Toyota's Car Electronics Not To Blame For Sudden Acceleration, Says US Government

The verdict by the U.S. government is in. After a 10-month study led by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Toyota's car electronics have been acquitted of all charges of causing sudden, unintended acceleration—which forced Toyota to recall around 12 million vehicles globally since 2009.

The lengthy investigation, involving the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) and NASA, determined that none of the more than 280,000 lines of software code from various Toyota models will lead to electronic glitches capable of producing the kind of unintentional heavy acceleration in question.

Toyota is not totally absolved, however, as the two known mechanical flaws—sticking accelerator pedals and floor mats that trap the accelerator pedal—are still the faults behind at least five deaths and more than 3000 complaints in the U.S. since 2000.

Despite the overall low incidence—one in 100,000 vehicles or one for every 1.4 billion miles travelled—of the complaints of sudden, unintended acceleration, the NHTSA may be proposing a software-based brake over-ride system, which allows the use of the brake in the event the accelerator pedal is stuck, and a “black box” for cars, essentially an event data recorder which would help with finding out the cause of an accident.

AboutSeow Yaohan

Seow Yao Han strives to bring you the latest and the most comprehensive information on cars available in Malaysia. But it's never easy for him to talk and write cars in this part of the world because what you lust after is often not what you drive home. When the euphoria of test-driving that branded, super-expensive sports car dies down, he just goes home in his less-than-glamorous ride.