Update Report: Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration

This is truly an opportunity for the regulators to advance their knowledge base beyond the era of the mechanical automobile and into the age of automotive electronics, rapidly migrating from a vehicle’s entertainment center to its most basic functions of acceleration, braking and steering. It is critical to future policy setting and defect analysis.

The first day featured a host of presentations from NHTSA, and some of the good news is: the agency is focusing on the 2002-2006 Camry, which has long been known to be one of Toyota’s most troubled vehicles in terms of consumer complaints. NHTSA’s Roger Saul and Mike Kirsch of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which is partnering with the agency, presented a PowerPoint that showed the huge spike in unintended acceleration complaints beginning in 2002, when Toyota introduced its Electronic Throttle Control System-intelligent (ETCS-i). (SRS and Quality Control Corp. actually mined these data many months ago and came to the same conclusion. For that matter, the agency essentially knew this in 2003, when Steven Chan wrote an IE memo noting this same spike, albeit in a shorter time frame.).

Kirsch, a NASA systems engineer, laid out the scientific approach the team expected to bring to the process of ferreting out weaknesses in Toyota’s electronics, including studying complaint symptoms, understanding how the design is supposed to work, how it might fail, developing event sequences and fault trees, and finally, testing.

Among the automotive electronics experts who made presentations to the panel were Michael Pecht, a mechanical engineering professor who heads the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Life Cycle Engineering (CALCE) and who advised Henry Waxman’s committee on Toyota SUA, and Todd Hubing, an EMC expert andprofessor of vehicle electronics at Clemson University.

Pecht was openly critical of NHTSA’s past work on unintended acceleration as well as the industry’s inability to identify root causes for defects where no faults were detected by the vehicle diagnostics and their inadequate testing standards.  Pecht also described his experience helping uncover intermittent electronic defects for the industry – including a major automaker whose cruise control modules were causing SUA – in which 96 percent of the returned modules tested fine despite huge numbers of field returns.  Standards for testing are 40 years old and they have gotten more relaxed and the testing is not being evaluated in situ, according to Pecht.

Pecht also pointed out the need for NHTSA to find better ways to obtain relevant documents from automakers to advance their investigations and that the agency “bible” on SUA, referred to as the “Silver Book,” was lacking and biased toward human error.

Also presenting on the second day was Robert Strassburger from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers who gave an entirely general overview about the robust testing by the industry but was scant on details and instead referred the panel to the individual members of the association.

Hubing described his testing and failure analysis work for the industry and attorneys.  Hubing was cautious in his assessment of the vehicle electronic issues that can result in SUA, taking particular pains to note that the odds of an SUA event is lower than the odds of being involved in other types of crashes, and SUA events are rare occurrences in general.  But, he did note that the problem will get worse without a major change in standards and design practices.

One point that caught our attention was Hubing was able to replicate Dr. David Gilbert’s work and obtain wide-open throttle without the fault detection system setting an error code – but with only a single fault.  Gilbert’s analyses found that first a loss of signal redundancy at the accelerator pedal sensor was needed followed by a voltage spike to create an unintended wide-open throttle.  Hubing went on to note that many of the faults created invalid signals that sometimes would be detected, other times not.  His findings were previously provided to NHTSA and NASA investigators.

But we are also a little anxious about how the panel will complete such an absurdly broad charge in a little over a year. NHTSA has asked the panel to cover the complete gamut of SUA causes. In addition, the assembled panel includes a number members retired from their careers. This is a regular feature of such National Research Council panels, because all are volunteers who must have sufficient availability to complete the task. For this reason, many of the SUA panelists are not necessarily on the technical cutting edge of automotive electronics. Also, it was clear from many questions posed by the panelists that they have a steep learning curve in understanding NHTSA’s processes or even in understanding the history of this defect.

It did not help that NHTSA Administrator David Strickland told the panel in his opening remarks that the agency had already identified two “known” causes of unintended acceleration in Toyotas –  floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals. Even Toyota – which has enjoyed some of the cover that the false linkage between its sticking accelerator pedal recall and unintended acceleration has provided – has acknowledged to Congress that it is not a cause of unintended acceleration in three-quarters of the cases out there.

We are also dismayed by the amount of attention focused on human factors. This is already a well-worn path for the agency. NHTSA actually doesn’t need any outside help on human factors and unintended acceleration – it wrote the (Silver) book on it (The 1989 electronics-denier’s Bible: An Examination of Sudden Acceleration). As presented Wednesday, the human factors influence on unintended acceleration sounds very reasonable, until you actually start reading the Toyota complaints and talking to owners who’ve had multiple instances in the same vehicle with different drivers, or witnesses who observe a crashed Toyota continuing to rev its engine with no pedal application, or high-speed events where the driver is already applying the accelerator.

It would be disappointing in the extreme if the agency wasted this crisis by retreating to its comfort zone, and concluding: See, we told ya it’s those dumb drivers!

In Other Washington News…

Rep. Henry Waxman’s Energy and Commerce Committee is very busy these days with British Petroleum’s destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, but they haven’t forgotten Toyota.

This week, the Commerce Committee’s Sub-Committee on Oversight and Investigations sent Toyota Motor Sales CEO Jim Lentz a letter apprising him Exponent’s non-cooperation in supplying the committee with key documents. In particular, the committee was miffed that Exponent, by admission of its own representative Dr. Shukri Souri, “had withheld from the Committee a ‘living document’ which he stated was ‘an incomplete set of our opinions and conclusions’ that is ‘continuously updated that is reflecting our progress.’”

Instead, Exponent submitted a substantially altered document. The Committee reminded Toyota that, despite the baffling the automaker wrapped around Exponent by hiring it through litigators Bowman and Brooke, the Committee still regarded Toyota as Exponent’s minder and asked the automaker to direct its contractor to Giddy-up.

More interesting was a request for information about a brake override mechanism that unidentified technical experts found on a 2005 Toyota Camry.

Astute hearing watchers may recall that Lentz told the Committee under oath at a February hearing that the company could not install a brake override function on the older model Toyotas, because it wasn’t technically feasible. Here’s an exchange between Sub-Committee Chair Bart Stupak and Lentz:

REP STUPAK: Well, on this rebooting of this computer there, why only some of the vehicles are going to be rebooted and not the other ones?

MR. LENTZ:  It depends on the feasibility of the unit.  Some of the computers are different types of chips in them.

REP. STUPAK:  Okay.

MR. LENTZ:  Some are not rewritable, basically.  They’re hard coded.

REP. STUPAK:  So can’t you fix those — rewrite the program so all your vehicles are covered?  I mean, what do you say to these owners who are not going to have this safety feature added to it? They’re just going to continue to drive down the road and hope they don’t have a sudden, unintended acceleration?

MR. LENTZ:  Well, again, the incident or the possibility of that happening is very, very slim.  But understanding if it happens to you, it’s a very, very important incident.

Also very, very important: Not BS-ing the Committee.

Apparently, some older model Camrys, not included in brake override recall, already have some form of override function.

According to the letter:

“We have been notified by outside technical experts that based on their examination of a 2005 Toyota Camry, some older model Toyotas may have a brake override function that activates when the vehicle’s electronic throttle control system registers a diagnostic trouble code. These experts report that this brake override function is separate from ‘limp home’ mode. In your testimony before our Committee – on February 23, 2010, and again on May 20, 2010, you described Toyota’s commitment to outfit all vehicles with a brake override function beginning with model year 2011 and to retrofit some older model vehicles that are currently on the road. On April 28, 2010, electronics experts from Toyota briefed Committee staff on brake override features in Toyota vehicles. Neither you nor Toyota’s electronics experts informed the Committee that some older model vehicles may already have a brake override function that is tied to a diagnostic trouble code.”

Question: Did NHTSA know about Toyota older brake override system? Or is this another one of Toyota’s little secrets?

While the committee and sub-committee chairs, Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Bart Stupak (D-MI) respectively, did not state things quite so baldly, they came darned close in their opening statements:

Waxman characterized Toyota’s assurances to the committee that it had conducted extensive testing and research into the ETCS “baffling.”

“What we have learned is deeply troubling.  There is no evidence that Toyota has conducted extensive or rigorous testing of its vehicles or potential electronic defects that could cause sudden unintended acceleration.  Our colleague, Mr. Burgess said there’s a top to bottom review; we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.  Well NHTSA had — but Toyota has already jumped to the conclusion and made it over and over again that they’ve ruled out any problem with the electronics.” (Read Waxman’s Opening Statement)

Stupak re-iterated:

“The record doesn’t support Toyota’s statements that it conducted extensive testing.  The truth is that we don’t know whether electronics plays a role in sudden, unintended acceleration, and Toyota doesn’t know either.” (Read Stupak’s Opening Statement)

The documents showed Toyota’s vow to devote itself to the grueling legwork of getting to the bottom of SUA to be an O.J. Simpson-like promise to find his wife’s real killers. The “extensive” testing turned out to be pre-market and prototype testing on an extremely small sample of vehicles and no testing of Post mass-produced vehicles. Exponent, purportedly hired with an unlimited budget to solve this technical mystery, was actually hired to protect Toyota in a class-action lawsuit. (Read the contract between Exponent and Toyota.)

Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) also had a burr under under her saddle about Toyota’s claim of infallible failsafes:

“Furthermore, we learned that fail safe mechanisms in Toyota vehicles are designed to detect single-point, single event faults.  In other words, faults that occur in isolation and effect only one vehicle component.  Toyota’s testing of critical components of the electronic throttle control system reflects this focus in that they do not test for multiple event or multiple component faults.  Numerous academics and independent experts told committee staff that rare multiple event faults could play a role in sudden unintended acceleration.  It seems to me that Toyota should try to identify all potential faults, not just the most frequent ones, and develop tests to prevent them.”

So, what has the world’s Ichiban automotive company with $1.2 billion in first-quarter profits been doing with all it’s time and money? Apparently, they have used it to go on a jihad against Safety Research & Strategies, Dr. David Gilbert and consumers who have been left holding the bag.

As we’ve reported previously at The Safety Record Blog, Toyota’s defense counsel and marketing team had been working feverishly to discredit SRS and Dr. David Gilbert, the automotive electronics professor from Southern Illinois University Carbondale who had the unmitigated gall to show that Toyota’s failsafes could fail, and therefore, were not very safe.

But the documents that the committee released supporting our stories were great reads. Toyota hired the Benenson Strategy Group, who worked for none other than POTUS himself, to test the automaker’s most effective lines of attack. Benenson, which bills itself as “a global strategic research and consulting firm known for its energetic, agile and analytically aggressive approach,” pinpointed SRS and Gilbert as Toyota Enemy Number One for their ability to influence the “Elites,” (who, by the way, are undefined.). After testing messages with a sample of consumers, BSG came to a few conclusions.

Here are a few of our favorites:

- Despite very low levels of awareness of Sean Kane and David Gilbert, all 3 audiences view the individuals as credible, with more than 8 in 10 saying they would be credible figures to discuss Toyota safety.

- Notably, the statements tested do work to significantly damage Kane to Gilbert’s credibility

- However, while the statements are effective at increasing the proportion of audiences that say “ETC is not a cause of sudden acceleration”, the majority of respondents still believe ETC is at least somewhat to blame for Toyota’s issues.

Recommendations:

To have the most impact, particularly among Elites, Toyota needs to:

– Call out Kane/Gilbert’s monetary or self interested motives to undermine credibility, indicate other third-parties have questioned their credibility

- Referencing other studies that reproduced same results on other vehicles to diminish the belief that ETC causes sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles

- Portray transparency, open and honest

(Read: Toyota Debunking Kane/Gilbert Message Study.)

Here’s Stupak unloading on Toyota:

“Toyota told the committee that the company did not follow its pollster’s suggestion to attack Dr. Gilbert, but the documents suggest otherwise.  On March 8, a Monday, Toyota held a press conference and released a report by Exponent criticizing Dr. Gilbert’s work.

Two days before the press conference, the vice president of Toyota’s public relations firm noted in an e-mail to a colleague the importance of finishing the poll before this event saying — and I’m quoting now — “We really, really need to get this done especially with elites.  Toyota has a press conference on Monday and need our data to know what to say.”  That’s the document we have right here.” (Read the emails here)

As it turns out, you can hire the best and throw cash at a public-relations nightmare like SRS and still come up short. Who knew? Perhaps, it’s best expressed by BSG’s slogan:  With BSG, events don’t shape you; you shape events.” And that did turn out to be true – although perhaps not exactly in the way Toyota paid for.

And speaking of paid-for, Exponent. The Menlo, CA firm’s work for Toyota was another sore point with the committee. Between 2004 and 2009, Toyota paid Exponent $11 million; for the SUA project, Exponent has so far billed Toyota $3.3 million for 11,000 hours of work. According to the contract, a team of five, including company principals Sabbaiah Malladi and Paul Taylor, can bill for a combined hourly fee of $1,665.

(Contrast that with the big-bad-bucks Gilbert was getting from SRS – $150 an hour and $4,000 in equipment – which was central to BSG’s debunking message of monetary self-interest. Maybe the Elites don’t realize what the Big Boys and Girls make per hour.)

The committee complained that Exponent was not responsive to its requests for documentation. That all it produced was the same interim report and the Gilbert study which Toyota had released publicly. There was no written project plan, no written timeline, no written specifications for the experiments Exponent had run or planned to run, no written list of potential causes of sudden unintended acceleration that it planned to study; no written notes on Exponent’s work.

“A former Exponent engineer told our committee staff that the reason they didn’t write anything down is to avoid creating documents that might have to be produced to the lawsuit,” Waxman said.  “Well, Toyota’s lawyers appear to be involved in every aspect of Exponent’s work.  The lawyers have the right to approve the publication of Exponent’s work.  Dr. Souri reported that committee staff — to committee staff that all communications with Toyota have counsel present.  And the two reports Exponent has issued both state that they were prepared for Bowman and Brooke, the law firm defending Toyota in litigation.”

(Gee, we wonder what Bowman and Brook attorneys make per hour?)

In a lengthy interview with committee staff, Dr. Shukri Souri argued that it wasn’t necessary to write all that down – it was so obvious, he just carried it around in his head.

Well, when you think about it, it’s kind of appropriate – after all, that’s what Toyota tells customers who have experienced an SUA event: it’s all in your head.

We could not possibly unpack all of the hearing’s revelations in one blog post, so stay tuned next week for our take on the 600 on-site vehicle inspections and the 1,400 dealership inspections TMS USA President Jim Lentz bragged about to the committee.

See yesterday’s hearing