Toyota Executive Defends Vehicle Electronics
The man charged with improving the quality of Toyota's vehicle is mounting an impassioned defense of his company's electronic control systems. Many critics have blamed those electronic controls for Toyota's sudden acceleration problems. The company has blamed sticking accelerator pedals and misplaced floor mats.
"Today as I sit in front of you and as North America's chief quality officer, I want to tell you I am 100 per cent confident that there's nothing wrong with our electronic throttle control system," said Toyota's Steve St. Angelo, at the Management Briefing Seminars, which close today in Traverse City.
St. Angelo carries the multiple titles of executive vice president, Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing, North America and Chief Quality Officer, North American Quality Task Force. In short he's in charge of both manufacturing and quality in the North American market.
St. Angelo saying he's seen tests done on electronics at Toyota's labs in Japan, and looked at testing being done by independent companies in the United States. He also says there are forty million Toyota's on the road with advanced electronic systems.
"We have never found a single case of unintended acceleration due to a system defect," he said. "And Toyota has never been provided any evidence that our electronics can cause unintended acceleration in a real world scenario."
They will continue the independent investigation, St. Angelo said, because they may find ways to make the electronic systems in vehicles better.
"If there was a problem, we'd want to know about it so we could fix it…Everyone's looking really hard for a problem, we just can't find it."
Toyota also updating the current recalls, saying that they've now repaired more than eighty per cent of vehicles with sticking accelerator pedals. A company spokesman said that's more than the average number of repairs for most recalls, because not all customers bring their vehicles in to be repaired.
It's been a very busy year for recalls, and car companies are becoming more sensitive to issues and ordering recalls earlier. St. Angelo says that's a good thing.
"Let me make this perfectly clear, recall is not a four letter word."
