By Robert Channick | A
Southern Illinois University professor will go up against Toyota today
in a very public version of their sparring match over the car company’s
acceleration problems.
David Gilbert, associate professor of Automotive Technology at Southern Illinois University, testifies on Capitol Hill about Toyota’s acceleration problems. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) >>
Hoping to debunk a report by the professor linking electronic glitches
to unintended acceleration, Toyota plans to demonstrate its own
findings during a live Web cast Monday. The world’s largest automaker
may have a lot riding on the test.
Presented to Congress last month, the study conducted by David Gilbert,
an assistant professor of automotive technology at Southern Illinois
University, showed how a wiring malfunction could cause Toyota vehicles
to accelerate wildly, something the company has steadfastly denied.
“Engineers try to do their best to make sure things don’t go wrong,” Gilbert told the Tribune. “Sometimes even the best engineers don’t think of all the possibilities. ”
Toyota has employed its own academic experts from Stanford University’s Center for Automotive Research to both recreate the experiment and refute the claims during the event, scheduled for Monday at noon at the company’s U.S. sales headquarters in Torrance, California.
In a statement issued Friday, Toyota called Gilbert’s demonstration “completely unrealistic under real-world conditions. ” The company also plans to show how the results can be duplicated on a wide range of vehicles from other manufacturers.
Toyota also has hired a consulting firm to study whether electronic problems could cause unintended acceleration. The firm, Exponent Inc., released an interim report that has found no link between the two.
Unbowed, Gilbert contends that everything from vibrations to temperature extremes can cause automotive electronics to go haywire — outside of the testing grounds.
“I’ve seen a number of these over the years,” he said. “You really don’t know how they fail, but they can, and it might be a random occurrence.”
Purposely shorting throttle control sensors, Gilbert was able to not only induce unintended acceleration, but also show that the onboard computer was unable to detect the malfunction, preventing both failsafe corrections and a “black box” recording of the fault. Toyota has consistently argued that the electronic throttle control system could not cause unintended acceleration without setting off an error code.
“What I did was show that there could be a fault in the electrical system — in the sensors or within the electronic throttle control system — that could be undetected,” Gilbert said. “And that’s what I testified to in Congress.”
Gilbert’s study was commissioned by Safety Research & Strategies, a Massachusetts-based automotive advocacy group which has identified 3,306 total unintended acceleration incidents involving Toyota vehicles since 1999, resulting in 1,159 crashes, 469 injuries and 39 deaths.
Toyota sales have been plummeting — down more than 12 percent for the year — amid criticism that the company has been slow to respond. At a congressional hearing February 24, Toyota President Akio Toyoda apologized for the defects, but stood firm that the problems were not related to the electronic throttle control system.
More than 8 million Toyotas have been recalled worldwide since last fall, but critics say the two mechanical fixes — new floor mats and a redesigned gas pedal — are insufficient to explain thousands of cases of unintended acceleration over the past decade, coinciding with industry-wide adoption of electronic throttle controls.
Bolstering that claim, more than 60 drivers have reported sudden acceleration incidents after their recalled cars were repaired by Toyota, according to data released last week by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Declining to speculate whether the problem was unique to Toyota, Gilbert said the electronic throttle control was “a place to start” for the ongoing reports of unintended acceleration. While brake overrides and other proposed failsafe measures may help, he said Toyota engineers need to find an electrical solution to ultimately rectify the problem. What that might be, he said, was beyond him.
“I diagnose problems — that’s what I do,” he said. “I don’t design these things.”
Tribune wires contributed to this report
The more complicated you make them the more problems you are going to have. Years ago U.S. Air Force planes were describe as “Conceived by PHD’s, designed by BS-degrees, maintained by GED’s”
Looks like that is where our cars are now. A very complicated mass-produce product that no one knows how to fix.
Southsider,
The car companies are going to drive by wire to save money. The problem is that we end up a system that has been tested for only a short period of time in all cars. How does it hold up for extended periods of time in cold, heat, high moisture, high elevation or other extreme conditions? Nobody really knows. A person I work with is having big problems with the electronics (starting, windows, locks, etc) on his Audi and another had problems with his Mercedes that kept it off the road for weeks at the time. Both cars are less than 2 years old. It seems we only start to hear of the problems when people’s lives are being put at risk. If you want charge extra for a car, make a better car. Don’t just give us a ad campaign after problems arise that your quality is still good.
I love to be in control when i am driving. I do not want the computers making the decisions for me. I wish they could remove all those sensors and computers off the accelerator and brake cables. Keep it manual like it used to be. Forget the aftersale sales.
“Yeah see officer the car wildly accelerated…thats why i was speeding. It was the electronics not me!”
This whole thing is such a BS witchhunt against Toyota, smells more like a rat smear campaign from politicians who now OWM GENERAL MOTORS AND CHRYSLER. And this David Gilbert yahoo? “I’ve seen a number of these over the years,” he said. “You really don’t know how they fail, but they can, and it might be a random occurrence” he said, hmmm. Brilliant. So you don’t know, but it might be this, ’cause I mean, why not?! How reckless. Don’t hold your breath for him to be able to back this up against the Stanford crew. This guy couldn’t back up a CPS teacher if they called in sick.
@DaveM
Please be quite. You don’t know what you are talking about and you take comments out of context. You don’t understand engineering and have no background in failure analysis and the complexities involved with presenting initial findings in a highly charged political environment.
But please, when you make my hamburger this afternoon, make sure its cooked properly and hold the pickles.
New Subarus have two switches when both are depressed at the same time, all motion ceases. When the vehicle stops wheels are locked and you have to restart in order to move. This is forward thinking on the part of one car manufacturer.
I think it’s funny that this guys named Mechanical_Engineer(lol)is bing so rude to someone else simply beacuse he disagrees. He said nothing at all to warrant such an immature and juvenile response.
I agree wite DaveM. This whole thing is a govt run witchhunt, a bunch of lawyers looking for a payday and typical American bullsh*t with people coming out of the woodwork trying to get money out of Toyota. I don’t buy these 60 new complaints for a second. Anybody who doesn’t think the great vast majorty of those are people who want money and/or people who experienced someting other than what they say are naive and blinded. So many people making claims with no proof what so ever, none, and now that they bring in their own experts from outside sources such as Standford research to show this guy is full of it and even if it is there this would be an industry wide problem not just a Toyota, still people bang their drum like they have nothing better to do in life than join the witchhunt.
Gm and Ford are praying they don’t actually fin anything, cuz if they do it’s industry wide. it’s already well documented that Ford gets nearlyas many accleration copplaints as Toyota (go, look it up, please) but funny I don’t see that anywhere in the media.
I don’t give a damn what you think.
“Sick of the BS”, so am I. If you really had the Ford data, you’d have posted a link instead of telling us to go look it up.
Neither Toyota or the SIU professor are considering DEMONIC POSSESSION as a possible cause. After all , wasn’t this a cause in the movies Christine and Maximum Overdrive? What about the movie “Duel”? I think something is being overlooked here and that is PARANORMAL causes.
The Illinois Motorcycle operator manual explains how to stop a motorcycle if the throttle is stuck. Maybe Toyota should get its own clause in the motor vehicle manual.
If (Brakes.Depressed = True) then
You can make pickups burst into flames by attaching explosives to the gas tank, the preferred method of “consumer agitators.” A possibility in some social circles but not the fault of the automakers. Creating a situation where some outcome can occur without showing how that situation could have occured in these specific “accidents” is irresponsible.
Unless someone proves that the vehicle won’t shift into neutral, 99.9% of these “accidents” are driver error. Anyone that lets their car get up to 120mph, even if they were already doing 90, had plenty of time to shift out of gear or into a lower gear that would prevent the car from going faster. Instead we get an idiot calling 911 for some on the job training. How did these people get licenses without the most fundemental understanding of what they are doing?
SIU? Your best ammunition comes from some rube at SIU?!? BWAA-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!
This is a real problem and it’s multi-faceted.
Otherwise, why would an insurance company (State Farm) come forward with statistics to NHTSA and Toyota? State Farm had data back to 2007 saying they have had increased complaints and claims from unintended acceleration also.
Yes, it’s true other cars do this and it’s rare. But Toyota’s complaints are 2 – 3 times higher than other automakers and it stemmed back to 2002-2003 when Toyota put in their Drive by Wire system. Their complaints are statistically significant being higher than others.
All you people crying “witch hunt” would then be crying foul if the root cause was finally found and the government did NOTHING. Hypocrites.
It sounds to me like US-sue-crazy people are preparing for a class action lemon-law suit.
Someone sounds paranoid
This SIU prof learned from the best.
Glen Poshard plagarized his PhD dissertation
and the student newspaper found out and
the paid guns faculty did nothing!
This say a lot
“David Gilbert, an assistant professor of automotive technology at Southern Illinois University”
1 – Southern Illinois is not exactly a renowned institution
2 – At his age only an assistant professor at a grade B university. That says something about his competence.
I don’t know what the reality is of the Toyota situation. However I am not impressed by this guy or the school where he works.
Urbana Jake, I’m guessing you are an ‘Illini’ and have a bit of dislike for Salukis. Did Dr. Gilbert study under Glen Poshard? Please cite your proof. Otherwise, quit whining. It’s not like U of I doesn’t have it’s skeletons – like the ‘preferred’ admissions process, etc. Don’t throw stones at SIU just because you are a ‘college’ snob.
Toyota obviously = burning death trap!
The enitre company is a pay back for WWII
“Purposely SHORTING throttle control sensors, Gilbert was able to not only induce unintended acceleration, but also show that the onboard computer was unable to detect the malfunction, preventing both failsafe corrections and a “black box” recording of the fault. ”
Go here, http://www.toyota.com/recall/videos/#throttle, it shows the throttle system in Toyota. The middle of the video shows 4 failsafe modes.
Professor Gilbert induced the problem by shorting some sensors. It may be the “if then else” or “case” was is missing when the incompetent Toyota engineeers wrote the software code.
Buried in million lines of software code, the pseudo code for 1 single pedal position sensor may be
If pedal_position_sensor = 1 then do (1/4 throttle) else
if pedal_position_sensor = 2 then do (1/2 throttle) else
if pedal_position_sensor = 3 then do (3/4 throttle) else
do (full throttle).
So if the pedal position sensor is 0 (shorted), the computer skips to the last command, the car gets full throttle.
If(Accelerator_Pedal.Not_Depressed=True)then…
Add to the above
So if the pedal position sensor is 4 or 0 (shorted), the computer skips to the last command, the car gets full throttle.
While yes, the University itself may not be very renowned Bill D, SIUC’s automotive technology program is the #1 automotive technology program in the nation, respected worldwide for that matter, and it is a very competative program to get into. The automotive technology program had much higher standards than general admission to the university. Dont kid yourself, SIUC’s program is the best, and has been voted that way for a reason.
And I forgot to mention, Gilbert is more than “assistant professor.” the title is actually Associate Professor. *** stands for more than one thing, especially in your case.