When it comes to the cause of the alleged Toyota unintended acceleration, the TTAC commentariat is divided into two camps:
One side is convinced they know what’s wrong with Toyota. (It’s the cursed computer. May it roast in hell and grow tin whiskers.)
The other side isn’t so sure and argues for caution. It could be pilot error. Plain old hysteria also isn’t ruled out. Or some trade warfare that reared its no so pretty head at yesterday’s hearings: “You block our beef because of mad cow disease. We do the same to your cars.”
Well, who says life is fair. Flash: The doubters are being discriminated against. The commentators who know what’s wrong with Toyota can become instant millionaires. Here is how it works:
“Solve the unintended acceleration problem, win a million dollars,” announced the Los Angeles Times.
To the tune of one million dollars, Edmunds launched a public competition to find the cause of and solution to the problem that has allegedly caused scores of deaths, has destroyed the reputation of Toyota, triggered three congressional hearings (at last count,) and countless lawsuits. The trouble is: Nobody really knows what’s going on.
Edmunds wants to find out. According to their press release, „Edmunds.com is currently drafting rules for a new prize, attempting to attract the best thinkers in the world to apply themselves to determine what is really causing sudden unexpected acceleration in vehicles.”
To those who know what’s wrong with Toyota, this should be easy money. All one needs to do is to “re-create unintended acceleration in a car and then solve that problem and prove the whole thing to us,” said Edmunds CEO Jeremy Anwyl.
I’m a poor person (writing forTTAC has that effect.) But if one of our readers, who had opined in the past that he or she knows what’s wrong, should get the $1 million prize, then I’ll personally raise it by 10,000 Japanese Yen out of my own slim pocket. So don’t just sit there, do something. Break out the resistance boxes and the paperclips. Connect data recorders to your Toyotas and stress the heck out of them.
But you know what: I think Edmunds will keep its money. And I will have to spend the 10,000 Yen in a seedy joint in Kabukicho.
Some good answers here:
http://scragged.com/articles/obamas-clowns-crashing-toyotas-circus.aspx
That’s a fantastic article ! Thanks for the link.
Sorry to be less than enthusiastic about the “Scragged” article but…
“Sudden Unintended Acceleration” in vehicles with mechanical throttle systems does not exist. I believe the problem is more correctly stated “Throttle Return Failure”, which can be caused by about three things under the hood and the same number at the pedal, one of which is the driver is standing on it.
This 1989 study is based on 1984-87 data on mechanical throttle systems that were largely replaced at the turn of the century.
“Sudden Unintended Acceleration” in vehicles with electronic throttle systems can be defined as “I was minding my own business and the car suddenly without warning went to full throttle and stayed there”. There are also about three things under the hood that can cause this and about the same number at the pedal, one of which is the driver is standing on it.
It appears to me that Toyota is pursuing a scorched-earth policy of mis-directing any and all comments that may conclude the Engine Control Module (ECM) is in any way playing a role in this, but the facts point otherwise:
Professor Gilbert determined on his own in a few hours, and others including Toyota have verified, that the pedal wires can be contaminated with logical and illogical, fixed and variable, common and uncommon faults and the Fault Checking & Mitigation (FCM) circuitry does not trap the errors. Toyota has labeled this fact-finding as “sabotage”.
Professor Gilbert is being politically correct when he phrases it “A wide window of error tolerance.” Others more bluntly state the throttle error checking in a Toyota is a piece of sh*t on top of the fact the throttle system is not well designed to prevent faults in the first place. They argue the ECM is causing the problem because is does such poor error-checking. Toyota more narrowly defines it as the ECM did not originate the fault, therefore it is not causing it.
My uninformed opinion is that Toyota would face a $500 million dollar U.S. recall if they have to fix the FCM schema in all electronic throttles Toyota’s still on the road. If that is true, it’s worth it to them to spend a hundred million dollars to try to keep the recall from happening. To me it seems they have chosen to clip a few pedals, throw out some floor mats, stuff in some washers, and call it good.
Also, if a recall in the U.S. is ordered, the rest of the world isn’t far behind.
As far as Edmunds is concerned, if I identify the three problematic areas under the hood and the three at the pedal, do I win?
I guess my response is stuck in moderation limbo forever. Never mind, then.
I know one thing that is wrong with Toyota that begs attention, that is a slow to react or change course management in a far away place that is probably overstretched by the vastness of its business.
I don’t know how much of it is Toyota’s own version of inbred corporate culture plays into this problem – or – could be that it’s just a slow to react consensus driven system from which they grew up in – but either way it was ill prepared for a media storm in the US.
Their cars are fine other wise. The average Toyota will probably be just as or more reliable of the long term than the average Nissan or Honda.
I’m with you on this one, Bertel… Edmunds is putting out the prize on the good chance that no one is going to collect…
Will be an interesting race, though.
Looking for a “silver bullet” is a Fool’s Game. Depending on the event, the cause could be attributed to errant floor mats, sticky pedals, electronics, software, and last, but not least, pilot error.
OK, let’s have some fun with this.
I nominate TTAC to run a tally on the different likely outcomes and the number of readers who would bet on each.
I for example will bet that the answer will be:
Tin Wiskers in a voltage regulator masked by faulty ETCS design, leading to accidents and deaths due to lack of a brake override.
I will qualify my bet though with the following.
Edmunds does not make it abundantly clear from the above description as to whether they will award the prize for the first person who can come up with a credible, provable explanation, or the person that first describes and shows the answer that Toyota will eventually admit to.
My above bet is on the answer to the first Edmunds scenario.
For the second scenario, I am more inclined to bet that there will be no admission by Toyota of a faulty ETCS design. They will simply change their design along with the roll out of the fail safe and EDR upgrades without admitting anything, at which point tin whiskers will be largely irrelevant (other than intermittent Check Engine lights)and we will all lose interest.
I predict the likelihood of finding the “real” answer is about as likely as finding the “real” killer in the OJ case. In other words, ZERO.
BTW, the Edmunds thread discussing this has turned into a real snoozefest involving computer geeks — boring with a capital “B.”
When investigators dissect airplane crashes they are not looking for a single event that caused the crash, nor do they ever find just one. Crashes are almost always caused by a convergence of multiple sequelae and Toyota’s current problems are no exception.
There is no magic bullet here and (IMHO) the prize money will stay safely locked away.
Same thing happens with nuclear meltdowns. The sequence of failures and mistakes in the set-up and during a nuclear accident are almost always a spectacular and uncanny combination of human error, design and engineering flaws, poor build quality, bad luck, and sloppy maintenance and inspection.
I remember reading a white paper from a Sandia academician who concluded that more complex safety systems could only lead to more complex failures and indeed led to more overall failures than a simpler design with a simpler safety system.
This is why I advocate the brake override; it solves the problem by ignoring the underlying fault.
+1 criminalenterprise
The more complex the system the less likely one is to envision all potential outcomes of a single-function failure in a DFMEA.
Beyond that, in a proper DFMEA one must assume that one and only one failure occurs at a time. After brainstorming the possible effects of that failure (including obvious knock-on effects) the risks are weighted based on their apparent severity, the likelihood of occurrence, and the ability to detect and prevent the failure from having the expected consequences. Should their development group miss potential immediate or secondary effects of a single failure or underestimate the failure rate bad stuff can happen. Another easy miss is not incorporating the risk of another related system failing when that other system is intended to detect or reduce severity of one failure. It’s rather difficult to properly control risk of multiple concurrent or simultaneous failures in complicated systems.
I guess Dr. Gilbert’s “findings” don’t pass the sniff test?
And Bertel, 10K yen ~= $100? Reasonable enough.
My prediction, by the time this is ALL done one million dollars will seem like a distant second prize to the amount of money that Dr. Gilbert will be paid by plaintiff counsels for his expert testimony in the pending civil suits.
Dr. Gilbert has no interest in this prize money… He already holds a winning ticket in a different and much more lucrative lottery.
Edmonds might have to pay, if Gilbert’s correct. I’m assuming they’ve fully reviewed what he’s done, and discounted/discredited it, but if not they might be out some cash.
It appears one researcher was able to reproduce the SUA problem in a Toyota lawnmower; it appears related to the throttle assembly:
This is probably similar to the Boeing 737 rudder reversal issue:
“During the course of the investigation of Flight 427, the NTSB discovered that the PCU’s dual servo valve could jam as well as deflect the rudder in the opposite direction of the pilots’ input, due to thermal shock, caused when cold PCUs are injected with hot hydraulic fluid. As a result of this find, the FAA ordered that the servo valves be replaced and that new training protocol for pilots to handle unexpected movement of flight controls be developed.”
So far, it looks like my 10,000 Yen will go to a more deserving cause. Such as the college fund of a Tokyo bar maiden.
I think the devil might object to being blamed for this.
Best description of an airplane crash I ever read “A crash is what happens when you run out of altitude, airspeed and ideas all at the same time”
NHTSA has reports of failures on “fixed” Toyotas.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-03/u-s-contacting-toyota-owners-filing-complaints-on-fixed-cars.html
Not a surprise I suppose. The Edmunds challenge is tempting – depending on what the rules are. Putting together a team to try to win the money for charity might be fun. Then again, without access to failed vehicles and complete documentation it wouldn’t be an easy task.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/4347704.html
“Anatomy of Toyota’s Problem Pedal: Mechanic’s Diary”
By Mike Allen, PM senior automotive editor
March 3, 2010
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, … 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 are probably the result of Audi 5000 Syndrome, where drivers simply lost track of their feet and depressed the gas instead of the brake. …
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.
Mike Allen, author of the Popular Mechanics article, triumphly proclaimes “Problem Solved!”. If this is the case, he needs to get his entry into Edumnds and collect the million bucks.
Sorry, but in my view, other than the one point noted below, he ignors the major damning contention that the fault checking and mitigation strategy is poor and the total throttle control system design
is less than robust.
Mr. Allen’s point that Electrical-Mechanical Interference (EMI) and Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) will have little effect on a circuit of predominately DC voltage is correct.
EMI/RFI are primarily random or sinusoidal (wave-like). DC circuits use discrete voltages and are generally unable to react to these. Such interference would have to overwhelm the ECM circuitry and force it to latch to hold the throttle open. The likelyhood of that is effectively zero.