U.S. consumers should feel “not very safe” driving Toyota vehicles, as the cause of unintended acceleration is still unknown, Representative Bart Stupak said in an interview yesterday on Bloomberg Television.

‘There’s a Glitch’

“You really don’t know when it’s going to occur and that’s the uncertainty which should cause safety concerns,” said Stupak, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of a House subcommittee probing Toyota. “There’s a glitch in either the computer, the software or the electronic system, and they haven’t been able to narrow it down.”

Numerous lawsuits have been filed against Toyota in recent weeks, in some cases by relatives of people who have died in crashes that they say were caused by sudden acceleration.

“We believe damages could be in the billions of dollars, particularly if there is discovery of a defect in Toyota’s electronic throttle control system as we suspect,” Craig Hutson, a senior investment grade analyst at Gimme Credit, a bond research service, wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

“If there is a problem in Toyota’s electronic system,” he wrote, “the recent recalls will look puny compared to what the company will have to address with their vehicles on the road.”

Watching the report, I got a sad sense of overhyping by CNN (the print version linked above is slightly more guarded than the video version I saw). It's difficult to know whom to trust. Toyota has an obvious incentive to say that it has solved the problem. So I appreciate that its statements have to be regarded with some suspicion, as CNN copiously pointed out. But what CNN didn't point out is that CNN itself also has distorting incentives. The story "Toyota doesn't really know what's wrong with its cars and is lying about it" attracts a lot more viewers than the story "Toyota has everything fixed -- just take your car in as per the recall and everything will be fine." So CNN has an incentive to promote those experts it can find who will say bad things about Toyota.

Watching the report, I got the sense that while the experts portrayed are skeptical of Toyota's statements, CNN was positively goading them into saying more than they really believed based on their expertise. It would have been more balanced if CNN had commented on its own incentives as well as Toyota's. It would have been nice if CNN made a statement about how many experts it consulted and whether their views were conflicting. Did every expert consulted by CNN think the electronic interefence theory was more probable than the mechanical pedal problem theory? Or did CNN cherry pick and only show those experts who had that view, ignoring those who thought Toyota had things right?

It's hard to know whom to believe, but I can't say for sure that I would trust CNN more than Toyota. CNN could have helped its own credibility with some added perspective on the trust issue.

Panel head under fire over Toyota documents
Calif. lawmaker accuses committee leader of 'misrepresentations' over subpoenaed material
Christine Tierney / The Detroit News

Allegations that Toyota Motor Corp. tried to hide vehicle defects aren't new: Former Toyota lawyer Dimitrios Biller has claimed for months that he had documents to prove it -- but was prevented by a court from revealing them.

Last week, the public got its first glimpse of Biller's documents, which were subpoenaed by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and briefly posted on its Web site by Chairman Ed Towns, D-N.Y.

They seemed deeply damaging to Toyota at first glance. But they were quickly taken off the site, and Towns is now under fire from members of his committee for his handling of the affair.

In addition to posting the documents, Towns wrote to a senior Toyota official on Feb. 26 demanding an explanation for the documents, which, he said, "indicate Toyota deliberately withheld records" that it was required to share with plaintiffs in civil suits.

Towns' letter, which was made public, contained excerpts from the documents to back up his assertions.

This week, Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the House committee, said his staff discovered "factual misrepresentations" in Towns' letter to Yoshimi Inaba, president of Toyota Motor North America.

For instance, Towns cites a memo Biller wrote on Dec. 6, 2006, suggesting that Toyota preferred to settle cases rather than disclose information it kept in so-called "Books of Knowledge."

Towns quotes Biller as saying: "TMS [Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.] conclude that it would be better to pay a premium to settle this case and avoid producing the 'Books of Knowledge.' "

But Issa's staff said Towns left out a crucial part of the sentence. The full sentence is: "TMS [Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.] conclude that it would be better to pay a premium to settle this case and avoid producing the 'Books of Knowledge' before Toyota and its counsel had an opportunity to inspect those materials."

Issa's staff also found that the phrase "sudden unintended acceleration" had been injected into a passage that referred to a suit alleging transmission problems.

In addition, Issa noted that a Texas plaintiff lawyer, E. Todd Tracy, reviewed the Biller documents in connection to 17 cases that he had reopened on the basis of Biller's allegations.

"After reviewing the documents, in December 2009, he concluded that: 'I did not see any type of concealment, destruction, or pattern of discovery abuse' and that 'I believe Biller, in his own mind, probably thinks there's something there. But the documents just don't support it,' " Issa quoted Tracy as saying.

A House committee spokeswoman said Issa's complaints were beside the point. "Mr. Issa's comments do not address the central issue -- has Toyota been illegally withholding documents for years," said Jenny Rosenberg.

Biller, who worked for Toyota from 2003 until 2007, is suing Toyota, claiming wrongful termination and emotional distress. He also alleges racketeering at the Japanese automaker.

"Biller continues to make inaccurate and misleading allegations about Toyota's conduct that we strongly dispute and will continue to fight against vigorously," said Toyota spokeswoman Martha Voss.

Toyota sued Biller in 2008 to stop him from using confidential material. It argued successfully that Biller violated a $3.7 million settlement by retaining his files.

This month, an arbitrator in the lawsuit blocked Biller from disclosing internal company documents, but the House Oversight Committee's subpoena superseded the other rulings.

The committee dispute also reflects partisan strains.

"I am concerned that sending this letter without consultation with the minority and its misleading content sheds a negative light on what has otherwise been a successful bipartisan effort," Issa wrote.