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Toyota dumps on SIU for Prius Incidents

Discussion in 'Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News' started by raholco, Jul 10, 2010.

  1. raholco

    raholco Ailurophile

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    Now this doesn't paint Toyota in a particularly glowing light...

    Toyota lashed out at instructor during big recall - Yahoo! News

    [snip]

    By JIM SUHR, Associated Press Writer Jim Suhr, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 22 mins ago
    CARBONDALE, Ill. – It's the kind of publicity any university might dream about: An instructor uncovers a possible flaw that's causing some of the world's most popular cars to accelerate suddenly. His ground-breaking work attracts interest from Congress and reporters worldwide.
    But as Southern Illinois University's David Gilbert sought to show that electronics might be to blame for the problem in Toyotas, the world's largest automaker tried to cast doubt on his findings. One Toyota employee even questioned whether he should be employed by the school, which has long been a recipient of company donations.
    Electronic messages obtained by The Associated Press show the automaker grew increasingly frustrated with Gilbert's work and made its displeasure clear to his bosses at the 20,000-student school.
    "It did kind of catch us off-guard," university spokesman Rod Sievers said.
    So did the fallout. Two Toyota employees quickly resigned from an advisory board of the school's auto-technology program, and the company withdrew offers to fund two spring-break internships.
    "I didn't really set out to take on Toyota. I set out to tell the truth, and I felt very strongly about that," said Gilbert, who was among the first to suggest that electronics, not sticky gas pedals or badly designed floor mats, caused the acceleration that required the Japanese automaker to recall millions of vehicles.
    Toyota insists its relationship with the school remains "strong," and company officials say they have no plans to stop contributing to SIU. They also say the two Toyota representatives who stepped down from the advisory board did so merely to avoid any appearance that the company was exerting influence over Gilbert's testimony.


    [snip]
     
    #1 raholco, Jul 10, 2010
    1 person likes this.
  2. SageBrush

    SageBrush Senior Member

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    Troll ?
     
    #2 SageBrush, Jul 11, 2010
  3. TheSpoils

    TheSpoils Member

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    Only those with corvette club jackets and non-English speaking house cleaning still believe this.
     
    #3 TheSpoils, Jul 11, 2010
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  4. raholco

    raholco Ailurophile

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    I'm an ailurophile, not a troll-trolls eat cats. :D

    This just popped up, and its another datapoint as to how Toyota may or may not be reacting to the Prius sudden acceleration issue.

    :focus:
     
    #4 raholco, Jul 11, 2010
  5. hobbit

    hobbit Senior Member

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    *Someone* needed to smack Gilbert down; I couldn't believe he
    was spouting off what he was back then in light of having a lot
    of institutional support from Toyota in the first place. Having
    bitten one of the hands that fed him, now he needs to starve.
    .
    _H*
     
    #5 hobbit, Jul 11, 2010
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  6. Flaninacupboard

    Flaninacupboard Senior Member

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    WHAT acceleration issue? What cars accelerated? when? Bugger off, this was just media hype about retards who can't drive.
     
    #6 Flaninacupboard, Jul 11, 2010
  7. TonyPSchaefer

    TonyPSchaefer Your Friendly Moderator
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    It wouldn't paint a glowing light if Gilbert were accurately testing the vehicles or if it were only Toyota vehicles that Gilbert's tests could affect. As it is, Gilbert's testing methods were highly speculative and his results could be duplicated on multiple makes and models.

    As it is, we haven't heard anything about Gilbert for quite a while. I wonder why this is being drug up into the light of day again.

    Here's more info: http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...6885-gilbert-report-accelerator-weakness.html
     
    #7 TonyPSchaefer, Jul 11, 2010
  8. jrflip

    jrflip New Member

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    How can someone claim to find the solution to a random, unreproducable probem with a box that has flashing magic lights and involves hacking into the system. Just by doing the system is not in its original state.
     
    #8 jrflip, Jul 11, 2010
  9. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    First, let's not kill the messenger, 'raholco', who shared an article he stumbled across. I would have done the same. The article and the characters described stand alone and apart:

    • Jim Suhr, Associated Press Writer - needed to pay his mortgage and wrote a 'human interest' story about Prof. Gilbert. This is no better or worse than a reported who interviews other flawed individuals who achieve '15 minutes of fame.' The article research appears to be OK with plenty of attributed quotes.
    • Prof. Gilbert - reminds me of someone who found something interesting but due to timing and poor communications, published an experiment without adequate peer review. He figured out how to make a passive, resistor network that could spoof the ECU to cause runaway acceleration.
    • Exponet verified this is an industry problem shared by many electronic accelerators because they use the same slope for encoder position of the dual pots. Had Prof. Gilbert included a mitigation paragraph or two that showed how different sensor position slopes would eliminate the risk of a resistor network spoof, he would have avoided being with the goats. His invitation to visit Exponet was the last opportunity to complete his earlier paper.
    • ABC News (entertainment division) screwed up and their 'story' did not include sufficient technical data. So we saw this story without the circuit schematics needed to understand what was going on. It left Gilbert in a 'bad place', somewhat of his own making.
    • Late publishing of resistor network paper - Gilbert's greatest mistake was failure to get the technical paper 'online' for review. This was amplified the ABC News (entertainment division) screw-up. Worse, it took Exponet to identify a mitigation strategy (Oh, has the NHTSA published a draft regulation to fix the problem . . . no they continue the "Bell the Hybrid" nonsense.)
    • "Safety Experts" and associated lawsuit chasers - grasping at straws they do not understand.
    In a charitable mood, it would be an American version of Rashomon but a murder of truth occurred and Prof. Gilbert handed the weapon to the killers. I put the NHTSA at the same level as Gilbert and hope the National Science Committee will 'do the right thing.' So I don't have a lot of charity for Gilbert and his enablers.

    Sad to say, the fundamental problem, same slope, dual sensors was left out of this article and seems to be treated in the Exponet report like the BP blowout (that it could never happen.) Use of different, non-overlapping sensor slopes (i.e., 1-2k and 5-20k) and no passive resistor network would be able to spoof the ECUs again.

    Bob Wilson

    ps. I'm investigating use of a Scion accelerator encoder as a substitute for rebuilding NHW11 accelerators. The latest rebuild customer installed another rebuild in his NHW11 and after clearing the lights, is off to the races. Thanks to Doug who pioneered the process.
     
    #9 bwilson4web, Jul 11, 2010
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  10. donee

    donee New Member

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    Hi All...,

    Typical. Now that the technical work the SIU Prof did has been discredited (by NASA), they go after the actions of the company and ignore that the Prof was wrong. From Toyota's point of view - what would you do if somebody started spreading a falsehood about your work?
     
    #10 donee, Jul 11, 2010
  11. M8s

    M8s Retired and Lovin' It

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    I wouldn't blame Toyota if they didn't give SIU - or any other school that employed Gilbert - one more dime. In fact, I'll be sorely disappointed in Toyota if they continue to give SIU any funds, grants or other support.

    How can he build a circuit to spoof the accelerator circuits in a car without SA issues and then tell congress that he DIDN"T sabotage the car?
     
    #11 M8s, Jul 12, 2010
  12. PriusSport

    PriusSport senior member

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    This trash hasn't affected Prius sales, from what I've seen. People are used to a lot of BS, from the political garbage they have to put up with daily in the American media. In one ear, out the other.
     
    #12 PriusSport, Jul 12, 2010
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