revival of sudden unintended acceleration litigation, insisting that such cases could prevail in absence of evidence of a defect, and even amid evidence of driver error, simply by harping in front of a jury on a record of “Other Similar Incidents” (OSI).
That’s the roadmap being followed now, as lawyer Randy Roberts told CNBC this week: “Toyota is very good at taking one consumer complaint about sudden unintended acceleration and dissecting it and convincing you that it may have been a floor mat or driver error or a sticky pedal. But when you put all those complaints out on the table, then you can see the big picture. That’s how you connect the dots.”
Huh? The logic here is ridiculous. To wit: 15 examples of X causing Y are proof that something other than X must cause Y.
Industrious bloggers lately have shown that drivers in many Toyota incidents were disproportionately old—and an electronic gremlin shouldn’t discriminate by age. Then again, older drivers may be more inclined to complain, or more likely to respond badly to vehicular misbehavior that wouldn’t trouble a younger driver. One pattern, though, is unmistakable: Complaints beget complaints.
When a similar fury engulfed Audi in the 1980s, complaints flooded in about virtually all auto makers’ cars. In 1987, more complaints were filed about sudden unintended acceleration than in the previous 20 years combined. Surely this was evidence of a widespread defect involving then-new vehicle electronics, concluded many in the media, citing as an authority Clarence Ditlow of the Center for Auto Safety.
Not mentioned was that Mr. Ditlow himself was a factor in fostering the media coverage that stimulated the complaint deluge, just as he’s doing today. Sure enough, careful studies by several governments, including the U.S. government, concluded there was no defect behind the 1987 complaint surge except the bandwagon effect.
Now it’s Toyota complaints that are going through the roof in response to media coverage, so the company perhaps should strike a medal in honor of Jim Sikes, whose runaway Prius in San Diego this month increasingly appears to have been a hoax concocted by Mr. Sikes. It could award a runner-up ribbon to the New York woman whose Prius made national headlines when it inexplicably launched itself into a stone wall. Subsequent investigation showed that the gas pedal had been pressed to the floor at the time of the accident. The brake was untouched.
None of this means auto makers don’t have a duty to minimize unintended acceleration whatever its cause. But it’s also true that perceptions that Toyotas are unusually unsafe may be entirely a product of a “complaint” bandwagon partly under no one’s control, partly encouraged by trial lawyers and activists like Mr. Ditlow, who then flog the “other similar incidents” non sequitur.
Toyota is not the first target of the “OSI” gambit. A 10-year battle against Ford over a 1999 Aerostar minivan crash ended four weeks ago when a jury rendered a verdict in favor of Ford after just two hours of deliberation.
Last edited by haroldo; 03-26-2010 at 07:19 AM.
#10
08-03-2010, 07:25 AM
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Tucson, AZ
Posts: 661
Re: Media about Toyota UA
Report: Feds block Toyota 'unintended acceleration' doc release
Autoblog: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/01/r...doc-release%2F
Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj
Autoblog: http://www.autoblog.com/2010/08/01/r...doc-release%2F
Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj
Last edited by jbollt; 08-03-2010 at 07:27 AM.
