Toyota Studies Pedal Design
I am looking under every rock and asking the question: Is there anything wrong or unusual about our pedals? We are continuing to look to see if there is something that we could do differently.
Toyota’s Steve St. Angelo tells the WSJ [sub] that Toyota is reviewing its pedal designs in search of a cause for its recent Unintended Acceleration scandal. Thus far, Toyota’s UA issues have been traced only to sticky pedals and floormat interference. Attempts to trace UA to malfunctioning throttle units have thus far been abortive, with a government research panel finding that brake misapplication occurred in many of the Toyota UA incidents.
And Toyota isn’t the only party studying pedal placement in Toyota vehicles. According to the WSJ
A few months ago, Consumer Reports began studying pedal designs in vehicles made by Toyota and others. The magazine measured the distance between the pedals and the floor as well as the position of the steering wheel and seats but so far hasn’t found anything unusual about Toyotas, said David Champion, the director of automotive testing.
St. Angelo echoes CR’s frustrations, saying nothing has yet jumped out as a potential cause for UA.
When I look at the data, it shows our pedals are right in the middle. They are plain and boring. Frankly, I was hoping that there would be something different, so I could solve the problem
Pedal misapplication has been blamed for the Audi UA scandal of the late 80s and early 90s, and Audi was forced to redesign its pedals in the aftermath of that scandal. But with Toyota and Consumer Reports unable to find any objective problem in Toyota’s pedal design, the hunt for a cause for Toyota’s UA issues remains inconclusive.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
Comments
Join the conversation
It seems to me that it's easier to get something underneath a hanging gas pedal than to get something behind a floor mounted pedal. Therefore, I would suggest that Toyota switch to a floor mounted gas pedal. So that I can heel and toe during downshifts, I prefer the brake and gas pedals to be separated laterally by half the width of my size nine shoe. They should be at the same height when the brake pedal is pressed hard. The brake pedal should be quite firm so that minor variations in pressure as I work the gas pedal do not result in big changes in deceleration.
@ frizzlefry: Yeah, they had the same thing on the Citroen DS19/DS20. Just a punch ball instead of the pedal, hardly to dose properly. Awful design. Imagine driving with wet boots! Definitely needed some training to get used to it. @ h82w8: That was the standard design with the VW Beetle, too. But as the brakes were also floor-mounted, how should such a design help against mixing up brake and gas pedal? With the Beetle such a problem never occurred, as this car did not accelerate, neither intended nor unintended. There simply won't be any fool-proof design, as we all know that fools are ingenious.
Pedals that are less than 2-1/2 inches apart and less than 2 inches difference in height foster, promote, and encourage driver error. I thought we learned that lesson with the Audi.
@Herb: You are certainly right in that fools are ingenious, maybe we should focus on double-screening "Grey Power" drivers rather than re-engineering the apple.