The US government expects to meet its late-year deadline for determining whether throttles or other electronic systems could be linked to unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles, a senior safety investigator said.
“We’re working hard to get this to you,” Richard Boyd, acting director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s defect investigations unit, told the chair of a science panel that is looking at unintended acceleration industry-wide, not just in Toyotas, Reuters reported. “It will be sooner rather than later,” Boyd said at a public meeting of the National Academy of Science.
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NHTSA has set a late autumn timetable for releasing the preliminary findings of its investigation of Toyota throttles and other systems. US space agency experts are assisting NHTSA and will release a separate report on more sophisticated aspects of auto electronics.
The government’s effort was structured as the most rigorous examination to date of the issue that prompted thousands of consumer complaints over several years, two recalls totaling 6.5m vehicles plus three congressional investigations.
Electronic throttle control has been cited in consumer complaints reporting 52 Toyota crashes and 62 people killed since 2000, according to raw NHTSA figures. Safety advocates say more than 100 deaths can be linked to unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles and thousands industry-wide over the years.
Acceleration-related complaints have eased substantially from their early-year highs – 15 reports for the best-selling Camry in September, according to NHTSA figures compiled by Carnegie Mellon University safety expert Paul Fischbeck.
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By GlobalDataBut the automaker faces an estimated US$10bn in potential US civil liability, and USbusiness has been hit hard. Toyota sales are up only 2% in 2010 while the market as a whole has risen 11%. Lost market share has gone to Hyundai and Ford, the report noted.
The National Academy of Science panel, which is in the early stages of its 15-month industrywide review of unintended acceleration, acknowledged confusion over when the government planned to make the information from its investigations available.
The group’s chair, Louis Lanzerotti of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, also expressed dissatisfaction with NHTSA presentations at a meeting this week. He said the panel was not aware of who was speaking and what regulators planned to say until the last minute.
“I don’t think the presentation was well organised to get to the guts of what we need,” Lanzerotti said. “It’s rather frustrating for the chair and the committee.”
NHTSA officials, who focused their three-hour presentation on an overview of how they receive and manage consumer complaints, automaker warranty claims and other safety data, told Lanzerotti they would return at a later date.
The National Academy of Science is seeking a range of industry-wide mechanical, engineering and other scientific data about vehicle systems and designs, component failure analysis, data recorder reliability, and driver behaviour.
A number of questions this week from National Academy of Science members centred on the design of brake and accelerator pedals, aftermarket electronic products and whether electromagnetic interference could play a role in unintended acceleration.
NHTSA has little expertise in electronics and its long-held explanation for unintended acceleration has mainly focused on driver error.
In previous investigations, regulators never found a defect in Toyota vehicles that could support complaints related to vehicle electronics, specifically the throttle system. Toyota also said its throttle system was sound.
The two big recalls in late 2009 and early 2010 were blamed on loose floor mats that can jam the accelerator and pedals that would not spring back as designed. The recalls extended outside the US to Europe.
