Electronic testing: Matthew Schwall, an engineer with the consulting firm Exponent, demonstrated an experiment designed to test claims of a fundamental flaw with Toyota's electronics throttle systems.
Toyota
The company hopes a "smart pedal" will help defuse criticism.
In the wake of a massive public-relations nightmare involving brake problems in its cars, Toyota is investigating two more reports this week of unintended acceleration in its vehicles. Both cases involved Priuses: one in Harrison, NY, that resulted in a crash, and the other on an interstate east of San Diego.
The troubled carmaker has already recalled 5.4 million cars. It has replaced floor mats that it said snagged acceleration pedals, and it has modified certain pedals that the company said could be prone to sticking. Toyota also recently announced that it would retrofit some models with a brake-override system, also known as a "smart pedal."
It rejects claims that the car's electronic throttle system could be responsible for unwanted acceleration.
On February 23, David Gilbert, a professor of automotive technology at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, told a congressional hearing that he was able to short-circuit the electronics behind the gas pedal in a Toyota Tundra, causing it to accelerate automatically without triggering a fail-safe system. Gilbert's review was commissioned by Safety Research & Strategies, a company hired by lawyers representing people who allege that unintended acceleration in Toyota cars has caused accidents.
Toyota hired the consulting firm Exponent to test Gilbert's claims. On Tuesday, the company presented the results of its own experiments, which it says show that the electronic system in question needs to be modified significantly to malfunction in the way described. Christian Gerdes, a professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University's Center for Automotive Research who took part in the experiments, says that Gilbert "created a different pedal circuit than the one Toyota engineered," and that it doesn't accurately reflect a real-world situation. (Stanford's Center for Automotive Research is affiliated with Toyota.)
"We haven't found any problems with the electronic throttle control system, and we have thoroughly and rigorously tested it many times on vehicles that have had complaints," adds Brian Lyons, a safety manager at Toyota. Nonetheless, Lyons says, a brake-override system will be installed on every Toyota in North America by the end of the year and globally by the end of 2011.
The brake-override feature, already found in many cars, is a software program that monitors sensors in a vehicle's gas and brake pedals. If both pedals are pressed while the car is moving at a certain speed, the program gives precedence to the brake by cutting off the engine. Lyons says that Toyota has been developing a smart pedal for some time. "It was designed to be a feature that would be included in vehicles in the future," he says.
Manufacturers are testing a brain-wave-sensing system that sounds an alarm when it detects sleepiness.
The electric propulsion system for GM's new plug-in hybrid gives a silent yet powerful ride.
But the other auto makers should not rejoice because their time in the hot seat will come too, again and again.
Toyota is a just the latest high-profile victim of the software unreliability monster. Software is always to blame in control situations such as these. The vehicle control program should be designed to be reliable and to take all the necessary actions in every possible case of hardware failure. Toyota apparently uses a control program that is not complex enough to handle every abnormal situation.
Why is Toyota a victim? Because, after more than a half a century of research, the computer science community still has not solved the software unreliability problem. Worse, ever since the publication of Fred Brooks's 'No Silver Bullet' paper in 1986, every software engineer and computer scientist are now fully persuaded that there is no solution to the problem. They understand that the reliability of their code is inversely proportional to its complexity. This is the reason that software managers try to severely restrict the complexity of safety-critical applications. This is the reason that Toyota is still developing their brake control system: they're not 100% sure that it's reliable.
It is also the reason that passenger vehicles still do not drive themselves, a technology that would prevent more than 40,000 traffic fatalities on US roads alone. Yes, the software problem is much more costly than most people assume.
Of course, not everybody agrees with Brooks's unfounded hypothesis. Some of us believe that we can do something about those traffic fatalities. Some of us believe that we can slay the software unreliability monster once and for all, Fred Brooks and the rest of the computer science community notwithstanding.
The computer industry is facing multiple crises such as unreliability, memory bandwidth, low-productivity and, lately, the parallel programming crisis. It is time for the captains of the industry to realize that they must abandon the hopelessly flawed paradigms of the 20th century and forge a bold new and better future. It's time to stop worshiping the false gods of the past. It's time to put an end to the pain. It can be done.
Re: Toyota Is Paying the Price
I can appreciate what you have to say but what about aircraft, aren't they controlled by computer?
Sam
It's an old story, one of science-fiction, where robots go out of control. At that point people struggle to take back control. That's what was done with Hal. In my car I have to ask my car's computer to accelerate, shift into neutral or turn off the ignition and the computer does it for me. But what if the computer says no, I want to accelerate and I won't allow you to stop me. Why am I not the boss?
I own a Prius, it has 135,000 flawless miles on it and not one repair. I've never seen anything like it, it still drives like it was new. I am now doing the "what ifs" and I'm considering how I would take back control if need be.
I've been a car mechanic years back and I do all my own car work so I know something about cars, although less and less as time goes by. My solution, at least in thought, is to install a kill switch to cut power to the fuel pump or fuel pump fuse. I still would have power steering and power brakes and I might even have electric power to move the car at least for a short distance.
So if computers are here to serve people and they stop doing that then we should have the ability to shut them off without having to say please.
Sam
This is the media's dream story, and it shows. Way too much attention. And just look at how the politicians have jumped on the issue--damn publicity mongers.
In the end, I predict it's (mostly) merely going to be an Audi 2.0, with the blame put on wrongly pressed pedals and people's fears and imagination. Claims will suddenly plunge overnight, the exact reverse of the sudden claims jumping by the thousands overnight.
Commercial Aircraft Controls and Two Footed Drivers
Other than the Boeing 777 and possibly the 787 Boeing aircraft do not have fly-by-wire control systems. Most Airbus aircraft do. Even with the 777 the control computers can be overridden by the pilot, the Airbus computers cannot. That said, there appear to be no significant difference in crash statistics between the two control methodologies.
Regarding "smart pedals" maybe these systems will improve gas mileage by training people who normally drive with their left foot resting on the brake pedal (with their brake lights flashing on and off annoying the drivers behind them) not to do it.
Re: Commercial Aircraft Controls and Two Footed Drivers
Fly-by-wire systems in aircraft have been in use over 25 years, I was involved in the F-16 which could not fly under normal human control - it was inherently unstable. The F-16 had 3 computers that worked in parallel and if one disagreed with the other two, it was ignored. That's norm in fly-by-wire or light. Cars today have 30-70 microprocessors operating on numerous networks (CAN bus, Flexray, MOST, etc.) usually one controls the engine and another one the brakes but not a lot of redundancy because of cost. The BMW 7 series one generation back used a MS operating system and reportedly had numerous bugs, including opening automatic doors and trunk at speed.
Thanks for presenting the point/counterpoint angle. I did not know that Toyota had commissioned a rebuttal. PopularMechanics did a good in depth discussion of the problem here (http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/4348506.html).
Sean Kane's comment at the end of the article is humorous. The cynic in me would suggest Safety Research & Strategies isn't necessarily interested in safety.
That all this started during the last administration that was in bed with business (literally in the case of the Commerce Dept office in Colorado) and a NTSHA investigator working on Toyota problems was hired by Toyota? Don't you think this added to the problem?
Re: Why has no one mentioned...
Heh. With all due respect, I don't know if any administration could be accused to be "in bed with business" more than the current one, at least in terms of the automotive industry. 60% ownership in GM? Upending bankruptcy rules to control the outcome for Chrysler?
Toyota and others knew they were having issues and attempted to hide it. All Car Companies should have came forward with a full disclosures of what car were dangerous. Instead of waiting for a huge media blitz and tons of public pressure. I never seen so many car companies GM - NISSAN - TOYOTA - HYUNDAI having recalls all at the same time. I had no idea my car was affected until I looked on http://www.carpedalrecall.com and found I had a bad Anti Lock control unit on my 2008 Pontiac G8 , my co workers Ford Truck had a recall also. So be careful
I am a mechanic for a small company with a fleet of trucks that typically rack up forty thousand miles a year per truck. Some of the new Chevy trucks we have gotten over the last year or so have an electronic pedal. This has greatly improved the fuel mileage of those particular trucks as the driver's "lead right foot" and "brain" was taken out of the economical acceleration loop.
I have noticed over the years that I do have a few drivers who have a history of going through brake pads faster than other drivers because they "ride the brakes". One driver in particular swore up and down that I used an inferior quality brake pad on "his truck" to "make him look bad".
During his third brake job (as compared to the other drivers second) I installed a second switch on his brake that would flash the brake warning light on his dash. I then informed the office that I was training him on how to keep his foot off the brakes and if he started complaining send him to me. Within three hours of picking up his truck he had called the office again complaining about my not fixing his brakes properly as the brake warning light has now started blinking all the time.
I trained him to keep his foot off the pedal by installing that light and now he is pissed at me for making him look stupid but his mileage is improving. ;-)
To the point… Brakes have functioned just fine since they went hydraulic how many years ago? If the booster fails the brakes work, if the antilock brake module fails they still work. If the switch I put on the pedal fails the brakes will still work…
So why is it necessary now to use electronics to control the brakes, isn't this just inviting problems?
Electromagentic electgronic interferance
Electromagnetic radiation from any source could easily interfere with drive-by-wire or local electronics. In the absence of the electromagnetic interference the effect would be non-reproducible. The answer may be an under-the-hood Faraday cage.
Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That's bad news not just for the country's economy but for the future of innovation.
National Instruments has gathered customer information and data regarding some of the cost differences between building a custom solution versus using NI off-the-shelf tools. Using this data, we built the Graphical System Design ‘Build vs. Buy’ Calculator. The calculator can help show the financial differences between building a custom solution versus buying an off-the-shelf system. This paper discusses the benefits and drawbacks of both a traditional custom design approach and off-the-shelf embedded tools.
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RD
211 Comments
Other Cars
The National Transportation Highway Safety Board isn't playing it straight with consumers, or Congress, or the press. Other cars have had similar acceleration problems, and it never made the news.
I personally reported 2 identical unexplained accelerations to the Commission, to my dealer, and to Chrysler back in 1996 when the accelerator on my 1994 T&C minivan, one from a stop, tried to go forward. I had both feet on the brake trying to prevent it moving, and the brakes were smoking. I turned off the ignition. The dealer couldn't figure it out, and couldn't replicate it. The Commission never responded.
I wrote them again last month reminding them that other cars may have similar problems and is my report on record. No response. Some of the Toyota problems are POLITICAL.
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Matthew Putman
37 Comments
Re: Other Cars
I completely agree with you. In a time when the American car companies have been so bad, it is not a coincidance that a problem, which is statistically irrelevant, is hurting a japanese company. I rarely believe in conspiracies, but this doesnt seem right.
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