Toyota Examines ABC News Expert's "Unintended Acceleration", Refutes It

With all of Toyota's self-induced woes as of late, the biggest problem the company has faced in recent months might just be a report by ABC News in which an expert (Professor David Gilbert of Southern Illinois University) produced an unintended acceleration using a Toyota product. Initially Toyota responded with concerns about the demonstration and now the automaker (and an independent engineering firm it has hired) has examined the process in more detail and have utterly refuted it.

In a statement Toyota has said that, "The analysis of Professor's Gilbert's demonstration establishes that he has reengineered and rewired the signals from the accelerator pedal. This rewired circuit is highly unlikely to occur naturally and can only be contrived in a laboratory. There is no evidence to suggest that this highly unlikely scenario has ever occurred in the real world. As shown in the Exponent and Toyota evaluations, with such artificial modifications, similar results can be obtained in other vehicles."

Toyota has sent the results of its finding to both Professor Gilbert and to the Congressional Committees assigned to look into the matter.

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