YATUASU: Yet Another Toyota Unintended Acceleration Story Update

by Cammy Corrigan

Published: April 19th, 2010

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how cynical I was becoming about the sudden SUA syndrome with Toyota and how I found it amazing how quite a lot of these cases involve our more “mature” members of society. I used the story of Miss Myrna Marseilles, 76, who crashed her 2009 Toyota Camry (which was fixed the under the recall program), into the wall of a YMCA.

I inferred in the article that this was simply a case of driver error and nothing more and some people agreed with me. Peregrine Falcon bet $20 that this was down to pedal confusion. 210delray reckoned it had “all the elements of pedal misapplication”. Well, Peregrine Falcon, if anyone took you up on that bet, it’s time to collect. We were right.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that the police have deemed Miss Myrna Marseilles’ incident a case of drive error. In her original story, Miss Marseilles claimed she the car went through a parking stall, over a kerb and into a wall. She also claimed that the car had accelerated as she tried to brake, But her story didn’t match the evidence. Her trouble was caused by a camera. The parking lot was under the watchful eye of a security camera. Police Chief Steve Riffel said the surveillance video clearly showed that the brake light only came on AFTER the car hit the wall, not before. Miss Marseilles may now be ticketed for this crash, but the police have yet to decide. Toyota may want to use this story to deter their other little problem.

#CammyCorrigan #Japan #SuddenUnintendedAcceleration #Toyota

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Porschespeed on Apr 20, 2010
This is simply not true. Have you ever done embedded programming? Worked with an FPGA? ASIC? Or with complicated system of systems? For a living? Nope. But I know plenty of people who do across a variety of disciplines from JPL to LL to Oracle to Trilogy and beyond. I'm a generalist, I leave code to code-warriors, and hardcore circuit design to specialists. I try learn the interesting challenges that people overcome on their jobs, whatever the field. My point is that all things are relative. With Toyota, we are talking about an environment with dozens and dozens of EEs and coders that could be thrown at this project. Massive amounts of computing power, and piles of cash. This isn't some $10MM-100MM environment, this is Toyota. With enough time, money, and talent it really is a rather straightforward diagnostic process. Might require work, and effort, but it is doable. SEUs? Sure, heard about them since the 70s. If you're old enough, you might remember when chips often incorporated ceramics, which isn't the best and prouced similar results. Especially in an SRAM environment. If that ends up as a concern, NASA or JPL can offer hardening recommendations. Agreed, continuing miniaturization is creating greater opportunities for radiation-originated anomalies. Especially when we start looking at quantum computing.

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- Pig_Iron on Apr 20, 2010
  
  "Agreed, continuing miniaturization is creating greater opportunities for radiation-originated anomalies. Especially when we start looking at quantum computing." +1 A lot more EMF weirdness since surface mount technology (SMT) came along. Or maybe just a lot more eletronics. OR both. Anyway even anti-pinch systems for window regulators have their very own ASICs, programmed in C, and talking to the body controller, who in turn talks to the other controllers via CAN bus. Yeah for complexity. ;-) My cars still have window cranks, so I'm the anti-pinch system.
  
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- Zas on Apr 21, 2010
  
  @PigIron You hit on something that no one else has seemed to have brought up, is the fact that when these Toyota SUA issues have come out, have there been other technology in the vehicle NOT related to the car itself, such as a cell phone, 3rd party GPS, iPhone/iPod/MP3 player, et al? EMF does weird things when mixed with electronics. That's why most older cell phones were banned on commercial airlines due to the high EMF that they produced way back when. It "theoretically" caused issues with the fly-by-wire systems so instead of "finding out the hard way", the phones were just banned altogether. I know this may be a stretch, but has anyone at Toyota or even the NHTSA asked if there were any other "electronic devices not related to the vehicle" at hand during these SUA events? Who owns an AT&T phone that makes speakers bleep with noise when an incoming text or phone call right before the phone rings? I know I have, and that means it's giving off a bit of EMF for that to occur... is it possible that the ECU is picking something up and may be glitching due to high EMF interference? I don't believe most ECU's are lead-lined and EMF shielded very well if your car speakers can pick up that kind of interference...
  
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Sandy A on Apr 20, 2010
I’m a generalist, I leave code to code-warriors, and hardcore circuit design to specialists. I can appreciate this. However, in this case I'm certain that you are over simplifying. With enough time, money, and talent it really is a rather straightforward diagnostic process. I would agree that this is true for 99.9% of the 'bugs' out there. But, as with SEUs, there are certain anomalies that can occur with these types of electronics and software that may never be duplicated in the lab. While Toyota may have plenty of resources, the resources that JPL and NASA had at one time dwarfed Toyota's. And, yet, they still made errors. And NASA and JPL are under no pressure to earn a profit... The old paradigm of mechanical automotive systems is no longer true. One can no longer tinker with the engine of a car, unless we gain access to the code itself. What used to be linear due to mechanical linkages, is now nonlinear due to software. Our cars are much, much more complicated than they used to be. My primary distrust of Toyota lies with the fact that they state that their systems are fail-safe. That the problemm cannot be electronic. That they have conducted exhaustive tests that prove that the electronics is not to blame. As an electrical engineer I know that their statements cannot be true. They cannot be certain it isn't the electronics. I would fire any engineer on my team that would make such a broad statement without proof. Such proof is elusive since you cannot prove a negative. I suspect that they (Toyota) are only saying these things because they fear to speak the truth. I'm willing to bet that somewhere in the bowels of Toyota there is an engineer pulling his hair out trying to figure out what the h*** is going on with his control system. I also suspect that for a period of time it was easier to ignore the problem. Moreover, based on some of the statistics (as corrupted as they may be) it appears that they may have corrected the problem (either knowingly or unknowingly) on some models since some of the earlier model years with ETC had significantly more reported incidents of SUA. None of those models have been recalled. Once again I would ask: How can one explain the difference in statistics for different and consecutive model years? Neither corrupted data nor driver error alone can explain it away. There is no reason to believe that the data related to a particular model year is more likely to be corrupted than another model year. There is also no reason to believe that the driver demographics is significantly different for two consecutive model years. This implies that there is a systematic error involved. The systematic error can be mechanical and/or electrical, and it can be in combination with external factors such as driver habits, EMI, SEUs, etc... I realize that this is a matter of debate, however, I personally attribute the Audi problem to both design error and driver error. If you are going to design a consumer product you must ensure that your design is compatible with the way consumers are going to use your product. If your design is such that it leads to user error, then your product was not designed with your customers in mind. The fact that incidents of SUA dropped significantly after Audi made changes to their design indicates that they were at least partially to blame for those events. I also realize that many would argue that we can't expect a company to forsee every possible problem that can arise due to the way consumers use a product, and I would agree. But, I also believe that a company is responsible for making a correction as soon as a "design flaw" is identified, even if it is user-driven. I believe that Toyota ignored those early warnings and did nothing to attempt to correct the situation, and are now paying dearly for that arrogance.

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Porschespeed on Apr 21, 2010
I can appreciate this. However, in this case I’m certain that you are over simplifying. Of course I'm oversimplifying. You and I could discuss this in detail, were we to hang out over cocktails and/or a big consulting check for hours. But, for the internets I tend to assume that people that have some knowledge of what I'm talking about, and are aware that I'm oversimplifying. Do we really wish to get into the arcane details of project management and hardware requirements for this undertaking? You're obviously in the biz, and obviously realize that there are a whole slew of variables to address. I, as someone who knows engineers, also know what gets them to attack a problem like a rabid pit bull. I also know basically what the hardware does, and while I may not be able to run it, I know what it can do. So don't try to make the project more than it is. I've seen and heard more than enough about stretching a project out as long as possible... Give me the money and the time. I can organize a group in a coupla months to put you on the moon and get you home safely in the next few years. BFD. (BTW, the first thing I ever got off the ARPANET in highschool was bunch of engineer jokes. If I find it, I'll send it to you. Even most engineers like them...) Yes, I will maintain that with money, time and talent it is still a straightforward process. 100% of the time. Agreed, 99.9% are easily solved (all things being highly relative). But remember, Manhattan was no miracle - just money and talent and time. So, that leaves that pesky .1%. What are we to do with that? If you re-read your own post then you have already solved for that .1%. You are fully aware of what SEUs are and what their general causalities are. So, as when designing a satellite or a spacecraft, you design a redundancy to cover that contingency. Pesky .1% solved, as well as humanly possible. Will that eliminate EVERY SINGLE POSSIBILITY FOR FAILURE? Nope. But, it will reduce the risk profile to the best level that can be achieved within realistic parameters. You may be killed tomorrow by a meteorite. Chances are slim. Quit worrying. Don't sell yourself short. While I realize part of the engineer's credo is that 'nothing is guaranteed', the reality is you can get as close as anyone can ever reasonably expect. If you try. And that is noble. (And way better than Shuttle MTBF. But I digress...) We can debate the responsibility to design to the LCD forever. I'm going to be on the side of 'the Audi 5000 was just fine', because my parents had one, and had no probs ever with SUA. Neither did anyone I ever met. So yeah, maybe the pedals are a bit close. So effen what? If you can't hang, go buy something else. Designing to the LCD should not be touted as a goal. It should be just this side of a disgrace. Anyway, folksy though I may be, I can understand what most folks shy of Prometheus membership do at their jobs. I may not know the minutae, but that isn't necessary. As one of my old buddies from JPL always used to say, "Even rocket science ain't rocket science." (Which, yes, I know, is one of those things that has been around for forever...)

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- JeremyR on Apr 22, 2010
  
  "You can get as close as anyone can ever reasonably expect," except for the trial lawyers...
  
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- Porschespeed on Apr 23, 2010
  
  True. Sad, but true.
  
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B1msus93 on Apr 22, 2010

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/04/investigators-say-st-paul-toyota-had-its-brakes-on-/1 bad news for toyota

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