Toyota is still smarting from a heavy decking it has received from Congress, the NHTSA, lawyers, and the press. Toyota’s answer? Let’s get SMART!
The Nikkei [sub] reports that Toyota U.S.A. has established a special team that responds to unintended acceleration problems within 24 hours of customers reporting them.
Toyotas rapid reaction force is called SMART, as in Swift Market Analysis Response Team. What sounds like a unit for ad-hoc focus groups, is actually at team of 200 Toyota engineers and other experts across the U.S. It’s Toyota’s answer to NEST, the Nuclear Emergency Support Team.
When the read alert is sounded, “product engineers, field technical specialists and specially trained technicians will quickly and aggressively investigate customer reports of unintended acceleration,” as the official Toyota announcement goes.
Steve St. Angelo, Toyota chief quality officer for North America, said: “As we did in two recent, much-publicized cases in San Diego, California and Harrison, New York, we will continue to work in close partnership with law enforcement agencies and federal regulators with jurisdiction over accidents whenever requested.”
So if your Toyota develops a mind of its own: Put it in neutral, slam on the brakes, and hope Toyota will do the SMART thing. U.S. only. In other markets, you have to rely on your own smarts.
That’s good to know that in the US of A there will be a rapid responce team to hold American drivers hands while they go through a life changing experience of a car that breaks down or seems to have a mind of it’s own. Of course this will only be of use if the rapid responce teams lawyers can outsmart the drivers lawyers so that it won’t degenerate into “you did, I didn’t, yes you did, no I didn’t….” ad nausem )My lawyer’s are bigger than your lawyers so there!
Just goes to show that the rest of the world must (A) not drive toyota’s, (B) don’t really care, (C) They can actually operate and understand their cars, not just open the door, get in, sit down and hang on.
So the response team will quickly do what, exactly? Tell the owner the problem is driver error? Blame the sticky gas pedal? Blame the floor mats?
If you look at the last three SUA events that received intimidate attention and review…. We have a broke wife swapper who was riding the gas, and refused to shift into neutral… We have a housekeeper with her foot firmly on the gas as she drove through a brick wall and we have another senior citizen would tried to run over a parking attendant as he jabbed the gas.
When these are actuality investigated we find 0% electrical problems, we find 0% mechanical problems, and we find 100% flaky drivers pressing the wrong pedal…
This is all proving to be Audi 5000 dejavu.
If telling a “driver” of one of these runaway cars they are totally INCOMPETENT is what it takes to get things straight, then so be it. SOMEONE has to tell these people they have no business operating any sort of mechanical device on public roads. For sure the local authorities have missed the ball in administering drivers tests to issue licenses. My son returned from his drivers test in 6 MINUTES! That is barely enough time to drive around the block – forget about gauging a persons fitness to wield a motorized weapon. He told me later, NO 3 point turn, NO parallel park, no highway time, among others. Ridiculous. The fitness of drivers to be on the road decreases exponentially year after year, and the result is crap like the Toyota examples. Like everything else in society these days – “it’s not MY fault! X did this/that/whatever – it’s his/their fault!”
I call bullshit.
So will Toyota do the smart thing and have more than one laptop on the continent capable of downloading data from their proprietary black box?
Maybe they’ll do the smart thing and head hunt some more staff from NHTSA.
Or maybe they’ll do the really smart thing and start badging their vehicles as Chevrolet so that they can truly blame someone else.
@Austin: LOL. You beat me to it. Dang.
Make that RED alert, Scotty! SMART is no doubt a reaction to the fact that some of these cases are in fact not the fault of the car. While this may sound like a good PR move, it really is a CYA move. Toyota will do all it can to discredit cases reported in the news. If the incident is really not the fault of the car, that would be fine, but who’s to say that Toyota will not try to cover up the data before it is vetted by others?
Front page of my paper this morning had a story of SUA, 72 year old Camry driver was going down the highway when her car took off. Doesn’t sound like brake-pedal confusion, the driver behind her said the brake lights were on while the car was accelerating. The hits just keep on coming:
http://gazettetimes.com/news/local/article_d1824114-452b-11df-90c5-001cc4c002e0.html
@ Russycle
Five alarms here; age, riding the brakes already (brake lights on), neutral status, floor-mat status and that car is not on the recall list.
It’s easy to report the bad news, much harder to explain what and why.
An excellent example of why Toyota need a “response team”.
If, as Toyota claims, the electronics (including software) are not to blame for any sudden acceleration incidents, then the truly “smart” move would be to give away the diagnostic hardware and software so that third-party investigators can read the electronics and the EDRs of these vehicles without any assistance from Toyota.
If Toyota is so confident that their electronics are “fail safe,” then they should have nothing to worry about, right?
Allowing Toyota to analyze these cars is like giving the fox the keys to the chicken coop:
http://www.latimes.com/business/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-us-toyota-legal-tactics,0,6348252.story
They’re assisting NASA (wtf?) – is there something more they should do?
+1
They are also having problems with cars that have been “fixed”. It would be interesting to have more recorders on board those cars, and have them readable by anyone – then maybe we can start to pinpoint the problem.
@ Dynamic88
They are also having problems with cars that have been “fixed”.
Could you perhaps provide a link for this claim?
Those smarties are a british version of M&Ms.
They’re not exactly the same as you can get M&Ms in the UK too. I think they are nicer tasting ;-)
Will Toyota submit findings documented in their “BOK” ?
Anybody have a copy? I would bet a whistle-blower could save a lot of lives – with information redacted not related to the SUA incidents with over 50 deaths so far in the USA.
excerpt from:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20100313/AUTO01/3130317/0/AUTO01/Suit–Toyota-ignored-defects
“Additionally, the committee found multiple references to secret, electronic Books of Knowledge in which Toyota engineers protected design and testing data for vehicles and parts.
Hester acknowledged the existence of the Books of Knowledge, or “BOK,” and said Toyota has never turned them over to lawyers suing Toyota or to NHTSA. Hester said the Books of Knowledge are searched during civil lawsuits for any material the company is legally required to disclose.”
Smarties are also available in Canada, which is why the labelling on the picture is bilingual. Other interesting Canadian food items are: Shreddies, Kraft Dinner, Coffee Crisp bars, Mr. Big bars, Decadent chocolate chip cookies, etc. I could go on. There’s so much good Canada-only food.
Anyway, back to the original article. Toyota pretty much is doing a CYA move. Their sales are up, but they’re also using a lot of incentives to move vehicles. I’m thinking they want to drop the incentives as soon as they can and the SMART thing will hopefully be enough to assure the drivers that Toyota really cares about them. Even though they might be idiots…someone has to care for the idiots. I wonder if Toyota will start offering GM/Ford/Chrysler vouchers for the “victims” of SUA to make them go away. I can only imagine what would happen to Chrysler if the big story changed to SUA happening in Sebrings or Cherokees.
Every time another case of “driver error” is documented, it points to the fact that certain Toyota pedal configurations are poorly designed for a small but significant percent of drivers. At 24 times the average of comparable vehicles (in some cases), this is not exactly a leap some would have you believe.
We are NOT dealing with rocket science here but Toyota baiting every mis-direction they can come up with. Their “All old drivers are stupid and confused!” has a lot of appeal for a small but vocal group of people. The “It’s people working a scam to cash in!” rings the bell for many too. You see a few, but by and large this doesn’t feed the bulldog.
Don’t drink the Toyota Kool-Aide.
I’m expecting sometime down the road it will be revealed that every member of the SMART team had to sign a 3-page document agreeing to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER even hint that pedal ergonomics has a role in this.
Break up the trio of too close together, to similar in height, and too similar in tactile feedback and the “driver error” problem will drop to comparable numbers or nearly vanish.
Heaven forbid Toyota offer new throttle and brake pedals to those who want the issue addressed in a proper, professional, and permanent manner.