Despite thousands of consumer complaints and accident records describing instances of sudden, unintended acceleration over a period of several years, Toyota said it remained confident that the problems were not related to electronic malfunction, instead attributing them to driver error and floor mat slippage.
However, Japanese documents translated earlier this year to English by translator Betsy Benjaminson and analyzed by EMC consultant Keith Armstrong, electrical engineering consultant Antony Anderson and safety software expert Brian Kirk of the U.K. and automotive engineer Neil Hannemann of California reportedly revealed a massive cover-up suggesting that the unintended acceleration was in fact caused by the engine’s electronic throttle control.
Now, a series of articles released by the Japan Times offer further information on the company’s initial handling of the issue.
The first article, “Imperial Family’s Car Woes Sparked Toyota Whistleblower,” suggests that Toyota’s preferential attention to electronic issues affecting the Japanese Imperial Family’s luxury Century Royal while simultaneously ignoring thousands of other similar complaints and scores of injuries and deaths was what convinced Benjaminson to investigate the automaker.
In “How Even the Mightiest Can Sometimes Succumb to their Own Success,” Japanese-based communication consultant to the car industry John Harris presents Toyota’s sudden growth and decrease in product quality as one of the key causes of the unintended acceleration issues.
Factory working conditions and Toyota’s influence on the media are covered in “Dark Sides of Toyota’s Strive to be No. 1,” while a Toyota customer’s personal experience with a runaway Lexus E350 are chronicled in “’Lurching’ Lexus Fortunately Just Ran into a Wall.”
By Belinda Stasiukiewicz and Aliza Becker
