A US government probe cleared Toyota Motor Corp’s electronics of causing unintended acceleration, a big victory for the world’s top automaker as it seeks to recover from the hit it took over runaway vehicle accidents.
The findings vindicated Toyota’s position that it had identified and fixed the only known safety problems with popular vehicles like the Camry by focusing on mechanical issues with accelerator pedals and the risk that floormats could trap the pedal in the open position.
“There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas,” US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement on Tuesday.
Photo: AFP
Toyota’s US-traded shares closed 4 percent higher, buoyed by the government findings and its smaller-than-expected decline in quarterly earnings as well as higher sales forecast.
The probe by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA engineers followed questions by some safety advocates and lawmakers about whether software-driven throttles and flaws with electronics control systems had also played a role in unintended acceleration complaints.
Investigators concluded that most reports of runaway acceleration could be explained by driver error.
“What mostly likely happened was pedal misapplication. The driver stepped on the gas instead of the brake, or in addition to the brake,” said Ronald Medford, deputy administrator at the traffic safety agency.
Steve St Angelo, a Toyota executive tasked with shoring up quality after last year’s recalls, said the automaker hoped the study would “put to rest unsupported speculation” about the safety of Toyota’s electronics.
“We believe this rigorous scientific analysis by some of America’s foremost engineers should further reinforce confidence in the safety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles,” he said in a statement.
LaHood, who had touched off a panic a year ago by urging Toyota owners with concerns to stop driving them, offered a blanket endorsement on Tuesday.
“We feel Toyota vehicles are safe to drive,” LaHood said, adding that he recommended to his daughter that she buy a Sienna minivan after she sought his opinion.
Although Toyota has cleared a major hurdle in its ongoing safety saga, analysts cautioned that it would still struggle to win back US consumers who have defected from the brand and its luxury counterpart Lexus.
“This is certainly going to help Toyota, but it doesn’t change the fact that they let these other issues through,” TrueCar.com analyst Jesse Toprak said. “They’re still going to face difficulties to bring people back to Toyota.”
Toyota has recalled nearly 16 million vehicles globally since September 2009, when it took the first in a series of measures to fix problems with sticky accelerator pedals and potentially dangerous floormats.
The massive recalls in 2009 and last year rocked Toyota to its foundations and saw president Akio Toyoda come to Washington a year ago to tell US lawmakers he was “deeply sorry.”
The automaker has also paid nearly US$50 million in penalties to the US over the timeliness of its recalls, including the floor mat and “sticky pedal” cases.
US safety regulators said they would consider imposing requirements for all vehicles to have brake override systems that automatically counteract any instances of unintended acceleration.
They also said they would consider researching pedal design and placement.
Toyota has said it would install the brake override feature on new vehicles.
US officials had been looking into 89 deaths that may be associated with sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles. A handful of fatalities have been definitively linked to the problem by authorities.
Although the electronic throttle investigation turned up no flaws, Toyota still faces significant risks from scores of civil lawsuits stemming from the recalls.
Those cases in federal and state courts, which may turn on the timing of company disclosures to regulators of already established defects, have an estimated potential liability of up to US$10 billion.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last