Just days before taking the stand at a Congressional hearing involving Toyota ’s recent safety problems, Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University claimed to have recreated an electric malfunction in Toyota vehicles that resulted in unintended acceleration. While the claim blindsided Toyota at the time, the Japanese automaker has since conducted its own study of Gilbert’s work, offering a final rebuttal on Friday.
Gilbert – an automotive professor with more than 30 years of experience in the field – claims to have found a way to trigger unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles via an electrical hiccup without sending an error message to the car’s onboard computer. Gilbert’s findings were so significant that they warranted an exclusive report by ABC News and an invite to Capitol Hill to testify in Toyota’s Congressional hearing.
Gilbert’s research appeared to be the smoking gun in the case against Toyota – as his finding seemed to perfectly align with complaints of unintended acceleration against Toyota – but the Japanese automaker offered an official rebuttal against Gilbert on Friday.
After conferring with testing firm Exponent, Toyota has found that Gilbert “reengineered and rewired the signals from the accelerator pedal†to create the episodes of unintended acceleration.
“This rewired circuit is highly unlikely to occur naturally and can only be contrived in a laboratory,†Toyota said in a statement. “There is no evidence to suggest that this highly unlikely scenario has ever occurred in the real world.â€
Although Toyota’s side of the story is an interesting perspective, we’ll hold the final verdict until we hear from a completely independent source.
