AznJason

iTrader: (5)

LOL, I just said the same thing to my gf.

Jason: I'm watching the congressional hearing against toyota, and these reps suck
even this san mateo rep sucks
"i never want to hear you use driver error as an excuse"
... what about when it is driver error...?
this is just a witch hunt
jackie speier can go kick rocks
the other issue is that akio toyoda is not in direct control of any dealership as they're all individually owned

Marcy Kaptur also is taking the stance of someone directly affected by an individual incident. You can never expect someone so many levels removed from an incident to express the remorse you feel. And now she's making some outlandish claims.

ExTrEmE99

iTrader: (6)

Is there any news on what cars Akio and his lawyers drove to the congress "hearing"? If i were him i'd prob roll up in all LS600hLs or every toyota model sold in the US

TRDFantasy

This is the smart thing to do for Toyoda, because blaming the driver will have HUGE consequences. Just ask Audi, when they blamed the drivers during their 1980's sudden acceleration situation.

Even if it IS driver error, the best thing for Toyoda to do is to not place any blame towards the drivers to reduce the consequences for the company.

encore888

Exactly! I watched some of it and was thinking that the voice sound the same.

Overall, I thought Mr. Toyoda+translator and Mr. Inaba did better than yesterday's Mr. Lentz.

Joeb427

iTrader: (1)

Gilbert burned!!

spwolf

what did the california rep. issinuate at all? she asked "do you know how many people toyota killed in japan?" but it was not due to the to these accidents, she insinuated something else... enviroment issues or what?

spwolf

well it is true that dealers often can not replicated the issue, and blame the customer... that is true for all dealers not just toyotas.

but it is would be grave error to clame driver error on tv on these hearings, because you always look bad when someone cries and you tell them its their fault...

spwolf

even with new Prius braking feel thing, anyone could stop the car properly, so it would be impossible to claim that.

If he felt ABS working as ABS (pedal shaking), then it is not the same thing discussed in Prius.

RXSF

I think this is one huge misunderstanding and has snowballed out of control. there are accusations about toyota hiding these problems etc etc, but the truth is that they really couldnt find anything wrong. Yes, people were coming in and saying their cars had SUA, but it could not be duplicated, and therefore no measures were taken.

jruhi4

John McElroy of Autoline Detroit weighs in on David Gilbert and ABC News' sham story:

Unintended Accleration? Beware of TV Network Fraud

You've already seen the ABC News piece about a college professor rigging up a Toyota Avalon so he could induce a short circuit that would cause unintended acceleration. It's a frightening demonstration. And as detailed yesterday, it's also bad journalism.

We've seen this sort of thing happen before. Sometimes the major TV networks, despite all their gravitas and prestige, seem to toss their ethics out the window if they get the chance to show a gory story that involves automotive accidents.

There have been several instances in the past when investigative reports from network television showed horrific safety crashes that made the vehicles involved look dangerous. But it later turned out that those tests were fraudulent. Is ABC engaging in the same tactics?

Back in 1987, CBS's 60 Minutes famously hired a plaintiff's witness, William Rosenbluth, who claimed he could cause an Audi to experience unintended acceleration. But he had to disassemble the transmission, drill holes in it and attach a tank of compressed air to make it happen-something that would never occur in the real world. But 60 Minutes never mentioned these facts, and presented Rosenbluth's test as proof that Audi had a defect. It single handedly nearly destroyed Audi in the American market. It took the company 20 years to recover.

In 1993, NBC's Dateline even more famously rigged up a Chevy pickup with explosives to make it "blow up real good" in front of the cameras. It presented this as proof that GM had defective pick-ups. GM hired investigators who ultimately found that the Dateline test was nothing but a fraud. Dateline was forced to publicly apologize.

Back to the ABC News report. First off, ABC never really explained how this short circuit demonstration worked. It showed professor Dave Gilbert, from the automotive department at the University of Southern Illinois, with what looked like a volt meter with wires sticking out of it. He said that he could use that to induce a short circuit that would cause the car go to full-throttle acceleration, yet leave no error code that a mechanic could later trace. Maybe a more detailed technical explanation would be too much for a mass TV audience to understand, but ABC wants us to swallow Gilbert's demonstration with next to no details of what he was really doing.

Worse, ABC had no input or rebuttal from Toyota. It left out the company's version of this event, or maybe never even asked for it. Toyota says it met with Mr. Gilbert, he showed them a test, and they pointed out how this could not cause unintended acceleration. Now the company claims Gilbert showed a different type of test to ABC News. Toyota says it welcomes the chance to evaluate what he's doing and it invites ABC to bring its cameras back for that demonstration.

ABC also featured Sean Kane of Safety Research and Strategies on its report of the Avalon's unintended acceleration. He was presented as a safety advocate, but Mr. Kane makes his living by selling data and information to plaintiff attorneys, the very people who are going to be suing Toyota. Sean Kane has a vested interest in seeing Toyota sued, but ABC never mentioned that fact.

Plaintiff's witnesses like Sean Kane or William Rosenbluth make decent money testifying against car companies. They earn several hundred dollars an hour, whether they're on the stand or waiting around to be called to the stand. Presenting people like this as independent news sources, without identifying them for what they really are, violates all journalistic principles. Or at least it should.

Now, it could well turn out that Toyota does indeed have an electronics problem that causes unintended acceleration. But don't jump to conclusions based on last night's report from ABC News.

http://www.autoblog.com/2010/02/24/a...-john-mcelroy/

19psi

did anyone see the "testimony" of some woman whose Lexus ES apparently ran away from her? they described it as a near death experience.
the ridiculous part was that she described it as "35mph"! haha, a near death experience at 35mph.
she said she had both feet on the brake, and finally got the car to slow down to 33mph at which point she was able to turn the engine off. that doesn't sound very exciting to me; nowhere near a "near death" experience...

this is getting to be out of ocntrol, i think there are way too many people sensationalizing this whole thing.
there is no car i know of whose engine can overpower the brakes. ****, my diesel makes 800 ft lbs and i can still slow it down with one foot on the brake and one on the throttle.

dunnojack

however, the damage is done. Even an apology by the media won't undo much.

their task was to scare people with their sensationalism, and even with an apology, half of those people won't be coming back to toyota

Indio

iTrader: (1)

Well I did watch and the quotation marks mean "not totally" was a direct quote from Lentz.

With all the defense lawyers here working this case I'm surprised this has not come up.
BREAKING: FBI Raids Three Toyota Suppliers In Detroit

http://jalopnik.com/5479384/breaking...ers-in-detroit

I don't buy the price fixing update

VVT-i

Akio Toyoda on Larry King live at 9 p.m on CNN.

LexFather

Thanks!!!!!!!