I assume we have all heard about the mess Toyota has gotten itself into, but the more it comes out how bad it is, the more I think of SR. when the first few crashes occurred they said it was the fault of floor mats that shifted and had a detailed presentation of how the mats were locking the accelerator. Unfortunately for the corp cover up the most spectacular crash could not have been caused by that. Its mats were already in the trunk. Toyota, naturally, denied any problems until they were forced. They only admitted the problem that led to the big recall when ABC gave them a heads up they had further evidence and were going public on that night’s broadcast. Toyota made its announced recall only 2 hours ahead of the report. They denied problems with the Prius until computer expert Steve Wozniak came out against them.

With an arrogance that would make even Americans cringe, the Japanese have said they were not worried about such flaws in Toyota cars in Japan because they were made by Japanese workers and the Toyota’s overseas were not. Clearly to them it is the fault of the workers and not the design of the cars, and Toyota had muffled up several complaints of such accidents in Japan.

So far this is pretty much business as usual for any major manufacturer. Where it starts to leak over to SR is where it is fun. ABC had a camera team outside Toyota’s headquarters looking for a statement. They were turned away by uniformed security guards. Besides wearing the non-descript uniform and cap that has been unchanged in decades the guards were all wearing face masks. At first I thought it was just the lead one wearing the surgical mask many Japanese wear when they have a cold, but I saw that all the guards were masked and it was form fitting, up the cheek bones leaving only their eyes exposed they were effectively faceless corp muscle trying to move reporters off of public property.

This morning ABC reported they have a former Toyota lawyer who has a suite against the corp as a whistle blower. On film this morning he was saying the Tokyo headquarters regularly sent instructions to lose/ignore reports of technical issues and that the Tokyo office had absolutely no regard for the US laws if they could get away with it.


I know this should be a surprise to no one here but it should be a little worrying that it seems so close to SR already.

shit like this have been going on forever, sadly.

True but her point is that this is more like SR than we want to admit. masked guards and corp CEO's disregarding the laws of soverign states?

To play the devil's advocate, what else is new? Also disrespecting the laws of sovereign state?, States that by their recent bail out of Toyota's direct competitors have proven they are far far from impartial in this matter.

Can you post videos of the ABC stuff you talk about I want to see !

Every time I see something like this in the news it reminds me of reading the original Corporate Shadowfiles. It had an entire chapter on real world sleazy business practices, non of which were illegal, alongside the illegal things shadow runners would do to manipulate the system. The Scary thing is that it really gets you thinking every time you see something like this reported on.

Toyota failed at plausible deniability. And the fact that they don't seem to be trying very hard, is what places this closer to the SR realm than usual.

so the QA head jumps on a sword, the lawyers agree to some kind of settlement, and then the media goes to report on something else. Business as usual...

True, but most of the real bailout came in the form of the cash for clunkers deal. A deal I think that Toyota made out on far more then any of their [American] competition.

To quote Fight Club, and this is probably correct.

Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one.

Right, no one really bought into the 'floor mat' story but the corp hung by it. It's only as this has blown up inm their face have they admitted any problems and then only when it's dragged out of them. Even when recalling masses of cars they still denied an issue with the Prius-trumpeting it as an example of Toyota's that work, even thought they already had reports, in Japan itself, of serious problems. Because it is so similar to the existing issues people has made a deal of the breaks sticking but there are other electronic issues too that are only slowly coming out- like the lights will turn off! not to bad in a lit urban area but possibly fatal anywhere else.

Corosion problem would be solved by shoving (and scratching the part anti rust paint) a metal pieces in it. Sound like problems.

An 'expert' on TV was saying he believed where they placed the on board computers might be affected by an electromagnetic field devleoped generated by the engine activity. If true that's a real problem because it's a massive design flaw on what is supposed to be their most high tech car.

I was not talking about the prius but my 2009 Matrix ...

"Blue screen of death... Really."

Of course, the sensible answer would be to not trust your life to software without an awfully good reason. However, that doesn't mean people are going to stop doing things the stupid way. That's why in 2060, hackers can break into your car remotely and drive it off cliffs and stuff.

With toyota rust can do the same ! WOW !

i do wonder whats cheaper in production, a couple of sensors and chips, all running their data down the same wires, or a whole host of cables and/or hoses to do the same thing.

more and more becomes "fly by wire", like it or not.

would you refuse to fly, if the airline where using a aircraft that use fly by wire controls?

Jets get a lot more checking than my car does, and are responsible for fewer deaths. What works for one does not necessarily work for the other. Since the car is already around $20k, you'd think they can spare a little bit to put in those cables (or at minimum, a hard emergency stop device). It's sort of, you know, important.

that could equally apply to mechanical controls.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/toyota-deale...tory?id=9776474

ABC is reporting that in some areas Toyota shifted advertising away from them as punishment for the investigation that blew this open. Nice AAA corp action- bringing financial pressure to bare on the media to discourage further leaks.

What could? Flaws? Perhaps, but software depends on a lot of levels of abstraction before it comes into play. Hardware does not. Software also is almost guaranteed to be buggy. Even the best programmers leave bugs. And the more complex the system, the more likely you'll have bugs. Once you have the same system running the radio, the engine, the lights, so on and so forth, the odds of a bug in any given system goes up exponentially.

In Japan a 'recall' is considered far more serious. They can 'suggest' something be done and it doesn't have a stigma there like it owuld in the west BUT if you issue a "recall" it means there is a fundimental flaw in design AND production. A slip in the gears is unfortunate wear and tear but they issue a recall it is admitting a major screw up. So far Toyota was shielded in Japan from the blame but if they have to recall 170,000 Japanese Prius it will be a major loss of face.

Yeah the toyota chairman apologized on a friday morning, in the west, but the live conference was 7pm on a friday night. Who the flock is watching TV then? He did it at a time best aimed to avoid having Japanese see it while still being able to claim he made the right gesture.

levels of abstraction? in a car? are you kidding me? too much overhead. In industrial applications its all embedded software and fpga's about the most complicated thing ya find is windriver or another realtime system. and as far as buggy, well that kinda system goes through so much testing and quality assurance its not funny. Mechanical parts usually get less checking.

Have you ever programmed? A program, even a simple BIOS program, is written in a level of abstraction (computer code, which must be translated), must be transfered through... okay frankly, I don't know how a car computer changes code to action. But the point is, you have brake discs controlled by whatever controlled by whatever controlled by whatever controlled by whatever, and each one is a point of abstraction, where a simple mistake cascades. That's the critical difference. That architecture means problems multiply. A mechanical system means they add.



So this is why my jeep keeps crashing and all those toyotas are running great?

Assembly ...