Toyota offered an official rebuttal to Professor David Gilbert’s claim of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles last week, but offered little in the way of actual evidence. However, Toyota has made its findings known, hosting a Webcast earlier on Monday.
In the Webcast, engineers from Toyota and testing firm Exponent detailed Professor Gilbert’s findings. Although Gilbert’s methods proved to be a viable way to create unintended acceleration in a Toyota vehicle, Toyota was able to explain why Gilbert’s discovery was extremely unlikely to happen in real world driving.
In a nutshell, Gilbert’s method involved stripping of three wires in the vehicle’s accelerator electronics, followed by the introduction of a 200 ohm resistor between two of the wires. The process results in an out of control engine, but is also highly unlikely to ever occur in the wild.
Moreover, Toyota was able to demonstrate the same phenomena in other vehicles using the same technique, all without triggering a diagnostic trouble code. During the Webcast, Toyota was able to recreate unintended acceleration in several vehicles, including a Chevrolet Malibu , Ford Fusion , BMW 3-Series and Subaru Outback .
Although Toyota’s demonstration appears to have debunked Professor Gilbert’s theory on unintended acceleration, it still hasn’t exonerated vehicle electronics from Toyota recent safety woes.
