Much of the hysteria over a possible electronic cause for the Toyota unintended acceleration scandal (aka “the ghost in the machine”) stemmed from an ABC report featuring Southern Indiana University professor David Gilbert. Gilbert demonstrated to ABC’s Brian Ross that unintended acceleration could be triggered in Toyotas without generating an error code, but the report [...]
The Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection is holding a hearing entitled, "NHTSA Oversight: The Road Ahead," today to examine the operations of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Witnesses scheduled to testify include David Strickland, Administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Joan Claybrook, Former Administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Dave McCurdy, President and Chief Executive Officer…
After Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood received a somewhat half-hearted tongue-lashing from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and after a more vigorous (yet equally unsatisfying) grilling of Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, yesterday’s hearings wound down with a third panel. Panel three opened with a boost to the committee’s emotional outrage batteries courtesy of the [...]
Akio Toyoda's story doesn't add up. The president of Toyota Motor Corp. told a congressional committee Wednesday that he didn't know about mounting sudden-acceleration complaints with Toyota vehicles until late last year.
After a big buildup by expert witnesses, and Toyota’s Jim Lentz’s evasion of any evidence that his firm’s cars are afflicted with an untraceable electronic gremlin, the House Energy Committe turned its attention to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Because LaHood’s department falls under the congress’s oversight (and carries the government’s ultimate responsibility for the [...]
Toyota’s Jim Lentz (who, I’m obligated to share, bears a striking resemblance to the dad from “Teen Wolf”) spent nearly two and a half hours before a committee that by then was investigating what expert witnesses described as an unknown, untraceable electronics error of nearly limitless reach. With this white whale taking the foreground of [...]
Toyota Motor Corp. president Akio Toyoda plans to tell lawmakers tomorrow that the company regrettably chased growth at the expense of safety in recent years, and he will announce steps to improve Toyota’s handling of customer complaints.