Toyota Motor Co plans today to try to undercut suggestions that its electronics systems caused the sudden acceleration problems that led to the recall of more than 8 million vehicles.
The automaker plans an event in which it will seek to debunk a critic who claims faulty gas pedals did not cause the sudden acceleration.
Toyota will aim to duplicate the scenario created by David Gilbert, a professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Gilbert told Congress on Feb. 23 that he was able to recreate sudden acceleration in a Toyota vehicle by manipulating its electronics.
The company is calling in the director of Stanford University’s Center for Automotive Research to try to refute the claims. Toyota said Stanford professor Chris Gerdes would show that the malfunctions Gilbert produced “are completely unrealistic under real-world conditions and can easily be reproduced on a wide range of vehicles made by other manufacturers.”
Stanford’s Center for Automotive Research is funded by a group of auto companies, including Toyota.
Meanwhile, the president of Mitsubishi Motors did not rule out a future capital tie-up with France’s Peugeot, reports said yesterday.
The two companies announced last week that they had scrapped talks on an ambitious capital tie-up that would have created the world’s sixth-largest auto alliance, after reports of financial discord.
The announcement came after PSA Peugeot chief Philippe Varin and Mitsubishi Motors president Osamu Masuko met at the Geneva Motor Show.
On his return, however, the president of the Japanese maker hinted they may try again, the Nikkei Shimbun and other media said.
“We will not exclude any possibility in the future” if the two firms keep expanding their current alliance, Masuko reportedly said at Narita airport on Saturday when asked about a capital alliance.
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