The Professor Who Battled Toyota And Survived

bob urz > wrote in
:

> On 2/7/2011 8:46 PM, Tegger wrote:

>>
>> Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
>> electronic throttle.
>>
> Would you bet your life on that statement? I think not.



Millions do, every day. Millions are, right at this very moment.



> Does it work OK 99.9% of the time? probably. When ever your dealing
> with a complex piece of computer code and hardware, there is NO way to
> test for every possible scenario it can run across. Hardware,
> software, EMI interference, anything is possible to go wrong



Life is risky. One day you might die from it.

If you want to be 100% free from risk (instead of your unacceptable 99.9%),
then you'd better kill yourself now; it's the /only/ way.

Sheesh. This modern "safety" mania is absolutely insane:
Vollkommenheit oder nichts!


--
Tegger

Tegger wrote:
>
> bob urz > wrote in
> :
>
> > On 2/7/2011 8:46 PM, Tegger wrote:
>
> >>
> >> Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
> >> electronic throttle.
> >>
> > Would you bet your life on that statement? I think not.
>
> Millions do, every day. Millions are, right at this very moment.
>
> > Does it work OK 99.9% of the time? probably. When ever your dealing
> > with a complex piece of computer code and hardware, there is NO way to
> > test for every possible scenario it can run across. Hardware,
> > software, EMI interference, anything is possible to go wrong
>
> Life is risky. One day you might die from it.
>
> If you want to be 100% free from risk (instead of your unacceptable 99.9%),
> then you'd better kill yourself now; it's the /only/ way.

You are admitting that you and Toyota lied when you said:

"There was, and is, absolutely nothing
wrong with Toyota's electronic throttle."

Now your position is most of the time it works fine
As if everybody didn't already know that.

That makes it possible it wasn't people pushing the wrong pedal
It may be the electronic throttle that once in a while messes up

You just don't think people have a right to be compensated
for injury caused by design flaws.
It is this belief that makes you think it is OK to lie
about design flaws.

Tegger wrote:
>
> "hls" > wrote in
> :
>
> >
> > "Tegger" > wrote in message
> > ...
> >> bob urz > wrote in
> >> :
> >>
> >>
> >>> This professor had nothing to gain and everthing to lose by going
> >>> against the system.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Gilbert got PAID by the plaintiff's lawyers.
> >>
> >> That's a lot to "gain", buddy.
> >
> > Actually, it isn't. The little you normally gain in a case like this
> > will come back to haunt you. You will be seen as a turncoat, a
> > snitch, a traitor, and your opportunities in the future will be
> > prejudiced.
> >
> >
> >
>
> Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
> electronic throttle.

The fact that this "unintended acceleration" issue appeared only briefly
would tend to support that since the incidents mysteriously stopped,
right around the time one scammer was caught trying to fake an incident.

The fact is that there are a huge number of vehicles of all brands with
electronic accelerators and have been for quite a few years. Virtually
every medium duty diesel vehicle such as busses and hotel shuttles has
had electronic throttle for years. Nearly all light duty trucks have had
electronic throttles for 5 years or more. Many cars have ET as well.

What you have here is a case of a couple drivers who hit the wrong pedal
or dropped something that jammed the pedal who decided to try to blame
Toyota, followed by some more opportunists who tried to get in on the
scam. Once one of those scammers was exposed the problem suddenly
disappeared.

jim wrote:
>
> Tegger wrote:
> >
> > "hls" > wrote in
> > :
> >
> > >
> > > "Tegger" > wrote in message
> > > ...
> > >> bob urz > wrote in
> > >> :
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> This professor had nothing to gain and everthing to lose by going
> > >>> against the system.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Gilbert got PAID by the plaintiff's lawyers.
> > >>
> > >> That's a lot to "gain", buddy.
> > >
> > > Actually, it isn't. The little you normally gain in a case like this
> > > will come back to haunt you. You will be seen as a turncoat, a
> > > snitch, a traitor, and your opportunities in the future will be
> > > prejudiced.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
> > electronic throttle.
> >
>
> No actually the Professor rather conclusively proved there was a great
> deal wrong with Toyota's system.
>
> He demonstrated that a short in the wire from the foot pedal to the
> computer would make the computer think that the driver was trying to
> floor the accelerator. He also proved there as no mechanism in the
> system to detect this fault and the computer would leave no record of
> this event.

Since the article referenced does not provide any schematics for the
Toyota accelerator pedal, I can't be positive, but every vehicle of any
brand with electronic throttle that I have seen a schematic for used a
two or three track potentiometer in the pedal and any discrepancy
between the two or three redundant signals is readily detected and will
set a diagnostic code.

I find it all but impossible that Toyota would have used a single track
potentiometer in it's electronic throttles when no other manufacturer
does and such a non redundant signal would be a blindingly obvious flaw
that would never make it out of the engineering department.

"Pete C." > wrote in message
ter.com...
>
> The fact that this "unintended acceleration" issue appeared only briefly
> would tend to support that since the incidents mysteriously stopped,
> right around the time one scammer was caught trying to fake an incident.

I don't think this is actually true. Although Toyota UA incidentsonly got
significant attention in the press after the California incident with the
Lexus, the fact is that NHTSA had recieved an unusually large number of
complaints related to UA incidents involving Toyotas starting in the middle
part of the last decade (~2005). And the volume is still high, although I'd
agree a significant percentage of these were generated as a result of the
recent publicity. I beleive the problem is realted to pedal design and floor
mat interference rather than any electronic flaw.

> The fact is that there are a huge number of vehicles of all brands with
> electronic accelerators and have been for quite a few years. Virtually
> every medium duty diesel vehicle such as busses and hotel shuttles has
> had electronic throttle for years. Nearly all light duty trucks have had
> electronic throttles for 5 years or more. Many cars have ET as well.
>
> What you have here is a case of a couple drivers who hit the wrong pedal
> or dropped something that jammed the pedal who decided to try to blame
> Toyota, followed by some more opportunists who tried to get in on the
> scam. Once one of those scammers was exposed the problem suddenly
> disappeared.

We had two cases of Toyota drivers crashing into building in my home town in
the last year supposedly becasue of unintended acceleration. Neither has
sued anyone. An older friend crash her Buick into a tree in a parking lot
last month, but we know it was pedal confusion in her case since there were
witness who noted that the brake light never came on and she even admits the
mistake.

Ed

"Pete C." wrote:

>
> Since the article referenced does not provide any schematics for the
> Toyota accelerator pedal, I can't be positive, but every vehicle of any
> brand with electronic throttle that I have seen a schematic for used a
> two or three track potentiometer in the pedal and any discrepancy
> between the two or three redundant signals is readily detected and will
> set a diagnostic code.

I also haven't seen anything definitive on where the short circuit needs
to be for this to occur, but Toyota claimed in its defense that the same
short circuit would also cause the same runaway acceleration in other
electronic throttles made by other manufacturers. Toyota also claimed
that they found no physical evidence that this short had occurred in
their investigations of crashed Toyotas suspected of runaway
acceleration.

-jim



>
> I find it all but impossible that Toyota would have used a single track
> potentiometer in it's electronic throttles when no other manufacturer
> does and such a non redundant signal would be a blindingly obvious flaw
> that would never make it out of the engineering department.

>Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
>electronic throttle.

Anybody that can make that statement shows an obvious bias and can't
be trusted to make judgments.

If you were a juror you would be disqualified. Flat out.

> wrote in message
...
>
>>Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
>>electronic throttle.
>
> Anybody that can make that statement shows an obvious bias and can't
> be trusted to make judgments.
>
> If you were a juror you would be disqualified. Flat out.

It isnt bias if it is true, and the cited report says that there was no
problem. Now, if you ignore the results of a "scientific" evaluation
by a disinterested third party, then you REALLY should be disqualified.
That is truly bias.

On Tue, 8 Feb 2011 18:35:20 -0600, "hls" > wrote:

>
> wrote in message
.. .
>>
>>>Flat out: There was, and is, absolutely nothing wrong with Toyota's
>>>electronic throttle.
>>
>> Anybody that can make that statement shows an obvious bias and can't
>> be trusted to make judgments.
>>
>> If you were a juror you would be disqualified. Flat out.
>
>It isnt bias if it is true, and the cited report says that there was no
>problem. Now, if you ignore the results of a "scientific" evaluation
>by a disinterested third party, then you REALLY should be disqualified.
>That is truly bias.

The verdict is still out. Any DIFINITIVE judgment at this point is
still biased regardless of what report you can cite, or what side you
lean toward.

On Mon, 07 Feb 2011 12:25:03 -0600, bob urz wrote:

> The Professor Who Battled Toyota And Survived
>
> older article, but interesting
>
> http://www.impomag.com/scripts/ShowP...&CommonCount=0


Ah, well. I guess NASA and the NTHSA kinda kill this story, eh?

I wonder how much money the "professor" made off all those appearances?