Poor Toyota. Their decades-old reputation as a maker of safe, durable, unexciting cars hit a speed bump a few months back. Reports started circulating of their vehicles going hell-bent-for-leather despite their owner's protestations. First the floor mats were blamed, now they say it's the gas pedal's fault.
It seems these days a growing number of cars have accelerator pedals that aren't connected to the engine. How can this be, you ask? Well, back in the last century, gas pedals pulled a rod that opened a blade in the carburetor. Then cars got fuel-injection, replacing the carb... so the rod was replaced by a cable to open the throttle body. Add computers to the fuel injection system, so that the system knows the throttle body position, and... to hell with it, the engineers said, we'll just make a pedal that talks to the computer, and the computer can tell the engine what to do.
If I recall correctly, the first car to have this system was the V-12 BMW, back around 1990. My 2002 Mini Cooper had it, and I wasn't thrilled when I found out, because I remembered this. (Paste into your web browser, or search You Tube for "Airbus Airshow Crash")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EM0hDchVlY
The aircraft shown was one of the first to use "fly-by-wire" technology; in other words, the pilot had to go through a computer to maneuver the plane. The factory wrote the aircraft's software so that if the computer saw that the gear was down, it was xxx feet off the ground, etc. the computer was to go ahead and land the plane.
One small problem: this Airbus was at an airshow, an event the software geeks had never anticipated. The pilot wanted to just fly past the runway at low speed, and then climb out. The computer wouldn't let him do it. The flight data recorder from the wreckage told the ugly truth: Try as he might, the plane wouldn't respond to the pilot's commands. The pilot would pull up on the yolk; the computer would push it right back! The pilot firewalled the throttles. The computer said, "No way." and refused to cooperate.
To borrow a line from HAL the computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't let you do that."
Oops.
Back to Toyota: I'm sure their cars worked just fine in testing, too. Nobody ever thought that owners might track in dirt, rocks, trash, hair, etc. that might foul the pedal mechanism, especially since the problem only occurs on one of two pedals from different suppliers. In their defense, it could/can/will happen to other makes as well; Toyota just happens to be a huge company at the leading edge of technology, just like Airbus was.
Toyota's solution for the future? Starting next year, their cars will go to idle if the throttle and brake are simultaneously applied. That will please parents of American 17-year-old boys who want to attempt "power brake" starts from the stoplight, where Junior revs the engine against the brake of their dad's new Camry automatic. But...
Nobody, at least nobody I've heard from, has talked about the other, more serious consequence of this software fix.
Suppose you own a 2011 Toyota with a manual tranny. Not many are sold here, but lots of them are, in lots of other places. Now, imagine you're on a mountain road. You've crested a hill, and coming up on a sharp downhill right-hander. You need to slow down, and change gears. No problem, you say. Grab the stick, and while tapping the brake with your right heel you attempt to blip the throttle with your toe as you engage the clutch and downshift.
Uh-oh. Rather than a clean, RPM-matched shift, the car bucks and jerks like a drunken sailor, because the computer is saying "I'm sorry, Dave..." Your clutch and transmission have just taken a pounding, and, if, heaven forbid, you're in a wet, icy, or gravel-covered corner while all this crap is happening, you could quite possibly lose traction, and therefore control of the car.
Oh, and, you will be sharing the same "Oh shit" sentiment as that Airbus pilot felt as he flew into the trees.
Ain't technology a peach? As my son would say: Good luck with that.
Anyone for yet another recall?
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