Moving forward with or without your foot

I tend to opine about the auto industry a lot more often than anything else on my blog.  I’m not sure why but I guess it does fascinate me to a certain degree.  The latest about Toyota’s woes sucked me back into the automotive world in search of the truth.

On the surface it looks pretty simple.  Certain Toyota models include a defect that poses a threat to driver and passenger safety – a life endangering threat at that.  Normally, the dealership replaces the defective part(s), you sign on the dotted line, and off you go.  Any further crisis averted.  Obviously, things haven’t worked out that way for either party and we have a full blown Tiger Woods situation.  I haven’t read much on the latest braking problem on the Prius or the steering problem with the Corolla, so this primarily is about the sudden acceleration issue.

From the customer’s/victim’s perspective, you paid roughly 5 figures for an automobile which, unfortunately, may have killed, injured, or possibly scared the crap out of you if it exhibited the defective quality during normal operation.  I would be pretty pissed.

So now you’re scared to drive your car and you can’t really sell it at this point since no one in their right minds would buy it.  Sounds like you have every right to be angry at Toyota.

Now we see Gov’t intervention, which we all love when we feel helpless but otherwise we can’t stand “The Man”.  Along with that comes a rise in reports from drivers claiming flawed behavior of their vehicle.  This should be normal as people who live in caves are more aware now of what is going on.  Additionally, people who were loyal Toyota customers,  finally felt they weren’t alone and decided that it was okay to come out and report their issue.  One thing leads to another and you have a legal course of action.  I guess the Toyota owners really have no choice but to go this direction.  It does stink though because well, it leaves Toyota mum.

Not even your spouse can shut you up better than your attorney can.  At this juncture, we can only guess as to what Toyota’s reasons were for not recalling their products quicker.  Some might even question if a recall was necessary.  Personally, if you eventually issue a recall on something, it was always necessary. The question then is timing.

If we go back to the first recall, Toyota warned of floor mats causing pedals to stick.  Subsequently they shorten pedal length on certain models.  Seems like a no brainer.  How did they get to this fix?

Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA), is nothing new.  Since NHTSA was formed in the 1960s, there have been 70 million complaints of unintended vehicle acceleration of which, no car has been proven to accelerate on its own.  At least not yet.  No one has been able to replicate the problem while intentionally trying.  Other car makers have dealt with this issue in the past.  Audi had a noticeable issue in the mid 80s concerning SUA that eventually went to court where they were successful in defending their case.  Does that mean that the Audi 5000 from the 80s didn’t accelerate on their own?  Not necessarily, but no one can prove it and I guess we haven’t come up with a better test for it.  Either way, Audi is in the business of selling cars.  Because of their stance, which was driver error and not mechanical failure, they took a PR hit and sales plummeted for the next decade.  Never blame the customer right?

Toyota is in the business of selling cars too, and that floor mat debacle probably smelled a lot like blaming the customer.  I don’t doubt there are yahoos with 3 floor mats in their cars right now though.  On top of that, Toyota employs over 300,000 people globally.  I’m guessing they conducted thorough testing on their vehicles regarding the matter. It benefits them to do so instead of recalling millions of vehicles.  So what’s the difference then?

The real world.  In the real world there are people.  Billions of people.  Of those billions, there are millions who drive cars.   Those millions of drivers insert variables you could never have imagined.  The test environment is no match for the real world which is why recalls are very common.  This is probably why, at least in my opinion, Toyota’s initial response was to cite floor mats as a major culprit.  They looked at their data, they researched automotive history, did a cost benefit analysis and figured that human related error was the primary reason and that floor mats were a good scape goat.

Or, did Toyota know and realize they were now in the midst of  a lose-lose situation and bought themselves more time to come up with a solution?  I say lose-lose because it makes sense for the media to latch onto this story as they have millions of Toyota owners they can directly target.  Investigative news typically involves a victim and a villain and this story fits the mold perfectly.  Did Toyota see this PR nightmare coming and told us to fix our floor mats while they strategized?

What about the Event Data Recorder (EDR) which might give us telling data on what happened to the vehicles that were involved in an SUA?  Toyota says much of this data isn’t useful in this regard but they put these black boxes in their cars for a reason right?

I guess my article doesn’t really answer any questions or uncover any truths.  If I had to share my opinion on the matter I would say that…

42,000 people a year die from traffic related accidents.  Only 2 percent of traffic accidents are caused by the vehicle itself.  Drivers are fully responsible over half time and partly to blame over 90 percent of the time.  So then the biggest danger is the nut behind the wheel.  Does it make it okay for car makers to sell us cars that can accelerate on their own?  Of course not.

http://suddenacceleration.com/

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123610366

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