Toyota fired another volley this week as it continued its fight to regain the confidence of owners shaken by reports of unintended acceleration.
During a webcast with journalists Monday, the Japanese automaker’s hired independent experts went after professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University, who has emerged as a gadfly engineer. Gilbert appeared on ABC News broadcasts and before Congress, using rewired cars to attack Toyota’s ability to detect faults in its electronic systems.
Toyota contends that Gilbert’s experiments are almost impossible to duplicate in real-world conditions, and besides, cars made by other manufacturers behaved the same way when they were rewired — without adverse consequences.
Gilbert and ABC newsman Brian Ross were temporarily embarrassed when Toyota instrument readings intended to demonstrate runaway acceleration were shown to have been made while the car was actually stopped and a door was open. The tachometer indicated the engine was running at 6,000 rpms but the speedometer said the car was moving at zero miles per hour.
Like gawkers at the scene of an accident, those who enjoy this kind of thrust and parry can expect to see a lot more of it in coming weeks. Tort lawyers and class action suits are beginning to surface, and there will undoubtedly be more unfortunate accounts of accidents that might be attributed to unintended acceleration.
Once again, Toyota finds itself in the same predicament as Tiger Woods: It has apologized extensively for its sloppy and inattentive handling of the recall, but that was the easy part — even for a company as proud as Toyota.
The hard part for both the golfer and the automaker is regaining their reputations and making sure nothing like this ever happens again. There are signs that Toyota is headed, however haltingly, in the right direction. It is taking steps that address fundamental issues at the company and go beyond the appointment of a quality committee or a quality czar.
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