this meeting will come to order today we have a hearing to i don't respond by toyota to incidents of sudden unintended acceleration we have a number of members who are present for the syrians who are not members of this committee what our members of the committee we welcome them and i know that they will be allowed to submit written statements for the record but will not be able to deliver opening statements in addition after all subcommittee members ime constraints i ask unanimous consent that congressman burgess allow the service ranking member for today's hearing without objection the request is accepted the chairman ranking member chairman emeritus when i'll be recognized for a five minute opening statement other members of the subcommittee will be recognized for a three minute opening statement and mr rush the chairman of the subcommittee  in october of two thousand and nine addressed floor mats that can jam against the gas pedal causing it to become trapped in a full throttle position toyota eventually opened the floor mat recall to four point six million analysis of documents toyota provided to the committee shows that roughly seventy percent of the unintended acceleration events recorded in customer database involve vehicles that are not covered by the floor mat or sticky pedal recalls has advertised for this problem do not provide much assurance to these drivers our investigation has shown that toyota repeatedly dismissed the possibility of unintended acceleration is caused by human error or limited mechanical problems rather than problems in the chronic system terminations without having electrical or software engineers review the for concern related to unintended acceleration by a company called exponent toyota has presented this preliminary report to prove that the electronic system cannot cause unintended acceleration however don't have a ranking member and i've asked congressman burgess if he would do that duty today but to give the opening statement it will be myself later this week chairman waxman i think has indicated that he'll have a committee ford and firestone tires so i felt as the ranking member of the full committee when mr waxman you approached me about the syrian city it was it was only fair that the republicans support this investigation the american people do have a right to know mr chairman and this committee has always regardless of which party controlled congress and regardless of which member of this committee chair this committee has got a great record of getting the facts on the table and i will say on the record mr chairman that you're one of the best at getting the facts on the record having said that we do want to have an open mind what the problem is i was stunned to learn yesterday that you know how long it's been since i've worked on a car but i was under the impression that the steering mechanism and the fuel cell ration mechanism was like it was years ago that it was mechanically linked it's not it's all electronic now when you push that gas pedal engineers actually have gone out of their way to create the feel of when it was to show how old i am to the carburetor but it's really an electronic signal there is no mechanical linkage they actually create a spring loaded system under the gas pedal to make it feel like when you push down the paddle you know there's a linkage that's going into the engine is going up to the fuel injection system of the carburetor in making it work  and part of the gas pedal off at the bottom and then they're putting the metal washer and insert the paddle so that it feels a little differently  they have exhausted looked at the computer programs in the electronics to see if there is some computer malfunction so far they can't find it now maybe maybe there isn't like this study to indicate mr chairman maybe there's something in their program that's wrong but i was under the assumption is an industrial engineer that it was still a mechanical system and there were something wrong with their design or something wrong with their system or something wrong with their connection well that's all electronic and what we need to do mr chairman you know i don't believe that we should and i'm not saying that you're attempting to do this that we should go on a witch hunt we should actually try to find out in the truth in best sense of protecting the american people if there is a problem what it is if there is a problem what toyota's going to do about it and if we do that the american people will be well served what we don't want to do in my opinion mr chairman is just assume automatically that tell you it was done something wrong and is trying to cover it up now maybe they have been if that comes out in these documents and in the testimony i hope the congress will come down to yellow very forcefully but if they haven't you know the people that i've talked to have worked in the automotive industry for thirty years or mor and they have got absolutely no interest in covering up a problem that kills people that hurts people in dangerous people's lives but it appears to be that unless there's some electronic problem it's possible that it could just be too many people putting too many floor mats in their cars and i know that sounds silly and that would it would seem incredulous to stipulate that that might be the problem but based on the observation of the sixteen million vehicles i believe that tell you as investigator have records they've had a handful maybe a dozen that have had some problems so we need to find the facts and i know m great admirer of toyota toyota makes good cars i've driven one pleasurably and safely for years and the company has been a strong corporate citizen the prius is a breakthrough vehicle that is making a crucial contribution to our environment and energy security perhaps that is why i'm so disappointed in the company's response to reports of toyota vehicles out of control too often with fatal consequences over the last decade cars have become moving computers they have dozens of microprocessors and millions of lines of code this development has brought many improvements in vehicle performance and advanced reliance on electronics can bring new risks and these need to be carefully examined but this did not happen in preparation for this hearing the committee analyzed runaway toyota vehicles and they complained after the introduction of electronic throttle controls but what is most significant is what is missing from the documents responsibilities today will try to find out why given all that toyota has achieved over the past fifty years it would be wrong for toyota to be permanently impaired as a result of the safety  have occurred toyota is a great company and i hope it will have a great future but fundamental reforms are needed in toyota's leadership consumer complaints need to be taken seriously the possibility of resources to critically that its vehicles could not fail ultimately i believe addressing this problem will require car makers have entered the electronics era that run today's automobiles again i thank you for holding this hearing i look forward to hearing from our witnesses so that as a result of this hearing we can make a constructive step forward to  thousands of documents from both boyle to motor company and the national highway transportation safety administration showing the complaints they received over the years and their investigations into those complaints while this committee's investigation is ongoing it  clear that toyotas and the national highway traffic safety administration received numerous complaints about sudden unintended acceleration in toyota vehicles lately you can't pick up a newspaper without reading a new announcement about a problem with toyota record aware of the fact that this government through the troubled asset relief program has given sixty four billion dollars to general motors and chrysler this is an inherent conflict of interest and it has only grown since last month why we need to get out of the business of bailing out business but again nothing of the american consumer which is why we are here a document created by the national highway transportation safety administration staffer during the course of a two thousand  happened it is important we get the story correct so we can fix the problems going forward we know that there were signals that toyota and the national highway transportation safety administration both in the form of driver complaints and more conclusion that the cars were not having electrical problems we know that toyota has recently hired out to run down the problems to do anything as these complaints were coming in and if not why not start getting a better idea of toyotas response to these you mr chairman first i want to welcome eddie and rhonda smith who are from tennessee and i want to thank them for taking the time to come up today we are appreciative that this hearing is of utmost importance but i am starting to become a little bit concerned about the time that is surrounding it this should not be a trial but rather a hearing to get to the bottom of some very important consumer safety issues and i hope that that is how we will proceed every day we are hearing a combination of the new information and unfortunately some new misinformation that clouds the debate and my hope is that that misinformation is not being circulated for political purposes or to be hurtful this is a very very serious valving the loss of lives in addition it has resulted in the loss of jobs and the loss of thousands of paychecks are being sacrificed also again mr chairman let me say this is too important an issue for us to play around with or to play politics with and it's not a new issue while i feel that many well i believe that this subcommittee has a responsibility and a duty to thoroughly investigate this matter including the responses by toyota and by the national highway traffic safety administration i would like to echo the concerns of all those on the subcommittee that more could have been done in preparation for the hearing even if it required a little bit more time to thoroughly bat a full range of witnesses review over seventy thousand pages of documents and more our deliberations additionally i know some of expressed concern with the possibility that the federal government now has a best interest and some raw domestic auto manufacturers may have some incentive to highlight potential flaws with manufacturing while i hope and i believe this is not the case just because i'm paranoid doesn't mean somebody isn't out to get we  have we have to be cognizant of especially in this post bailout world where the federal government is already placed itself in the business of economic winners and losers nonetheless the first and foremost obligation is please thank you very much like millions of americans i drive a toyota camry hybrid that has thus far not been recalled like millions of americans one of the reasons that i purchased a toyota in the first place was a reputation for reliable and fuel efficient vehicles and like millions of americans i am troubled by the series of revelations that has led us to today's hearing and as the recalls continue i also find myself wondering what went so wrong the october two thousand and nine recall of more than four million vehicles that were and trapping accelerator pedals raises troubling questions about what he knew and when they knew it well the government seems to have started to investigate this problem in two thousand and seven i have learned of a lexus recall undertaken by toyota in the united kingdom in the year two thousand because and i quote quote there is a possibility that the driver's side mat rotate around the central thing in interfere with the operation of the accelerator pedal and then in canada in two thousand and three toyota celica is where we call because the drive is one that makes wide along the interior more carpet when pressure is applied to the mat by getting in and out of the vehicle as a result the floor mat may come into contact with the accelerator pedal if toyota first learned that this could happen ten years ago in the u k and then again in canada seven years learned of internal documents toyota's success at limiting the outcome of the government investigation which reportedly one hundred million dollars saving money should not come at the all of the complaints and some have speculated that there may be more problems but securely in the area of the vehicles electronic control while toyota asserts that its outside experts found nothing wrong with their cars electronic those tests were based on incomplete examinations of only six vehicles clearly much more must be done the question is whether the problem with these vehicles  thank you i first want to thank chairman stu pac and ranking member burgess for holding this hearing i'm pleased to be part of this important discussion as consumer safety and in this case in particular auto safety is extremely important to our nation for many different reasons with well over two hundred fifty million passenger vehicles on the road safety must remain our number one priority as statistical information indicates that we are meeting that goal over the last fifty years significant technological advances in the design and construction of automobiles and reasonable federal regulation regulatory initiatives have increased overall road and vehicle safety as a result the tallies and serious injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes in the u s are at the lowest level in forty nine years despite constant growth in license drivers and registered vehicles over the past week i had the privilege of visiting and speaking with a toyota dealer  im norton in my district and saw some of these problems and their remedies firsthand while vehicle safety must remain our goal i think it is important to hear all sides of the story look at all available data and examine the entire process before we jump to any conclusions at the expense of one manufacturer and potentially do more harm than good by misleading the consumer with presumptions based on unfinished studies thank you in advance to our panel before us and it is my hope that our discussions here today does what is meant to do by shedding light on the situation so that we can maintain the u s is position as a world leader in auto safety and you'll back my time  investigation is to see if the cars we drive are safe it's to help us determine whether car manufacturers have done all they can do to ensure safety and it's to determine whether the regulators did all they could to double check their work that should be the focus of this investigation and i know we have three panels and i look forward to hearing from them thank you thank you mr chairman chairman you need look no further than me to find a loyal long time toyota owner i have three toyotas and i have two daughters my nine hundred eighty eight camry as the car that i what was the role of nests and did they take this investigation did they make a deal with toyota that limited a tough and thorough investigation to adequately analyze all of today are critical to our discussions about the future of the agency and whether it needs additional resources in terms of funding or authority thank you mr chairman and i thank you last but not least member of our every manufacturer that sells products in this country should be able to justify that they are doing everything they can to ensure that those products are safe and protect consumers from harm that includes american automobile manufacturers and foreign automobile manufacturers that do business in this country but here are some questions that i think american consumers deserve answers to at this hearing one why has toyotas with the deserved e system as a contributing factor to sudden unintended acceleration to once this committee began its investigation of this problem why did toyotas turn to its product liability defense attorneys at bowman and brooks to hire independent expert exponent to analyze this problem three was the interim report produced by exponent to justify toyota's position the equivalent of junk science and how much credibility should it be given by this committee and american consumers for with its important jurisdictional responsibilities capable without major changes to its funding and its staff of making an independent determination of the underlying causes of this problem given the changing nature of the automobile industry and the increasing reliance electronic and computer data five is there data available in these vehicles that is being withheld from the american public and from regulators a public that would give us clues into the underlying cause of these problems and i'm talking specifically about the black boxes that now provide countless amounts of data and are protected from public disclosure in every attempt to try to find out what type of computer data might be available to try to let me call our first panel of witnesses our first panel we have mr shawn who is president of safety research and strategies incorporated dr david gilbert who is an associate professor of variable down highway sixty six to the inner side and upon entering the inner side accelerated with everyone else under the flow of traffic and at this point i'm urged over into the second line not going into passing here at this time i lost all control of the excel rush of the vehicle the car goes into passing gear and comes on at this time i'm thinking that maybe the crew is what engage the emergency brake and nothing slows the car i figure the car is going to go its maximum speed and i was going to have to put the car into the upcoming guardrail in order to prevent killing anyone else and i prayed for god to help me that to happen and the car had lives of three thousand miles once again we contacted our data and expressed our disgust with toyota's handling they recommended that we contact which is the national center for dispute mond only an hour away in kingsport did not show his face and he attended the a speakerphone he insisted that he could not recreate the answer to that i had more than likely causes problem by standing on somebody was really going to get hurt pictures of the car and documentation of what had transpired since october two thousand and six for the eleventh two thousand and seven mystery on flew to knoxville tennessee and drive to severe a lot better probably here today and we tried all types of meda and to have one local station take an interest in our climb that toyota and it's my word knowing the deadly problem to california crash that killed a california highway patrolman and his family had to eat t v did a second story toyota sudden unintended acceleration this would brought was broadcast in february two large story it's been giving more than a token attention unfortunately it took almost four years and injuries and lives lost to prop congress to take up this important issue once again i'd like to fact this committee for taking the time to listen to our story it's about time we were heard and i hope the toyota and it will be held accountable for the poor decisions that have cost some tape of their lives i would also like to ask this committee to set a higher web that it is our us administration responsible for reducing injuries and economic losses resulting crises their mission statement is to save lives not a trip to inspect their vehicle without any thought our government would actually step in and bring toyota to that to task and resolve this issue this pain others going through the experience of my wife wherever around again young's report as you have all read it was complete fabrication this never happened and was never shown to us at any time during his visit once unintended acceleration and unfortunately some are not allowed to be able to tell their story rhonda is here today to testify before this committee for all those who are bad and their families hopefully hopefully some justice will  of your quality and safety record has been totally destroyed by your past and present words and actions now your property has come into play having gone to handle this you as our government watchdog need to start saving from your japanese thank you very much for your time thank you mr mr smith next we'll hear from mr cain from safety and founder of research strategies where research and advocacy firm that specializes in automotive and consumer products safety issues in addition providing factual research to attorneys engineers corporations and government we leverage o understanding of the safety issues to advocate on behalf of consumers that's part of my company's mission that's what i've been doing for nearly twenty years but invited here to really help the committee and understand how did we get here today with unintended acceleration how this problem unfolded and to address the various related electronic issues that seem to be part of this issue today for the record i'm submitting a report to sudden unintended acceleration which provides a detailed examination of the issue a root we released our report on february fifth and we had an addendum on the one thousand to bribe the committee in the public with context for the crisis that's been really in the making for many years i'm also submitting report to electronic throttle control investigation which we commissioned with automotive technology professor dr david russell in an illinois university carbondale dr gilbert splintery report provides critical insight into the failsafe detection capabilities of electrical circuitry designed to prevent unintended acceleration in some electronic throttle control vehicles manufactured by toyota and i report we look at the complexities and inconsistency in the public record almost everything we have been informed by is in clear view and in the public record it's difficult to find sometimes but we spent a lot of time reviewing those records and what we've concluded from the records that we've examined is that neither two hundred sixty three complaints we found that nearly half of those complaints fall outside of any recall whatsoever listening to the experiences of the smith at a lexus a race down the highway they're speed to try and bring his car into control put his foot underneath the pedal to pull back on the pedal he'd carpeted floor mats and car neither one of those relate back to these recall issues it was a sticky pedal that pedal would return with a foot if it was a floor mat it would been crept up and forward and it would have to have been a all weather floor mat he had carpeted floor mats in his vehicle years of mounting evidence cleaning agents investigations six of them at the request of consumers hat haunting nine one one call handle the safety issues today the simplest the problems of format interference hasn't been handled appropriately if the format didn't confine the panel then to the lexus and lexus owners have a real cause for worry that their vehicles have been identified defects constituting a severe safety hazard based on our surveillance of the complete data which is in the public record extensive interviews with consumers of experience this us the benefit of a scientific statistical analysis by the folks  at quality control systems we chose to focus our attention on the electronic throttle control system which is often called drive by wire following an issue a incident consumers free can report to toyota dealers that their their field technical specialist could find  electronic throttle cannot malfunction with its diagnostic system without it catching an error in employing failsafe modes in response to nitsa the company flatly rejected the concept of unintended acceleration in fact they stated a quote with regard to allegations of unintended acceleration so that it does not believe that uncontrolled acceleration can occur without the driver applying the accelerator pedal if an abnormal condition occurs such as the electronic throttle control sending the signal to to open throttle without applying the solar array to pedal due to failure of a component or malfunction of the system or throw simply would open on its own the system would go into a fail safe mode because drivers real world experience is running counter to what the statements area the findings are still very slim unary but the urgent urgent nature of them has had us working long nights and weekends with dr gilbert to get the preliminary report to this committee we've a state like you were done to feel safe three scenarios can be introduced in the electronic control module the computer they read wide open throttle without any input from the driver and again without setting a single diagnostic trouble codes no errors must emphasize at this point it's going to take additional research to make the connection between the two but is work provides an important baseline for understanding potential electronic root causes of unintended acceleration into a vehicle at this point we simply have to book in one end of it gilbert analysis which why is there a hole in the toyota system that can allow these things to occur undetected on the other hand we've got reports from folks like the smith who's clearly there incidents are related to electronic problems and yet no solution at this point there's much work to be done and we believe that both toyota and national highway traffic safety administration play a role in how we got here today but this is squarely to his problem they created this crisis and these problems been festering beneath the surface for been very supportive of the school which i work i thought enough of the of the product brand that my son in law and so with that said a little bit about myself i've been a technical educator involved with automotive diagnostics and troubleshooting for almost thirty years i've been witness to many evolutionary changes over that time when i first began teaching northeastern oklahoma am college electronic fuel injected vehicle relatively new over the years automotive technologies continue to progress from fundamental mechanical systems to more sophisticated electrical electronic systems now as an automotive technical educator is southern illinois university in carbondale i found electrical diagnostic skills to be supreme when important in diagnosing and repairing model modern automobiles and many are stating and analyzing circuits and components based on my knowledge of real world failures and components i purposely duplicate multiple types of electrical problems in donated vehicles for my students to study to diagnose this provides my students with an opportunity to analyze  information and actively diagnose problems so you automotive technology graduate to found employment in virtually every aspect of the automotive industry students graduating the technical skills to work closely with automotive design engineers to ensure a labile vehicle service in real world situations i believe the exemplary student placement record as a result of the rigor of the program and the emphasis is on a problem solving it stands to reason  my daily teaching responsibilities would include application and understanding of electronic throttle control diagnostics perspective in my employment to research and study multiple vehicles and electronic throttle control system diagnostics  trouble code in the vehicles computer is no guarantee that a problem does not exist i instruct all my automotive students for this fundamental statement you can have a code with no problem and you can have a problem with my curiosity with toyota electronic  control systems began simply with a search for the truth concerning out and intended acceleration i recently purchased a two thousand and ten toyota tundra and with the growing attention in the media do what seem to be increasing advance of sudden unintended acceleration i made a decision to investigate the foundation of these claims on my own based on my working knowledge of controls i did not expect the system to be easily fooled without detecting circuit and setting in diagnostic trouble codes it was late one evening when i made a startling discovery electrical circuit faults could be introduced in the electronic throttle control system without the discovery open a window of opportunity within electronic throttle control system for a potential problem without it without a code set the vehicle computer will not logically enter into a fail safe mode of operation vehicle manufacturers have recommended recognize the importance of electronic throttle control system for exactly as they intend it since a vehicle computer will only react to defective sensory inputs outside the range of the program limitations of the circuit is defective as far as a computer is absence of fail safe strategies could potentially result in a runaway engine the importance of these issues raised in electronic throttle control system fail safe strategy should not be underestimated sudden unintended acceleration of vehicles is explain the sudden unintended acceleration but the only document that they gave us to address the phenomenon of sudden unintended acceleration in a systematic way was a report from this  month done by a outside engineering consulting firm called exponent and we've asked people to evaluate exponents analysis and they said it was not a very good analysis in fact they thought it  explanation now we're going to hear from mr lentz and he is going to say to us that we have designed our electronic throttle control systems with multiple fail safe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure we have never found a malfunction that caused unintended acceleration as mr latest testimony we're going to hear a little bit dr gilbert important directly from the driver if that circuitry or if that sensor is in error then it's quite possible that that command that's being given vehicles on board computer will be there is a there is a large amount of leniency in in the programming of the failed strategy that will last certain abnormalities to occur with out vehicles on board computer being able to detect that a fault exists is like an electronic short between two pedal sensors that could override the failed meaning that a failure would not be read as an error and w off engine power in a sudden unintended acceleration situation it could be interpreted as a short so in other words you discovered scenario where up earlier entailed as accelerator pedal sensors would not trigger an error code and would not cut off the engine power in the event of a failure how long did it take you to discover this problem you spend millions of dollars and spend years studying it take for you to spend to come up with this conclusion with equipment that i had on hand basically very little if anything well it's really astounding because what you're describing are findings for us that relate to reports of sudden and tended acceleration and my understanding is that you did this but toyota did not did you report your findings to tell you and if you heard from the company about your report yes sir i did i placed a call to toyota in california through the channels that i knew  and days went by without a reply and eventually they did call me back and i talked with i'm told some engineers with toyota and i told them exactly what i had and expressed my concern for this type of a problem and in that conversation i told him that you know specifically what i've done is introduce a fault within the electronic system that should have been detected as a as a as a circuit fault and reduced engine power now can we say with certainty what what you concluded is the absolute cause for the sudden notice what this does is it opens the opportunity to have other problems occur without detection so the essential point here is that if toyota didn't believe this could happen they didn't look for it and look for other explanations the driver was stepping on the pedal the floor mat was a problem the pedal was sticky they didn't look at the fact that the electronic throttle might have been a problem because they had a fail safe but they did look to see if the fail safe failed mr chairman i just think that we need to look at all the explanations and not to put in the way which  chairman for i want to ask some questions to mr gilbert but i want to ask mr ms smith some questions first i listen to your test my watching on television in my office so i've been participating visually in the hearing even though i haven't here in person mr smith when your car was going down the highway it just kind of went crazy that's a very non technical term but it and you apparently did everything you could you tried to put it  neutral you tried to turn the ignition you put both feet on the bright and it just kept going in that right that's correct and somehow god intervened and it slowed down and you finally got out of  triple did anybody inspect the car to see if there were physical cuts in the wiring are somehow the electrical components had been shorted out did anybody do that inspection may i answer yes or i was in my vehicle trying to catch up with it which was impossible at least when i got there wh created some sort of a fault situation in the electronics and i was just interested if anybody inspected your car after the fact to see if in fact there was a  short circuit and again i looked under the hood of a toyota yesterday and it there's so much stuff under there now i couldn't work on one of my life depended on it so you know i don't know how but i would are ok because i see minus four minutes and twenty seconds to go right now i want to go to mr gilbert the minorities not had an opportunity the minority staff to interview you we only found out you were going to testify late yesterday afternoon but it appears just looking at your biography that you're very credible and respected in the industry if i understood what you said you decided on your own to to look into this art and tell yo to approach you and ask you to look into this i did this on my own you did this on your own and you actually went out and bought a car you got access to a car i should explain a little bit from what little minority staff and myself have been able to evaluate your testimony you're saying that there is there could be some sort of a electronic physical fault in the electronics system a physical impairment that would cause an electric circuit malfunction is that are you saying there is a physical defect and actual impairment in terms of a cut or a some sort of a friction point place for all accelerator pedal position sensors manufacturers put on bickley they try to circuitry that is redundant in other words and if you look in the in the you can see an example of this they run a separate they actually have two signal circuits within the within the pedal position sensor itself they have each has their own power supply each has their own ground circuit and each has the own signal circuit back the reason for that is so that one circuit is able to verify the integrity and work with the other do i make myself clear i made an i took electrical engineering i'm ok great i made c d s but i did ok great i did take it  it's like having a witness one signal is a witness for the other to make sure that both are exactly on track so that whatever is being sent to the vehicles on board computer is exactly correct  that said if for some reason that circuit becomes compromised shorted to power shorted ground or shorted signal to signal then at that point you should be able within the vehicles computer to logically why would you be driving down the road at sixty sixty five miles an hour maybe even even faster with your foot on the braking your foot on the accelerator pedal at the same time the logical you shouldn't logically you should not but it's something if we have an incorrect signal going into the vehicles on board computer plus the application for brake the p c m would say we've got a problem shuttered and that didn't happen in their  about expired last question and hopefully we can really get into this later in detail to do the test that you did did you physically impair the electronics of the cars you tested in anything the only thing that we did was we tapped into the accelerator pedal position sensor circuits so that we could monitor voltages and modify those circuits in such a way that we could manipulate if you would the signals going to the on board but in layman's term your hypothesis is it is possible there could be a computer malfunction and it is possible if they don't have this default mechanism and overrides it in the absence the computer know should it start as a general rule in neutral absolutely will if you did have the right back to exactly mrs smith in your testimony you have attached the documents provided committee and exhibit b in which you received a  on your complaint is that correct and in there do they say if properly maintain brakes will always override the acceleration that's what it says  and in this case about your instant two totally different systems would have to fail at exactly the same time the throttle linkage and the brakes and if properly maintained the brakes would always override the acceleration is out they told you that's what it that's the letter i got that's what they taught me mr gilbert dr gilbert you heard dismissed testimony you heard the without an override well halt and you're right there's going to be our pretty good crash and i hope i can survive that didn't work here so obviously something's wrong here if you get a reverse i can answer exactly what's happened in her when your car is on a wrecker and you come to put it in  neutral so you can tow it the engine should not start up and start reading shut it ok so besides all this electronics we just got some basic mechanics at least in this car is not working mr cain you said you went to the public record and look at th public records and you saw two thousand two hundred sixty three incidents if you will of sudden unexpected unintended acceleration half of those could not be explained away or my math is pretty good that's one thousand one hundred thirty one cases can't be explained away so it's not the pedal sticking it's not the mat what else can it be under this electronic throttle control system what else is left electronics right i think that you know when we look at the complaints in you eliminate the physical impediments that could possibly cause us in this case remember the physical impediments are very limited because we have all electronics controlling these cars and you rule out the driver error issue you have only one thing left which is a control system of these cars in interviewing many many consumers in reviewing incidents of complaints what we're seeing is incentives that cannot be explained by either one of the sticky pedal or by the fl simply because the drivers in witnesses have often seen this including folks who actually brought them to toyota dealers in the us have witnessed the cars racing without any driver without any floor manager interference and without a stick or sticky pedal so for these one thousand one hundred thirty some incidents sort of ruled out the physical part cordoning what you can never conclusively rule out physical just from all of those complaints but certainly the evidence suggests very strongly that there's more going on when one of the things that has happened in this crisis is a consumer voice has been tamped down and you heard from the smiths their story is very similar what they report they are told credible consumers complaints have been used against them saying it's not credible you know these are serious scenarios where folks are urgent and people certainly can make mistakes but there are too many problems that continue to be reported by consumers that are consistent smiths for sharing your very compelling story with us i've always wondered what would happen if i am the first and we went into reverse going down the road and i've always been fearful of accidentally doing that now to understand that nothing happens i guess i don't know that i'm mollified by that mr gilbert let me ask you a question on this said that you did these tests that you mr barton just went through and that concluded that this may be a very serious problem and you called toyotas and they took some time getting back to you but they did get back to you they get back with me i explain the explain the situation in  i've not heard back ok so what was the length of time between the moment the light bulb went off above your head and and toyota got back with you about the about getting more information first off i wanted to be careful that i wasn't crying wolf and so i wanted to make sure that what i had found was repeatable in it and of course i wanted to look into the literature to see how in the world could this possibly fall within the guidelines of setting a d t c in addition to that i want to test it on another vehicle i should state for the record the toyota tundra that we worked on was clearly labeled as a result of that it could be somewhat different so i tried it on another and had very similar results and at that point i become very alarmed ok so from that point to the point where toyotas gets back with you that are we talking about probably a matter of a few days a few days were you satisfied with the responses you got from toyota after after talking with them initially you know expressed their concern  days went by and i didn't hear a response back but then i did and the gentleman i spoke with at toyota had set up a conference call with some design people  to look into it he took it very seriously or did it well if you were satisfied that things were were proceeding with correct dispatch at any point did you consider ur hotline and and also i written a letter and it was registered to and their response to you was i got a response back on the electronic version story of this harrowing high speed chase down the freeway and what would you expect to see i mean if you were if you were called on the scene after the car was pulled away to the resale lot what would you expect to see would you expect to see i mean is there like a bundle of wires are there cable holders would you expect some chafing or what would you be looking for to see the real world the real world event occurred with the theoretic that you produced in the laboratory ok if i may i'll use an analogy that i use in class a lot of times if you're sitting at home watching your television and the television screen blanks in this case it might have a link but i guess if i just did your answers to mr martin's questions there would have to be some breach in the insulation and there would have to be two wires coming in contact with each other or could this all be a fault of the computer chip and the logic employed there ian if you review the service information you will see that typically what is or what is our problem our problem is we need to ensure that the integrity of the of what's being sent to the computer is consistent with what's being done and everybody's on the same page so the problem lies in where where where does the problem lie it can actually be in in a number of places it could be within the sensor itself the center itself it could be within the wiring and what else would there be any diagnostic feature which someone could look at that and say here's a problem with the sensor possibly ok well problem being a breach  insulation or it could be but it may not be an obvious problem it may be something that's in a microchip somewhere it's malfunction if you will if you if you look at the report here's our problem so we just got your stuff really and what is it about the toyota design that up doesn't allow it to detect that abnormality the proximity of the two sensors is i would say it's not so much the proximity of the two sensors but the strategy the strategy that they use to take circuit calls between these two  voltages rise together on on on a plane as you increase the accelerator pedal opening as a result of that if they're somehow interconnected because these are signal circuits all about walter and if those two are somehow interconnected through a resistance or or a defective chip or or wiring bad connection i don't know i need to have a vehicle that's actually failed to investigate further under under normal well but we did just get mr gilbert's testimony very recently would it be permissible to ask him to remain with us through not the next panel but the panel after that and perhaps things will come up with mr lance testifies that we'd like to get clarification and mr gilbert would be able to participate in that would be permissible i'm not going to guarantee we're to call mr gilbert back not sure what his plans are but time's up we're going to next one mr gilbert want to stay around there may be a possibility to almost like i'm thinking of marisa torme and my cousin vinnie as you start explaining things to us about what happened to the to the car but i feel like the judge actually listening to that testimony can either of you please explain the differences between the electronic throttle control system used by toyota and those used of the makes which also have the electronic throttle control system is a difference the most unison separated by a given amount of voltage i might also add that difference between those two bell teaches is very very small according to the it is allowed to be almost exactly if you will the same voltage they only have to be separated by two one hundred seventy to still be considered by the vehicles on board computer as is correct with that said if you look at some other vehicle manufacturers in one of the first electronic throttle systems that i investigated was one that was made behind and i actually did some some training in atlanta georgia for the honda training instructors where i investigated how it worked failsafe properties and that sort of thing and basically gave the honda instructor some information so that they could use in their classes as a result of that i was able to look at a lot of different differences between the two and the thing that's interesting and if you look look at the very next page in the upper right hand corner that is a typical example of what you might find on a ford or or a honda or some other manufacturer to signal the difference between most of the over you give me a little bit confused i was just simply going to ask you to tell me what it was but let's let me go ahead and toronto maintains that their elected control has built in redundancies and sensors and that if there was a problem with sensor the car's computer would recognize the different signals and it would go into this so called fail safe mode can you identify a point when toyota should have realized that the problems are caused more experience or were not mechanical but they were probably electrical what is the signal that toyota missed in this instance if i might refer to the exponent report one of the things that i thought was interesting about that report was the very thing that i did to introduce a fault within the system was exactly the thing that they left out of the report they did nineteen but they did not do a circuit analysis of a short between the two circuits between the two signal circuits and that was one of the things that i did very upfront was to see if those two circuits could be somehow intertwined or interconnected now the reason i did that was because they strategy in how they detect error codes has some has a wide window of opportunity where errors can be introduced into that wide window without setting an error code this is in stark contrast to some of the other in fact set under these conditions so you don't in other words load that gun because what toyota has in their system is essentially a sensor that goes into non sale c so now whatever happens that sensor whatever's that sensor reacts to the computer's just going to do what it says because there's no fail safe any longer so there is an outlier or do you believe that much more because we have a lot of witnesses on our second panel can we  yeah i do i do agree that i think it when you look at what happened and i don't take lightly my criticism of the agency because frankly i've worked very closely with a number of the folks in the defects office they work very hard they have an impossible job they're always chasing americans and so much you know it's a real good question it would look at this very closely and i could say that you know one of things that really needs to happen because we often are evaluating the very data that has as well and we can reach some different conclusions but at the end of the day i think they really need to pay close attention when you use the tools that are already there i think a number of errors were made in the process of these investigations not so much that the tools weren't available as much as the tools were not employed we look for example at surveillance systems likely early warning reporting system this committee was involved in following firestone the use of that data in a meaningful way would help have triggered some investigations into the electronic throttle control doing statistical analyses of the complaints like we did with the quality control systems folks their analyses have given us of the again the very public data we have access to have given us the tools to look in the right direction so it's the informed information we use that then do our investigations and i think that those tools need to be employed more properly the consumer voice has to be heard this is a very controversial issue since day one when i started working on these issues sudden acceleration has consistently been blamed on drivers we have a report from it's a from one nine hundred eighty nine that was thrown out in response to a most recent defect petition that report frankly is irrelevant to today's technology in the fact that it really points mostly to driver error issues we have to listen to the to the consumers what are they saying in listen carefully and i think what we've heard in our interviews with many consumers who experience firsthand investigators when it's investigators came in with a very preconceived notion that this could not possibly happen they took toyota's word for what happened that this can't possibly happen and that's really what concerns us is that investigations need to be open minded without preconceived notion in the tools need to be in place in furthermore the council at the age the must be willing to sink their teeth into complex issues even though they may take time  underdog here and we certainly you know i can empathize being an underdog in a small company working in against the tide you have to really use your resources well and i know the agency struggles with that they certainly could use the technological expertise or certainly able to reach out more frequently have the ability to recruit reach out more frequently to folks that have the expertise like we were able to do when we reached out to dr gilbert and he reached out to us we can move quickly in doing that without the bureaucracy and i think that the agency cain statement he states you do mr gilbert he states that you were commissioned to test toilets electronic throttle control system what direction or parameters were you given and was is and what was the contribute to a better understanding of electronic age of controls and the system malfunctions that was the purpose of that because of what i had discovered with the   and so that's what i looked at was how can how can a fault occur or how could a fault occur within this system this particular system that could possibly not be detected by the vehicles onboard computer and lead to some sort of an unsafe condition directions were you given pretty much freedom to do whatever i needed to do  when did you start your work good question i think but if i could jump in here for a moment i think dr gilbert and we had some communications between him and my engineer in our office over a period of time and he reported his findings my inclination at that point was immediately that he was on to something interesting and we said great what will it take to get you to investigate this further and if you go it indicated he needed some additional tools and he needed a little bit of time because he had some vehicles and we authorized him to have do whatever he needed to do to document this is quickly as possible and he and i were both very concerned about the public safety aspect of this which is frankly why we have very little parameters we simply were all putting together a herculean effort to get some testing done in a document we could because clearly there is a diagnostic strategy when toyota that is appearing to be an outlier now again i want to emphasize do we know this is the cause of unintended acceleration the answer is no we have a book in here with dr gilbert's work we have a book and on this and with consumer complaints in the interesting part is this matches up against what dr gilbert is telling us are there other possibilities absolutely we've always from the very beginning we've maintained that this problem is multifaceted in multi root cause there is no one singular problem here  gilbert is pointing out to us is informing us to look at the next steps maybe if i could expand on that a little bit you know i was my curiosity was first picked  y by watching the news media and the you know the publicity that was going on about that and i you know i had first called   i just simply investigated when i found what i did initially the first thing i did was i drafted a letter to  to jump ahead if you will into this to getting that and so that's what i did with approval of the university we proceeded into their research well mr gilbert when you were you told when you began your work that this may be used in preparation of litigation you know i assume that that's where it could go ok my main my main search was for the truth if like to would like to take this research a little farther also how many vehicles across how many brands are manufacturers did you do similar tests on have we done currently to da fifty we also have a chrysler product that we're you know planned on on using we just simply ran out of time to be able to do the type of exhaustive testing that we need to be able to because area need to tighten up parameters change the strategy all together or do something to ensure that the type of problem that i've been able to introduce into this system is detectable by detection that means that then thank you mr chairman mr mr smith i really want to thank you for coming today i think the thing that's got to be the most frustrating is this horrible thing happen to you and then nobody believes you with the same we had the same situation in colorado around the same time where we had a family a mother of young children she was driving a prius and this happened to her on the highway in the mountains and she went and she finally she did what you did mrs smith went off the highway and drove into some trees so that she wouldn't hurt anybody else luckily she lived but but the same thing happened the toyota the toyota lawyer sent them a letter saying it obviously it was some problem with your maintaining the car because there was nothing wrong so thank you for it's hard for people you to sit here and say this and for people to deny your credibility well i just want to say that i have a couple of questions for you mr gilbert you heard the smith talk today about what happened and and i'm sure you've read their testimony as well is what is what counts as happening with our car consistent  staff that toyotas was able to duplicate your test the toy toilet a lawyer lawyers also said that they had the same outcome that you had in your task but with no  error codes but they also said the conditions that you imposed on your testing were quote sabotage because you manipulated the electronics to make that happen and they claimed that this condition in my opinion and now certainly most of us aren't engineers i never even got a kind of engineering class because i never took one can you explain the types of conditions that might cause these results in the real world it could be an anomaly in the accelerator pedal sensor is it could be a problem within the wiring harness it could be a problem within the vehicle on board controller as well the important question to ask here is if i am able to interconnect these two signals it is possible that accelerator pedal position sensors could have been mis manufactured from the very day that they were built bale safety texting capabilities of the on board computer are going to accept that as valid so it is possible that miss manufacturing  some component along the line has has somehow compromise the safety i don't think i could happen in the real world absolutely ok and is it significant to you that toyotas independent consultant confirmed your ca unable to figure this out previously maybe they didn't ask the right questions thank you or some sort of patch to institute a failsafe where if the accelerator and brakes are both on the brakes when but you also said that not all cars could be updated with this patch what do you think toyota should do for the cars that are on the road that can't be easily updated i mean is this something where nitsa should be called for some sort of a hardware fix or to swap the c p u or how do we with the cars that are in easily addressed with this software patch you know i think that that raises a question from the very g what is it what are the tech technological problems that give rise to that i mean frankly these vehicles have substantially similar electronic throttle control systems going back as far as two thousand and two and i have not heard that there is a technological obstacle to installing a brake override something we have advocated independently of dr gilbert in his work we believe it is a critical safety omission on behalf of toyota to lead us in part to where we are today simply because you know driver control in the event of a runaway engine i think it's important to note that the very initial problem needs to also be addressed in that the failsafe detection capabilities of this electronic throttle control system apparently fall short of where they need to be the failsafe for the brake pedal override if you will is is just an added measure safety in the event that if for some reason this circuit was in effect then at least the driver has some second course of action that should force it into a failsafe mode that's exactly what i want and there may be required you know there may be possible that other vehicle technician or anyone to rectify the problems that you've gone through over the last couple of years have i been contacted i needed and yes you got no response from your dealer or from the technician then from that over the last few years is that correct that's correct yes in light of the recalls has anyone come back in contact with you now ma'am and we've been told i think that in the case of unintended acceleration what should happen is applied a break put the car in neutral and bring it to a safe stop  isn't that what you did with that we have tried and it did not stop the car that did not but also out there but the thing i didn't mention of course on the panel now about my response or their lack of response what is it that you have generally seen in your work with other manufacturers is this the usual response to that that that's a good question certainly we've certainly seen other manufacturers  try and push these measures down i think what's particularly troubling is that to hold a special place here in the united states amongst owners you know we've heard from many of the members here that a lot of brand people looked at say it as being out of those reliable company as a company that we all can stand behind and that we know we know that their products are reliable and i think what is the crisis that we're in today is in part because that vaunted image that they've created is not meshing with their response and certainly not the response they've given to consumers and that's particularly troubling and i think that's why we've seen them fall so hard and so fast but but the answer to your question though because while because on the spot the response of other manufacturers has been similar unfortunately in in crises we see manufacturers act in ways that often ignore some of the public safety issues that need to be up front that's been my the fact of the engine revving one of the things that the onboard computer will do is if the r p m s of an engine get to a certain limit in order to keep from destroying the engine the rev limiter will kick in your testimony of speaking on behalf of the people who want to live to tell their stories of what happened with the sudden acceleration that they did not and anticipate and i want to thank you on behalf of all those people for having the courage to come tell your story but as you say i've sat here throughout this hearing i'm struck by the fact that you both seem like reasonable intelligent articulate sophisticated people and yet every time you raised a concern about this problem people treated you like you were crazy so speaking for all those consumers who have gone through similar frustrations i want you to tell this committee what it's like to know that you're not crazy that you know what happened and have nobody in a position of authority who's willing to do something about it well  very very angry and i tried and my has been tried so hard to send it out to the media and  no response from that about to be treated like we were there's no words to express that anger that was there even get slapped in the face term after term and to literally me that and i want to talk about that and that i want to talk about my cousin vinny with mr cain and mr gilbert is probably the best movies on trial advocacy and engineering i've ever seen and one of the scenes a classic scene in that movie is when they're sitting in this rundown hotel room arguing over who is responsible for a leaking faucet and rissa told me mona lisa vito the character of that movie says to joe pass that she turned off the faucet he said are you sure and she said i'm sure and he said are you sure you're sure and she said i am and one of the reasons that scene is so important is because i have right here the reference manual on scientific evidence in federal court rooms all over the country to deal with scientific evidence and engineering and there's a specific chapter in here called success and failure in engineering that gets right to the heart of that faucets and it talks about the role of failure in engineering design failure is a central idea in engineering in fact one definite engineering might be that it is a failure when a device machine or structure is designed by an engineer every way in which it might credibly fail you're not doing your job as an engineer are you and one of the things that we know is that and this is something that's true in a lot of it's not just engineering but another part of this manual says one of the apparent paradoxes of science and engineering is that more is learned from failures than from successes isn't that true in the field that both of you work in that it's the rigor of a discipline of repeated testing and ruling out a potential causes that lead you to the ultimate truth of what's causing a problem and this same manual goes on and talks about how successful designs can lead to failure and we've seen that were a product which is used on multiple actual applications hundreds and thousands maybe millions of times does not encounter an outside events like the ones you've been talking about that will trigger trigger a catastrophic incident that can lead to the sudden death of people like we've heard about at this hearing and it's not that these companies are bad or that intending to build defects into the product product it's just sometimes the rigorous application of design analysis and failure analysis has not been applied to correct the problem do you agree with that mr chairman i think that's been one of the problems with getting to the core of this problem all along is that we've been looking for mechanical failures that are a cheap easy fix and haven't done the type of rigorous failure analysis to get to the heart of the problem and i think mr bradley that concludes questions by all members of the subcommittee so do you think that the problem that you found in toilet might be common to the other vehicles are present in other vehicles it is possible that there may be other vehicles   when i when i first started into this i had a pre conceived notion that it was probably going to be impossible to so you can imagine my surprise when i found it was a straightforward as it was interesting in looking at these problems is that you know we're now at a place where regulations are still very behind the technology the technology that's in these cars that controls these cars the fact that we don't have requirements for example for a to seem to have already decided that the event you experience was caused by a floor mat trapping of your accelerator pedal and you must have been surprised you must not have been surprised when it's a incident report blame the floor mats for your hearing harrowing experience so do you think that it was a floor mat that caused the unintended acceleration no  and the committee received a copy of a vehicle an incident site inspection memorandum for your vehicle drafted by scott yon an investigator within it's on may second two thousand and seven and mr summit halfway through the first paragraph states that need to states quote no electronic interrogation of any vehicle system was performed that means that the decided that it did not need to investigate whether electronics played a role in your wife's experience how do you feel about it's his decision not to even inspect your car's electronic system well it was when i was say that in the mail i called mr yon and questioned him about that because i told him all along even when he came down and said it was not my floor mats match floor mats did not make all those other things happen to my car  at the top that he told me that further investigation was going to be done on that top of vehicle that it that it was an ongoing investigation and did you receive any further notification about what happened or did you inquire about receive nothing else and out at that point he said that he was being taken off of the investigation and then i thought that was rather strange concludes questions from members of the subcommittee there are a number of members here from the full committee as i recognized earlier and they will be allowed to ask questions mr brewer questions please five minutes thank you very much for the purpose of open disclosure in what they do and i would also recognize i don't care whether it's toyotas or any other company out there if in fact they've done things to cover up an error  that their brand blemished and it requires good faith commitments on their part to then restore trust and confidence of people to buy that product and so i can recognize that  toyota has to get off their heels and on their toes to do this at the same time with regard to open disclosure i am comfortable here today mr chairman with regard to some of the testimony the testimony the reason i say that is  that one of the nice things about our advocacy system in america is that the truth will always come out some way somehow and that we also have to make sure that the advocacy number of allegations against toyota related to sudden unintended acceleration you noted in your report but it was not funded by attorneys consumers advocacy groups or experts interested in the subject matter it was not produced for litigation against toyota motor company nonetheless like to acknowledge five attorneys who sponsored some of your research into sudden unintended acceleration in toyota vehicles you then go on to list the five firms what does the word sponsored mean let me tell you that you know what does the word we're financing mean we have done work for these folks to represent the victim how much have you been paid by these firms frankly i have not a lot of calculation on that but i can tell you  report of these five attorneys of whom have sponsored your research how many of these law firms have right now are suing toyota i believe every one of them they represent a voice of  everyone and so at a at the problem that we are dealing with today we are informed by those are you you are acknowledging that you are being sponsored by five litigation trial lawyer firms of whom are suing toyota that correct if you here's my question to you do you acknowledge that the five law firms that have sponsored you are involved in litigation against toyota that is accurate thank you thank you now with with with regard to mr gilbert i don't understand what the word now that we know we've kind of dissected what the word sponsored means sponsored means being paid what is the word commission to me are you being when mr king commissions you hundred thousand how much money are you being paid by mr cain whatever he's paying me it's not enough i can answer that question if you would like i paid retaining how much are you bringing my pay dr gilbert eight hundred dollars and i've sent him some technical equipment that cost me approximately four thousand dollars how much how much more money is to be paid we have entered agreement his time he will be paid one hundred fifty dollars an hour for his service moving forward moving forward ok so what we have here is you are being sponsored by five law firms of whom are suing toyota and you have now hired someone to prepare a report that could also be used in litigation later on now i'm getting a better picture now with regard to this question about manipulation in order for you i don't understand what the word manipulation means in order for you to  on i might back up and say that i had i had the decision on whether to push the send button i had the decision on my own to contact i had the decision on my own to contact mister to be quite honest at the at the moment that i discovered i was sick at my stomach this chairman i think what you're doing here is the right  thing we will find the problem there will be a lot of research done out here i don't think this is the this is just the starting starting point to find the problem and i think america as chairman has learned that whenever from the dateline incident where whereby they recreated th member said we've done over we've looked at over a hundred thousand pages of documents we will continue to have further hearings in this area this is probably the first of a number of hearings next  number the committee your turn for questions please mr chairman thank you very much for this opportunity i guess i need a star by just making an observation that i think you can be a member of congress you can be a plaintiff's lawyer and you can be a manufacturer and we would all still have safety first so i'll ask mr cain mr gilbert the fact that you had these relationships as been explained has that altered or modified any of your testimony here today city but i would have been really proud to have had that particular enterprise in my district because of the type of corporate serious citizen that toyota has been in our area the opportunities that it's present but that doesn't mean that any individual or corporation is not going to be held to the same standard whether they're in your district or not now i do have a question mr kane you would attribute sudden unintended acceleration to floor mats in certain instances would you not absolutely as we've said in our report we agree that that can happen and toyota has addressed that very late yes they have lately they've addressed it is it is the automobile distinct condition that you should be concerned about it is it probably be experience for years and have not addressed engine all models i do wish we were in a courtroom decide to have the help of a judge that you would answer the questions to simply without any editorializing unintended acceleration could also be caused by a sticky accelerator you don't dispute that do you say do you do dispute that the present corrective action being taken by toyota on the sticky acceleration is our pedal is not to do with unintended acceleration are maintaining acceleration at a certain point maintaining at one point is different it is not a sudden unintended acceleration and we can get into that debate but we've confused all of that if you haven't noticed but no one and i'm hoping maybe other panels and other committees will go into the different distinctions of when you hit the accelerator and it gets stuck as opposed to when you don't even touch it and the car goes out of control there these are huge differences which we're not even touching on my understanding so what i gather that what you're saying is what hasn't been tested might be a third culprit and that's going to be the electronic system that's what you're saying yes sir but at this point you wouldn't go on record and say and that could be the only clicking click agree the weakest brakes are stronger than the strongest engine so what happened to the smiths which wasn't their fault and totally out of control should happen to anyone but if you applied the brakes with all the humanly possible pressure that you have should have stopped the car should have should have brought the car to slow it down or stop it and if not why what would cause someone to be able to put that much pressure on that pedal and not have any result whatsoever first off let's ask the question let's say that the vehicle is at speeds sixty miles an small opening at best if you are at speed and the throttle snap will open you have to have two things to overcome you have the kinetic energy that was built up in that vehicle to get there which took a lot of power you also have now the full amount of the engine to try to overcome and so at that point and i believe that there's been some studies about braking distances even if even if your brakes were sufficient to bring that car under control it's going to extend the stopping distance considerably and when you do that the brakes start to overheat the hotter they get the less effective they become essentially it's all a brake system does it takes it takes steer without losing control so it's possible that you could lose your and our brake capability but still have full brake application because of the simple hydraulics of the system should work and i'm over my time as chairman thank you for being so generous mr kerry for questions please no questions for mister m that why did that not seize up at the transmission and drop it on the road some transmissions are designed you know and you're asking me to speculate a little bit because i you know i let me ask you this is there anything that you have found that would have prevented the vehicle from engaging the reverse gear does it have something hydraulically electronically that it was not capable of going into reverse at speed like that and then what about that on off switch the button in that car i can address that thank you ok that now w stretch their legs we are in recess thank you for inviting me here today my name is jim lentz i'm the president and chief operating officer of total motor sales usa in my testimony i will address toyotas recent recalls in the decisive actions that were taken to restore trust in the tens of millions of americans who purchase and drive our vehicles for two generations we provide americans with cars and trucks that are safe and reliable and we fully intend to produce even safer and higher quality vehicles into the future even as we pave the way for the next generation of electric vehicles and hybrids that our society needs in recent months we've not lived up to our high standards  customers and the public have come to expect from toyota put simply it's taken us too long to come to grips with a rare but serious set of safety issues despite all of our good faith efforts the problem has also been compounded by our poor communications within our company and with regulators and consumers while auto companies have recalls and all auto major auto companies have experienced complaints about intended acceleration toters recalls have caused concern among our customers i would like to assure the committee and the american people that nothing is more important to two other than the safety and the reliability of the vehicles that our customers drive we're committed to not only fixing the vehicles on the road and ensuring that they're safe but making all of our new vehicles better even more reliable through strict quality controls enhanced communication and redoubling our focus on putting the customer first on fifteen hundred dealers are making tremendous efforts to complete our recalls as quickly as conveniently as possible for our customers some dealers are staying open twenty four hours a day seven days a week and they're repairing vehicles at the rate of about fifty thousand a day thus far we've repaired nearly eight hundred thousand vehicles we've rigorously tested our solutions and we're confident that these repairs tow vehicles will make them alone among the safest on the road today our engineers have identified two specific mechanical causes of unintended acceleration covered by recalls we currently address these through our open recalls one involves floor mats that when loose or improperly fitted can entrap the accelerator pedal the other concerns accelerator pedals that can over time grow sticky with wear and humidity the solutions that we've developed are both affective and durable we are confident that no problems exist in our electronic products or systems in our vehicles we design our electronics our frontal system with multiple failsafe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure we've done extensive testing on the system and we've never found a man malfunction that's caused unintended acceleration additionally in december we asked exponent a world class engineering and scientific consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive independent analysis of our electronic throttle system with an unlimited budget their interim report confirms that it works as it's designed will make the results of this comprehensive evaluation of vailable to the public and to congress as soon as is completed so why is takes so long to get this to this point with respect to pedal entrapment tota conducted investigations of consumer complaints which focus too narrowly on technical issues without taking full account on the way consumers used our vehicles in the case of sticking accelerator pedals we failed to promptly analyze and respond to information emerging from europe and in the united states we acknowledge these mistakes we apologize for them and we've learned from them we now understand that we must think differently when investigating complaints and communicate faster better and more effectively with our customers and with our regulators our recent voluntary recalls of certain two thousand and ten prius and lexus hybrids and certain two thousand and ten tacoma trucks illustrate this approach we're also going further i'll present akio toyoda has announced a top to bottom review of our operations that he will personally lead with the support of a new chief quality officer from north america and our other principal regions we will ask independent outside experts to evaluate the findings to make sure that we meet or exceed industry standards or expanding our network of technical offices in the u s so we can gather information faster and respond more aggressively incident reports and we will stall advance brake override systems in all of our new models making us one of the first full line manufacturers to offer this customer confidence feature as standard equipment additionally were announcing that we will install this system i don't expanded range of vehicles including tacoma venza and sequoia models that are capable of accepting this new software we have previous announced the system would be installed in camry avalon lexus e s and i s models these actions underscore the tortoise going above and beyond what's necessary in terms of vehicle modifications and repairs to ensure that our customers can be completely confident in the safety and reliability of their cars and trucks chairman waxman subcommittee chairman sue pac and ranking members as well as members of committee these are only some of the steps that were taken to earn back the confidence of congress and the american people are two hundred thousand team members dealership employees and suppliers in the us are the backbone of that effort and i'm i mr levs thank you for your testimony your cooperation with this committee's investigation the past few months have not been a happy time for your company or for your customers people have been very anxious about what appears to be a rare situation but it is a very scary and possibly fatal situation if a car has a sudden acceleration in the car seems to be out of control  for the future you're suggesting that you're going to put in a system where the brake will override the gas pedal yes two thousand and eleven model your vehicle so with the exception of maybe one vehicle by the end of this calendar year  most of the vehicles that come into the u s will have a standard equipment a brake override system that will be helpful but let me ask you about the cars that are already on the road people have these vehicles you're not planning to do any retrofit of the of the brake over the gas pedal in those cars or are there are seven of those vehicles that are currently on the road that we are retrofitting there are seven seven models camry have a lot are going to retrofit all the all the vehicles and those that are technically possible we are retrofit with the possible problem if if the problem is due to something other than the mats or the sticky pedal i don't know the exact number of vehicles on the road that will have the boss system it is it is the majority but i can't tell you exactly what that percentage is i don't know majority of the vehicles on the road that are already on the road that will be retrofitted yes vehicles on the road will be retrofitted ok now i mentioned in my opening statement and  it's been well publicized that i've been critical of your assurances to the american people and i think we have a film we could show you but let's see if we can get that in how confident are you that this is it that you have found the problem behind unintended acceleration until you were very confident between the first recall that we've had in the entrapment of the pedal and now this on the on the overall  panel i think we haven't i have to be honest with you most people are listening to this and there's going to be an air of skepticism you came to us in october and said we believe that unintended acceleration is caused by floor mats entrapping the pedal then you came back in december and you said you know what there may be some sticking accelerator pedals we're going to be recalling these vehicles and then finally last week or or within the last two weeks you said we're going to stop production and we're going to look for a physical fix there air of questioning whether or not you really have your ducks in a row here in terms of unintended acceleration we are very confident that the fix in place is going to stop what's going on we're having some trouble with our sound system do you stand by that statement are you still confident that the two recalls that you put into place will solve the problem let me make sure that it's very clear on my statement ok unintended acceleration is i view it and define it is any time that a driver removes their import from the accelerator in the vehicle continues at some speed and there are many different causes for that there are mechanical causes whether it's a software issue a transmission where there could be an idle up from an air conditioner where there could be a faulty cruise control whether it could be a pedal in this case and entrap pa well what concerns me mr lance is that there seems to be a difference between your statement that was given on television and the statements of other toyota officials have given to our committee staff even your own counsel in a letter to us that the sticky pedals become large in a partially depressed position which typically does not translate into a sudden high speed acceleration event also it appears that you're trying to give assurances to people convince them that both of toyota's recent recalls will address the problem but our committee's investigation calls into accuracy your statement because seventy percent of the complaints of sudden unintended acceleration that come is customer call lines were from vehicles drivers or vehicles were not included in either of these recalls how do you respond to that well if i could the week that i was the week it seemed like a week the day that i was in new york doing interviews there were a number of television interviews there was also an audio conference call with about one hundred fifty journalists and if i could read to you just a response that i made to a question it's different than the one on television yes and is it but a consistent with what we're being told privately by your counsel and by your own i don't know exactly that is but can i just let me ask you to question just directly please do you believe that the recall on the on the carpet changes and the recall on the sticky pedal will solve the problem of sudden unintended acceleration not totally what do you need to do  need to continue to be vigilant and continue to investigate all of the complaints that we get from consumers that we have done a relatively poor job of doing in the past and why haven't you looked at the possibility of the  electronics and the computer system being possible fault as we heard from the first witness is what we have lowered is our first we have looked in to the electronics and based on the testing that we've done only in japan and now that you saw the initial response from their testing we continue to test the t c s in japan as well as now what exponent is doing and we have not found a malfunction that doesn't mean  stop but exponent evaluation has been very very criticized as not very well done not scientifically the sample was too small unreliable report do you have something more than that you haven't given us and i am relying on the information i have received from japan that they are confident that testing has been done in japan and they are confident that there are not issues with to you mr les my time is up let me just tell you i'm not confident that you're looking for something that you don't think exists because if you're not looking for it you won't find it and we had these two witness es earlier this spent three hours and came up with the possibility that this sudden acceleration could take place because of the electronics and the computer system that report that you gave to our committee from many many more steps to complete and we'll provide you with a final when they when they get it done that's just the big bad report is the beginning but that only beginning that beginning only started this month it started in february of tw only starting to look at it and you had an analysis done that was quite inadequate we need to we need to be sure that you're doing a full and adequate analysis of something you've denied but what other witnesses have shown us continue on that same line that there were chairman was just following yes you have a responsibility to do these things but there is also a federal agency who's responsible for traffic safety that has an oversight role here what have they told you about their independent testing of your electronic throttle control systems i don't know specifically of the results of that test other than there have been many many cases in the past that have been opened investigations that have been closed and they've not found anything i can't tell you specifically what their past testing paradigm was well it of course we've had so much data in front of us today there's one graph here that shows the complete the complaints of u nintended uncommanded acceleration it really started in two thousand and two which my understanding is that's the year that the that the electronic throttle control actually came into being in your cars is that correct i believe two thousand and one might have been the first year on ls but it's very close what now you heard mr gilbert testify here and actually his response was to bill your question that he cut no wires when he did his simulation have your guys been able to reproduce his results without cutting wires exponent in their initial study i was up at exponent a few weeks ago and they showed how they tested the vehicle  for a vehicle short and other situations that involve electronics from the pedal to the throttle e c m and what were they able to reproduce what mr gilbert showed you know in every case they went into an area code as as try to find that it's not in our interest if a problem exists and not find it and not figure it out so if it exists we encourage the mr gilbert's of the world to look at it just seems a little too good to be true that somebody's getting figured this out in three and a half hours when an industry has been looking for this for ten years now you may not be fair to ask you to testify to this but you heard mr phillips testimony do you or someone in your organization think it is possible that what he's described would be responsible for what happened and if it did what you expect to see some physical evidence chafing of wires crossing of wires or something that actually brought two circuits into contact with the correct amount of resistance and then putting the five vo on top of it to create uncommanded acceleration is there anyone in your organization who's able to talk to us about that vince is here is one of our attorneys and he has been working with exponent and at some point we'd love to get and that mr gilbert maybe together but if if you would like vince can give you a very quick explanation of what they found i'm i'm not an engineer right i probably messes up you know since we're taking testimony under oath i don't know what's permissible here let me just ask you a question on the on the fix because i know your guys your dealers and in my area toilet of lewisville have been i mean they've been johnny on the spot with this they were getting people in takes a twenty minutes fix it but if they're doing the wrong if they're fixing the wrong problem and they really need to be developing whatever you do is called the the the advanced override for the brake system then you wonder if we're going to have to call people in yet for another another fix to the problem now what actually fixes the accelerator pedal what have you developed that will fix that problem of the recall there are two different issues in the case of a sticky accelerator pedal they're actually putting in a pressure persistent cut steel plate we call it a shim  hygroscopic in absorbing water and becoming compatible with with a proper function presumably that's a precision manufactured component is it not i would assume so i don't know anything about the manufacture fact if you have to have seven or nine different size well i think it has to do with the amount of wear that's actually on that ship so they went when the technician takes the panel off they actually measure how large the gap is and that determines the size of the shim that they put in the steel plate but it does strain credulity that you would have to be a precision designed grommet or whatever this shim that we're talking about it just doesn't seem reasonable that they would have to be so many different sizes in order to fix the problem if the problem was the pedal absorbing absorbing atmosphere well it's the size difference is in very small millimeters i mean to the naked eye you can tell the difference between the biggest of the smallest  you go down the road they're very very close in total size but what it what it really does is you know it ensures that excess friction won't build up in the pedal and what's happened in the past is  with where it gets shiny and once humidity is added to that it actually builds up too much friction and that's when the pedal starts to bind or possibly stick now this fix on this recall i mean  wait traffic safety agency administration they have they've signed off on this and feel that this fixes the problem is they looked at it themselves they don't sign off we show them our solution and they don't disagree so it's we we are confident it's the right fix what about the this is the fix of putting the advanced brake override system in advance bike overrides in production vehicles has already started on the exit vehicles like the s and camry but those of us who have older model toyotas that want to have that degree of safety built in for our families how do we go about getting that it's a it's a reflash on those on those seven vehicles and a varies by by vehicle by model year to reflash me to reset the computer it's a fairly flash for the computer to be able to have that and technically how difficult is that to do it takes anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes and how much does it cost we're providing that it just seems reasonable that that that was something that rebooted not the other ones it depends on the feasibility of the unit some some of the computers have different types of chips some of them some are not rewriteable basically they're hard coded so can't you fix those rewrite it the program so you all your vehicles are you say to these owners who are not going to have this safety feature added to it they're just going to continue to drive down the road and hope they don't have a sudden unintended acceleration well again the incident the possibility of that happening is very very slim but understanding if it happens to you it's a very very important incident are very very slim let's take a look at that from so let's go to shim because you talked a lot about the shim there with mr burgess but the documents that we asked for and i put this in our letter  fact your code so actually said quote typically a sticky pedal does not translate into a sudden high speed acceleration event so this shim isn't going to solve the sudden unintended acceleration it will prevent unintended acceleration high speed most likely not because in the few incidents where you had a pedal stick it's a very low throttle opening when i was chairman waxman point of the complaint you have in your own approximately seventy percent of the sudden unintended acceleration events in your own database involves vehicles are not subject to the floor mat or the sticky pedal recall so seventy percent of the problem isn't being addressed by the recall correct well couple couple issues the most important part about it is those in many cases our customer a customer  generated i don't want to call him complaints but feedback to us that they're having an issue what's most important is that we are able to investigate those as quickly as possible so we can understand what's going on and in the past we have not done a very good job of which is the sudden unintended acceleration you disagree that well i'm not sure if his database is sudden or unintended i don't want to get into into you know what is is here but it's there is a big difference between unintended and sudden and intense my understanding is the database through nitsa includes other things such as surges whether it be from a cruise control a transmission or other issues so i  can't tell you from the day well that they're using but some the complaints are like recently i put it in come the park in there i pop over the curb i had a tree that one gentleman would off the cliff that his wife died yes and and that wasn't a high speed but that was a sudden unintended acceleration it doesn't always have to be at high speed correct that that's why i think all of them have to be taken seriously yes there's no question i think seventy percent of all those complaints your database we don't have an answer for yet there are there are answers with other mechanical breakdowns from transmissions from other engine surges there's there's pedal misapplication that's the possibility as well and we are not here blaming customers but it does take place but it sort of sounds  and i don't mean to i don't mean to be nitpicking here but when mr waxman ask you a question about unintended acceleration you said as i would define it that's what just said to the chairman and it seems like when we get this sudden  acceleration it's the way toyota wants to define it not the customer well but i think we're defining it as a customers defining it and that is a much broader spectrum of any type of any type of search or movement in the vehicle that the customer doesn't expect to take place and that can happen from a number of different sources that to me i'd rather have the broad spectrum to look at than a more narrow spectrum of high speed well let's talk about customer here because this started as you said the two thousand and one two thousand and two model year you went from the mechanical to the puter electronically driven through idle system and by two thousand and four you know it was presented toyota with a document showing about a four hundred percent increase in complaints that was in two thousand and four we learned and you testified or mentioned in one your interviews that you had a recall in europe in what april may of this sudden accelerated into do some things in europe in england and ireland you have a recall there is that that's on the sticky pedal right yes so in europe it or excuse me england and ireland is that just sticky pedal that was that was a sticky pedal in europe well and that's in response to sudden unintended acceleration again it is in response to unintended the possibility of unintended acceleration  notified as soon as we knew about the situation in the u s we didn't or wait a minute november two thousand and nine ok it took you until november two thousand and nine when you had a four hundred percent increase in complaints since two thousand and four to realize it might be a you have any analysis any evidence that sticky pedals can cause a sudden unintended acceleration it depends on the definition of sudden if it means that you can be depressing a pal or take your foot off the pedal and the car continues it does cause that quote in your column so typically does not translate into a sudden high speed acceleration event sticky pedals so sticky pedals really isn't doing anything about sudden high speed not for high speed and you agree with me there are seventy percent of the customers in your database we still don't have an answer for their on attendant acceleration if i use that word there are many factors that lead to it but seventy percent of camry a model that the company has indicated is free of acceleration defect it has not been recalled for either the sticky pedal or the floor mat interference is that true i believe so any suggestions on why the has this acceleration problem in the model year change in two thousand and four there was an acceleration issue that had to do with the transmission that there was a surge between thirty eight and forty two miles per hour and that surge was was caused by a torque converter locking up that wasn't very smooth it was a shift shock basically and that was reported by customers as an unintended acceleration that software was changed and that tended to subside that particular issue or have you gone back and fix the software in the tool five cameras in because these fatals i'm asking talking about is the one that would across the parking lot would order the seventy barton questions thank you mr chairman thanks for those questions i thought they were excellent mr lynch what's your background you said you're not an engineer what are you sales and marketing sales and might have a degree and marketing and economics and an m b a in finance ok so you do agree from the marketing standpoint that what's going on now is fairly tetra mentally your company i was in one of your two your principal dealerships in texas yesterday met with me and one in houston one in and in arlington in their sales are down about thirty percent i would assume from a marketing standpoint that's not a good thing for authority or from headquarters in tokyo well i'm the chief operating officer for the u s from a marketing standpoint i call the shots  if you're if you're talking about from a defect standpoint or a determination of a recall standpoint those decisions have been made in japan in the past and there's no i'm not saying that's a bad thing i just want to know but it's changing how far you can go to if you make a promise today you can deliver on it but it's that is that is changing and there are a number of different organizations being put into the company that are going to make things much more transparent around the globe much more transparent with regulators and allow us to have him put into effect decisions that in the past were always made in japan there will be a north american on a committee that makes defect recommendations now and there will be a process if we don't agree with a decision that committee that we can have a process to override to date that has not existed now in a prior panel i don't know if you are in the room or not but we had a couple from leave from tennessee the smith couple and the wife her car experience out of control acceleration for a number of minutes and i mean she was literally in this car long enough she could you know she put it in neutral she put her foot on the brake she tried to turn the ignition she put it in reverse she called her husband on her cell phone that was not a sticky p because of the floor mat i mean something happened in that car it's unexplainable so far now we normally when something bad happens and in  product you know if there's a plane crash we go to the scene and investigate the plane if there's a bridge collapse we go to the collapse of the bridge and we look for a structural defects or design defect if there is a building collapse in this case we have a car that is that had you know out of control acceleration and apparently all that was done was it went to a dealership and they did a routine computer program review w toyota not obtained that vehicle and taken it to your laboratory and done everything possible to discover what caused the malfunction i don't know specifically in her case other than i did hear her com that she had mentioned that a field technical specialist looked at her car a field technical special that somebody that works for toyota ok so that was a number that was on parsons that were given fifty thousand dollars a year and they spent an hour and they hooked up their little program and i said we don't see a problem and they fill out a form we don't see a problem you've got a multi billion dollar company that's experiencing a multibillion dollar hit in the marketplace why in the world won't you get that vehicle and do everything possible to determine it doesn't it really doesn't matter that you've got five million vehicles that are performing flawlessly if you've got that have  verify what you're doing get on but if i'm president of toyota i'm going to get the cars that we know had a problem and i'm going to do everything i can to find out what caused that problem and then i'm going to fix it if it's but unless it is a floor mat issue which some cases it may be you're not solving the problem that mrs smith hand she didn't have a floor mat problem so again why don't you get that car it's still in existence and check it out tearing apart do whatever and do it with witnesses that are credible because my guess is you got some really really smart engineers yes  hopefully they'll shoot straight with you and if you whatever the issue is it is you know i'm an engineer engineers are trained we had then a father problem develop an optimal solution implement the solution you probably can solve this problem if you really tried to well in terms of going out and seeing what the situation is today we have two engineering centers here within the u s with about eighty engineers we're adding three more of those because our goal is on any unintended acceleration is to be able to contact not asked why won't you get that car and check it out so that's one thing the goal is with these added sensors and added engineers is within twenty four hours we want to be at that vehicle and we will inform that's the situations that they like to join us and it's a has joined us in some of these cases in the past so we can get that car and see exactly what's going on but if we hadn't gotten rid of smith's car the smith car i have written down to find out what happened that i have to tell you again my time's expired if i'm c e o and i have the authority as soon as i walk out of this hearing i pick up the phone and i say get car if i have to pay one hundred thousand dollars get that car put the best engine years on it let's tear the damn thing apart and let's find out what's happening to it because you can do all this other stuff but if you don't go where the problem is you know you're probably never going to figure out what's going on and i can tell you listening to mrs smith i'm embarrassed for what happened and we are going to go down and talk to them and get that car so that they feel satisfied i want her and her husband to feel safe about driving our products i was embarrassed to hear the story well i'm not time's expired and we want i mean we're happy you know i have a g m assembly plant in my district so i've got a good relationship with general motors i have  toyota subassembly a vendor plant in my district that makes component parts for toyota so i'm not on any i want the truth and i want whether my constituency wants to buy g m product or tell yo product or any other product in the automotive sector to build those products period and i have confidence in your engineering department you can solve it if you to the record now mr lenz please tell me the date on which chore to commence the first recall for address this problem in the united states if i don't know the answer the first one i don't know the answer the second was that for the speech now says two thousand and one how many complaints of sudden unintended acceleration of vehicles sold in the united states has toiled boater sales u a i don't know that number but that for the record how many of these complaints has toilet a motor sales usa forward i don't know that number for the record mr lentz yes or no prior to the u s recalls were you empowered to authorize recalls for toyota products manufactured or sold in the united states who was responsible decisions concerning these recalls to be made to japan or with japanese oversight mr lentz yes or no is it true that toyota had not reached a decision about whether to recall vehicle models linked to sudden unintended acceleration prior to being visited by acting and say administrator ron medford in december two thousand and nine i think you have to be more specific about medford went to japan i can't tell you specifically if that is the reason obviously nitsa was clear with us that we were going to have to do something with those vehicles and you had not previously to that time in the case of the sticky pedal situation we first i first knew about that in november of two thousand and nine we had reports of three vehicles and went and he went there japan and discussions with toyota executives have any influence on the decision to recall vehicle models linked to the sudden unintended acceleration problem again if we were speaking of the sticking pedal i don't knows specifically i was not in the meeting but i would think it probably did now mr lance in correspondence addressed to this committee certain elected officials have communicated their concern that the united states government's financial stake at chrysler and general motors represents a conflict of interest that may be influencing us regulation of toyota if that is true i am outraged do you believe that that statement is true or i don't i don't believe that's true i think the government's acting fairly now mr lentz yes or no the reporting requirements for early warning of possible vehicle safety defect different in japan than in the united american standards again my responsibility is the united states i don't know the standards for japan now mr lynch if the japanese requirements are less stringent does that affect how toyota evaluates potential defects in it vehicles and influence what information the company provides to u s regulatory yes or no i would i would think that the decision to make a recall in the united states is based on our experience in united states reliance yes or no has toyota definitively ruled out non mechanical faders as a source of sudden unintended acceleration in vehicles recalled in late two thousand and nine and early two thousand and  ten we never rule out anything that could cause sudden unintended failure is not ruled out that we are we are vigilant and we continue to look for henschel causes now mr lamb put it another way has toyota definitively determine that electromagnetic interference with or other fritters in electronic throttle controls are the cause of sudden unintended acceleration in the vehicles recalled in two thousand and nine and early two thousand and ten yesterday we are studying through the exponent study that you have now which was pullin ery there's a lot more investigation to go on so it's being looked at as well as there is going to be an advisory board on quality and safety thank you for the you know they get it once i understand from your testimony that troy or to has called upon exponent to conduct tests on certain toyota vehicles to determine possible causes unintended acceleration the yes or no the it has not tested electromagnetic as of yet what you did not test out so they don't know it has not been tested yet it is going to be tested and we will provide you the final saw five different models being tested would you please submit the response to those questions for the record please now mr lynch yes or no do you feel that this is an adequate sample of vehicles for the purposes of exponents that if you look at saw five vehicles if you look at the e t c s system the system from vehicle to vehicle is very very similar the throttle body may be a different size but the general architecture of the system is semi most true and i'm just for polish lawyer from detroit would you please tell me yesterday so i can understand it i  don't know how to answer that in a yes or no i already are testing multiple vehicles they're testing the system not particularly how does it work on a camry vs and f j crew thank you mr lance now yes or no  they provide i can tell you they provide information five seconds prior and one second after an accident i can tell you that by were drew and to me for the record the answer that question can data from again yes or no from a d r installed in toyota vehicles be easily read by toyota personnel such as edge t s a investigator yes with the with the with the proper of your vehicles imported into the united states or manufactured here have i don't know the exact percentage i think it's all vehicles except for i can if i can look at notes i can give you i don't know the answer that because there were if there was only mr lunch submit that for the record there's one prototype tool available in the united states so wherever i want to look at that had to go look at that prototype yes and i don't know how accurate the prototype tool is so did toyota or a designated third party conduct the test i don't know the answer to that if it was conducted by a third party would you please tell the committee its name and submitted answer to those two questions for the purposes of the record congressman i don't know the answer but we can get that information for you now mr lynch our report on this kind of word generated by  and i'm curious told us that you are responsible for sales are you responsible for manufacturing are you responsible for shifty are you responsible for decisions of this sort are these decisions made elsewhere in japan i am i am not responsible for manufacturing i am not responsible for defect or quality decisions defect decisions recall specifically are in fact made in japan  know but but from an engineering standpoint it's critical that we get information so that we can go and investigate today in many cases the information that submitted on the web and that's his web site unless there's an investigation opened we don't have the name of the customer or the full vin number and i think going forward one thing that we should think about doing is make that available to the manufacturers so we can cross reference that toyota and yourself knows use those though you owe your cousin most who some have gone through some serious injuries a lot of hurt and pain don't you feel no yes or we have because i will tell you and whether it is an accident an injury i mean we heard the smiths today you didn't you didn't have to have a death to understand the terror that she had from that accident mean that's a terrible thing to have to put one of our customers through and it doesn't even have to be an action i mean we have apologized to our consumers just for the concern that we have given them with their current recall vehicles we are we are sincerely sorry for that concern and anxiety we've put people through i mean i myself my wife drives a total prius it's a recall vehicle my son drives a prius it's a recall  muslim responsibility it's anytime there is one death and one of our vehicles that that pains us to have that take place regardless of how it happens but it's it's critical today and we weren't doing a good job in the past of investigating those quickly enough especially when it had to do with unintended acceleration and with with adding these new engineers these swat teams that we're going to be able to get onsite as rapidly as we can our goal is to make it in twenty four hours that we need to be able to do that so we can understand what's happening and make the necessary changes so that it doesn't happen again i can tell you i lost a brother in an accident a week after thirtieth birthday that was twenty some years ago and there's not a day that goes by that i don't think of that so i know what these families go through back in two thousand when the british ordered a lexus recall due to acceleration problems toyota got a sectional back in two thousand and three with the canadian recall toyota is a global corporation those two alarm bells should have sent your engineers scrambling to figure out what was wrong and what was needed to be done to fix the problems instead the same types of problems cropped up in additional toyota models resulting in the recalls that bring you here today so instead of deploying your engineers after toyota got those early warnings in two thousand in two thousand and three they waited until problems cropped up in the united states and then toyota deployed lawyers and lobbyists to convince the department of transportation that this was a small floor mat issue and not something more serious and that mr lance has done a disservice to toyota's customers and ultimately also to toyota's dealers and to toyota's employees so according to documents obtained by my office toyota recalled a lexus in the united kingdom in two thousand and a celica in canada in two thousand and three because of law and mats were in trapping the accelerator pedal and the exact same problem that has caused a taliban ease in this country why didn't toyota take immediate action to prevent the much later accidents that toyota clearly knew the problem existed as far back as two thousand specifically on those two incidences i can't tell you the specifics of those because i do not know but i can i can tell you that a weakness in our system has been within this company we didn't do a very good job of sharing information across the globe most of the information was one way it would flow from the regional markets like the united states candidate are your back to japan so what you are saying is that ultimately decisions are made in japan in the can that we got was standing problems that are identified in the united kingdom in canada the information goes back to toyota headquarters in tokyo and whether or not you in america given orders to correct a problem identified in other countries is not in your hands is that what you're saying correct but we that is changing there is going to be a number of different groups set up there is a overall quality group that akio toyoda is going to chair well you know that that's that's an important change obviously as a policy that i'm sure all americans are shocked to learn existed that is that this system of quality control that toyota represents to be at the heart of their corporation was not something that shared information about defects in products that were being sold in the united states even though it was identified in other countries and that's just unacceptable just plain unacceptable to the consumers here in america let me let me move pork quickly and i can you told the today show that the sticky accelerator pedal  d and the mat problems were the only problems and that you fix them you've said today that you have only just beginning to test whether or not the electronics are the problem acknowledged that you can't rule out that possibility so the reality is you don't know what is causing all the vehicles to suddenly accelerate and you don't know if you've solved the problem do there are many beginning the investigation you don't know if you have solved the problem is that correct t c s has been looked at in the past in japan as they develop the products like you said that you had solved the problem the truth is you don't know if you have solved the problem isn't that correct let me clarify my my statement in terms of solving the issues of those recalls we solve the problem and the documents that we have also sent you when i did a number of interviews with journalists i made it quite clear that my feeling is and this is a quote my feeling is that these two fixes solve the issues that we know of are we going to remain vigilant of course we will but we are confident that entrapment is a cause we are confident that the pedal issue was a cause and we are confident in those two fixes but we are also confident that from what we know today it is not an electronics issue what you know today but again you're only at the beginning of your investigation so you don't know what caused the problem do  have not seen failures in the t c s and we have this isn't the first time e t c s has been looked at it is the first time we've gone to exponent to look at it and when we when we put in our our quality north american advisory board they will have total independent control of another study of their choosing and that's going to take place that committee's going to be in place by the end of march so there's going to be another study soon right after this and is that is the same thing true of for the the problem with the electronic throttle control system in your vehicles do you know what's wrong there that's what i'm talking about is electronic the a t c is electronic controls so you don't know what's wrong there either again we have not seen failures it has been looked at in japan in the past they have if there is no possible problem with your electronic throttle control systems why do you need to find a way to override the electronic throttle if there is no problem you have to find a way to override you always have to keep your eyes and ears open in the event that there is something i even you can't have it both ways you can say there's no problem but you're trying to find a way to override something that's not a problem it leaves people with the impression that there must be a problem that's why you have to continually test and test and test in the event that something develops it could be it could be a change in e m i could be a number of different things that we have to continually test and verify i appreciate that but i just wish that there was a little bit more humility here with regard to what you don't know that you just say you don't know and then the public is  driving around carries that kind of cautionary warning with them as they're driving pending the completion of all of your studies thank you very much thank you mr murphy next where questions go to  s to get thank you mr chairman i don't know if you saw our opening statements or the previous past testimony but but i probably hold the record among the committee members because i have three cameras so i'm very i'm very very concerned that we get this right just like you i think your family i want to ask you a couple questions the first one is you just told mr markey that this is not the first time that you folks have relating to previous tests of the t c s again i can't tell you it's a test or if it's just the development cycle of well i understand i mean we know that you've provided thousands of pages of documents relating to the development but we want to know is are there additional documents relating to the testing of the c s that you just testified that you folks that it's not the first time you've looked at it and i want to know have we received all of the documents relating to previous testing of the a t c s because that's what we care about here ok i understand i have to check i don't know specifically ok if there are additional documents will you provide those  the only document that toyota has produced to us that we've seen that claims to address the phenomena of sudden unintended acceleration is if it is this february two thousand and ten report that we've been talking about that was conducted by exponent my first question is that report was commissioned in december two thousand and nine just two months ago by toyotas defense attorney buyout bauman and brooke correct yes i believe so and how much money was paid i know mr boyer would want to know the answer to this question how much money was paid to exponent to produce that report for your defense attorneys would you mind supplementing your response with that information was it over eight hundred dollars as far as you know yes i am sure probably i'm sure it is to and we my understanding is we have given them an unlimited budget to as limited as much as they can to find out about that and i'm glad you have but but i don't i mean you just as you wouldn't question efficacy of what what the previous witness testified to because he was paid a few thousand dollars you wouldn't think that that would taint the scientific results of your expert well and that's why we have an advisory yes or no is a good and i can understand why you would feel that way but thank you no i mean you wouldn't think that your people would be tainted any more than the last witness by being paid some kind of a money correct no thank you but now let me ask you this let me ask you this  report was considered to be an interim report correct so they're still conducting touch tests correct is that right ok will you provide the committee with the final test results when they are yes we are going to make that public and when do you expect that to happen i don't know now it's my understanding that toyotas counsel mr hester has that right behind you told committee staff today that toyota had in fact replicated dr gilbert's test and that wee hours of the night last night last night ok so there's new information for us and i am assuming toyota will be willing to share the results of that testing also with this committee we will now in your opening statement you said the representation from our engineering side in japan that they have told me that they have done extensive testing i have not physically seen it myself i have not seen test results i'm relying on their permission to me that they have tested o f these new revelations revealed by your attorney mr hester that that exponent was able to replicate the same conditions as dr gilbert last night does that change your testimony today i'm not  this are you disagreeing with exponent who apparently was able to replicate the same test don't know what i'm what i'm saying is i'm not sure what mr gilbert has done is necessarily something that's real world that can happen and i can also tell you that exponent was also able to do this on a competitive vehicle with the same result so this is not necessarily something you need to try to it may be unique to his past test paradigm ok now  just have one last question for you i would assume in light of the questions raised by dr gilbert's testimony today as well as the witnesses mr mrs smith and and we have a lot more anecdotal information i've i heard the testimony of the first panel and dr gilbert sounds like a pretty reasonable guy and you just found out that your testing company exponent was able to duplicate what he did doesn't it make a whole bunch of sense the three of you sit together and see if there's something on which the down side to test in this gentleman's theory there is no downside that's that's why i don't want to downplay what he has done again i'm not sure about his testing paradigm but we we welcome anyone that can find any issues with our electronics i mean if there is a problem we want to find it and we want to fix it so yeah there's no problem with it i mean him getting together it's in your best interest if i mean no one has more to lose than you and your employees and your dealers to not fix this problem i mean you should have every incentive and i believe you do want to fix the problem i mean this is your company has a very good reputation it's been put into question  and you know perception is reality we know that and our business and if the public thinks that your car is unsafe you need to go out of your way to prove that it is yes or and so i just i just think you know before you leave washington you got to get this guy's phone number and he should be sitting down with with your people and you want to test his paradigm and whether it has and what's important is when i was an exponent i drove a vehicle as they did the test to short circuit the accelerator pedal and so i had the sense in the feel of what happens when it gets into limp mode how they can measure based on the scan device what happened and that's so i just have to really understand as exponent what mr gilbert did because my understanding is we were splicing wires together well and i if i were you i'd want to know what he did to there's  there's no good outcome from you not trying to get this problem fixed it's not good for america it's not good for all the people that work for your company here in this country and all the people who drive your cars for you not to go the extra mile and test any theory that seems to have any merit to it i agree hundred percent and that is also why going forward any time we have reported incident of us we're going to send a swat team out there the goal is within twenty four hours so we can learn as much as we can that's why it's also would be helpful if we could get full vin numbers from that side because sometimes they get a complaint that we don't ever receive and the current thing unless an investigation is opened up we can't get that information that would really be helpful for the audience and recognize that they were here when i made my opening statement but i did say at the time that we want this play out of the really fix this quickly not only for the customers but for the workers in the family depend on them having a the same responsibility i read an article i remember what paper about a week and a half ago maybe it was really talking about the history that toyota has and not responding to the complaint but it started by saying that in the late eighty's toyota would actually go to customers and say your car has a problem we pick it up they pick it up and they take it and fix it by the late ninety's then beyond that toyota started maybe fixing problems that they found in future cars and not even telling the other customers about the problems and then we have the failures that have brought us here today so that's a total culture shift over that period of time can you tell us what happened i mean what happened to toyota of the eighty's to bring us to the toyota of twenty ten one comment before that is there are dealers that still make house calls my father who lives in colorado his salesman lives about three or four miles away and every time he needs service the sales person drops his demo off picks up my dad's car and takes it out for service so that does still happen it's we're not totally out of the eighty's yet but i think what happened i think we lost sight of the customer i think we i don't think it was a goal for us to grow faster but we did we had a lot of customers that loved our product our loyalty rates were growing higher and higher and our and our volume grew the complexity of the product line grew from the number of models to the number of engines to the number of transmissions to everything else that goes with it  and i think we outgrew our engineering resource and i think when that happens and we had strategies to deal with that but the strategies didn't work and i think as a result of that we're suffering from that today and i think i think the most important thing is we lost sight of our customers and i'll give you an example even in the format issue in that in the very beginning back in two thousand and seven we recalled vehicles because of the all weather map the bat was too thick and there was risk it would bind up underneath excel rather pedal and it would happen if the mat wasn't properly put down so from an engineering standpoint if the mats properly in place it's no big problem but we didn't understand a simple thing like how customers use a floor mat because in climates like this people double stack man they put their rubber mat on top of their carpet mat not just in our cars but others we didn't understand something as simple as that and just to get one other question you know i'm really disturbed by what sounded like a real snap diagnosis i'm a physician in the case  at well we're presented with a problem we can almost diagnose it by listening to the history but we always look at every other possible cause we really make a diagnosis and we start to treat and it's you know  that doesn't sound like it's happened here and in your business in my professional lives depend on the decisions that we make and it's really important to really examine all of the possible things to rule out every other possibility can you assure me that i hear you saying that it's not this electronic thing can you assure us today that not only with this but with every complaint that you're going to  do a complete diagnostic check yes i can tell you that the company's processes from top to bottom are being evaluated and it's starting with the president of the company who's going to speak tomorrow to one of the committees  he is responsible for global quality committee it's a it's a brand new committee that's just equality and safety and there are representatives from each of the large regions around the world that are on that there is an independent advisory board to oversee what's happening to make sure that we're doing the right thing and that's the north american region of that these committees are going to be announced by the end of march they are going to re thank you mr chairman mr lyons i'd like a little bit of clarification on some of the points that have been raised here today during your testimony a few moments ago in response to one of the questions you were talking about  that we welcome anyone who can find the problem and so that we can fix it something to that effect is that accurate yes or that when you say we who do you mean we welcome toyota toyota president of toyota motor cells in the u s as was pointed out by ranking member barton does toyotas motor sales make safety determination that your department makes safety determination we what we do is we get feedback from a number of different sources feedback from customers that call in our contact is online we look through the internet we look at mit's of data we look at a number of different sources we get reports from our dealers  we have product reports all of that information from my side gets put together reports and they go to japan to the quality side so ok that i'm not involved in quality from an antenna standpoint but you also said during your testimony that the communication was pretty one way with respect to safety and reporting back to japan because you testified here today in relation to mr marquis's questions about the alarms that were going off in other parts of the world and and we just sort of had a plea of ignorance that we didn't know here and it might have made a difference in some of the accidents that could have been avoided so i'm a little i'm a little bit perplexed by the idea let me ask you this because you said in your testimony in recent months we've not lived up to the high standards our customers and the public have come to expect from toyota and where we're all concerned about that and there are two groups of people who i think that we've all expressed concern for most obviously the consumers out there yes put their trust and faith and and their families yes and those toyotas vehicles and of course the workers the workers in this country who rely upon toyotas to to make a living and and take care of their families i guess that's why i'm sure the question about the we because we've also heard a lot of confusing testimony about the a lot tronic throttle control system six years ago and that's a compiled data showing that toilet cameras with electronic throttle controls had over four hundred percent more vehicle speed complaints than those with manual controls so it's rather difficult to do you think that's an acceptable sort of number to suggest that there isn't something to it i mean four hundred percent more there's there's no question it's a big number but it but i think again we have to understand what those complaints are surrounding i don't know if all over those are sudden acceleration instances why don't we know all of that database in less those or investigated i can't tell you just from the database exactly what's going on and that's why it's important that we are able to get that information and quite frankly i would love to be able to get confidentiality agreements with insurance companies as well or they can supply us with that kind of information so we can see what's happening mr lentz the american people and the american market has been very very good toyotas a lot of money has been made by the company in decades past and and so when when we read i'd like to assure the committee and the american people that nothing matters more to toilet or than the safety and reliability of the vehicles  customers drive we're committed not only to fixing vehicles on the road and sharing they are safe but to making our new vehicles better and your testimony continues when we read that and then we hear the testimony about the safety decisions being made in japan in a vacuum isolating those who are selling these cars to our constituents and their families and who are having the workers and the dealers sell these cars why the process is changing where there is going to be a person from the united states that defect committee in japan to be able to make those decisions and if they don't agree with get fixed and that is the goal that things get fixed and and no more you know loss of life is suffered but but again one has to ask would it have happened but for some  think again i was specifically on a two thousand and three celica i don't know the specifics on that i don't i don't know if that was a vehicle that was recalled here as well i don't know the specifics if that again was a certain floor mat issue that was unique to canada i just don't know details about that particular recall except that you gave before as a reason that these things are are not shared and it's just it's just really hard to imagine that whether it was deliberately shared or not that given the fact that many americans can see canada from their house that we did not know about the again i can't speak specifically to that that exact and since i don't i don't know the details her car didn't even have floor mats at the time so why wasn't this incident further investigated than it is i mean we know as recently as november or you say is no no in november of two thousand nine toyota or at least up until then was was still claiming that floor mats were the only problem i again i don't know the specifics of that particular accident i can look into it for you but but but the format issue came around earlier that the the issue in november was really as we got into this issue of the sticky pedal that we learned until then but here was a two thousand a accident shouldn't have a floor mat but anyway you know we're all in the customer service business ourselves right we have constituent service personnel in our offices we take it very very seriously i heard you approach say that you apologized to customers for the problems with toyota did you apologize to customers who were treated like they were crazy when they made these complaints and to apologize to the smiths i have not spoken to the smiths but i'm going to again it was embarrassing to hear what happened to them i don't know the specifics of the situation but it just just to hear that especially on the lexar side of the business that's a very unusual way for business to be done it's a very unusual way and let me quote to you from a letter that was sent to  customer two thousand five tyo tacoma driver told your company that his truck accelerated by itself despite stepping on the brakes slammed into four parked cars here was the answer the throttle was instructed and moved freely without any binding and was found to operate as designed the brakes will always override the accelerator which may not have been true at the time you said you're making that change by the way in order for this accident to have happened as reported two totally separate systems the brakes on the throttle would have to fail at exactly the same time this is virtually impossible and that's a phrase that sentence this is virtually impossible seems to have been repeated over and over to your customers you're in charge of sales is this any way to deal with customers just tell  absolutely impassable no it's not and i have talked to our group that i'm going to be involved in every a vent of unintended acceleration so that i know what happens i so you know just overall customer complaints that come in i get probably twenty or twenty five complaints a week each and every one of those complaints i have to receive a buck slipped back to know exactly what what the issue was what the solution was and whether the customer satisfied or not and i do also review i review letters that go out to my constituents do you review to someone review letters that are that are sent out so that the credibility of the customer is not only question but just negated i personally do not i will find out what  is that a recent letter well i'm i'm looking at three answers that use the same phrase about virtually impossible so i don't know the date ok i'm sure our staff has those  thank you thank you mr brayley for questions mr lentz i want to begin by commending you for sharing your personal story of loss with the committee here today and that takes great courage i would encourage you to share that story with the decision makers in japan who are making the key decisions on product effects product recalls product retrofits your analysis because i think they need to hear that story from you i also want to commend you for commending dealers in this country who have done an extraordinary job responding to your recalls and performing retrofits and tying up their staff all over this country some of them are my friends and my constituents so i appreciate your recognition of the sacrifice they're making i want to focus specifically on the comment that you made on page two of your statement which you repeated here today where you said we are confident that no problems exist with the electronic throttle control system in our vehicles we have done extensive testing of the system of never found a malfunction that caused unintended acceleration i'm having a hard time squaring that with toyota's two thousand and two technical service bulletin which noted that if customers complained of surging accelerators reprogramming their engine which you mentioned earlier was a way to fix that problem and that sir sounds like an electronic problem to me i don't know that for  certain because i can't tell you if it's a if it's a software issue if it's a transmission issue there are a number of different reasons for surges it could be a high idle up that takes place sometimes when air conditioning kicks on as an example but reprogramming the computer would not be a mechanical would it and the other reality of that notice is that these two thousand and two to two thousand and six cameras which were the subject of that technical service bulletin you were not addressing the problem of the brake override retrofit with those models are you camry i would have to look and see what year it goes back to what we are going back in the case of camry now one of the things you also mention in your statement was that in december you asked exponent a world class engineering and scientific consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive independent analysis of your electronic bottle control system with an unlimited budget so let's talk just a little bit about that your council who's with you today is with a very well known firm that defends not just toyotas but other auto manufacturers and product liability and crashworthiness cases all over the country you agree with that and i am in no way impugning them for their role but i find it very odd that when you were presented with this challenge of getting to the root of this problem you went to your defense firm to go make the contact to arrange for this independent testing again our legal staff put together their requests i can tell you that that report in its entirety is going to be made public and we will we look forward to it all if there are issues that it's going to come out all right let's talk a little bit about the company that you retained exponent because they're a successor corporation to a company called failure analysis associates which is done extensive work for not just toyotas but all the big auto manufacturers and the motorcycle manufacturers on not only failure analysis but also providing expert witness testimony you're familiar with that i'm not sure about the expert witness but i know they have work for other automotive things like vehicle stability control and other things that have been developed have been great for the industry sure and one of the things that i can tell you is that i have a copy of a deposition that their chief technical officer roger mccarthy provided in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight and in that deposition he testified that failure analysis associate then known as accent you're received between thirty and forty million dollars a year for the work they did for the auto industry were you aware of that is it true that has paid them over a million dollars in the past for the work that they've done experiments yes i do not know would you be willing to provide us with documentation taishan of what toyota has paid to excite sure not just in relation with this study that's being done or in relationship with mr gilbert's follow up analysis but over that period of time that these recalls that are being considered or have been issued have been performed can you do that i'm sorry could you repeat the question yes mr chairman i would make a formal request that we get as much information as we can from toyota international toilet in north america documenting that the financial relationship between their company and accent accenture or its predecessor failure analysis associate not just in relationship with the study that was done that's been the subject that's fine i'll do that all right now one of the things that you talked about was the fact that  you were present during some testing that was done and accenture experiment on it yes and is that is that something that you were part of when there was filming that was done to document the testing no no i just wanted i wanted to go see how they test i've never been in a vehicle that's gone in to fail safe mode so i wanted to understand what it feels like from the consumer standpoint what failsafe feels like as you're driving down the road were you involved in any way in the analysis in terms of defining the scope of that project or how the results would be submitted you know the only the only portion i was involved in was that when that research becomes available in its entirety it would be made public it would be made available to congress and then h p s and did just toyotas make a direct relationship for the performance of those service with exponent or was that something handled by bowman and bro k i don't know because when you indicate in your statement that you requested to do a comprehensive independent analysis with an unlimited budget i'm just wondering whether there are documents that would define the scope of that request and the terms under which exponent would be compensated for what they were performing i'm not aware of it but i'm sure it must exist ok then i would also request that mr chairman and i would yield back  with regard to the firm that you hired exponent as far as i'm aware even the united states government turned to this firm to help us come to the solutions as to why we lost the shuttle columbia correct this done by it by this independent study group they may go with them they may choose someone else now with regard to some testimony that you wrote this down because it was bothersome to me said that with regard to testing that was done last night with regard to the methodology used by dr gilbert on the first panel you said quote it's not a real world scenario so can you explain that a little bit further he did testify that manipulation he told me that he did not three wires but when you say that there was there was a methodology that's not a real world scenario help me understand well he i think you said tapped in which is how he gets into the heart of our understanding is and again this happened just you know twelve hours ago so i don't want to attack him without knowing exactly what his process was but my understanding is easy took the plug off the back of the accelerator pedal there are six wires on the back of that to the go to the sensor to the go to the power into the go to the ground and he tapped into the to go to the sensor and basically through some device tied those two together and then tied the one of the power wires into another one so again it just doesn't seem as if that is something that may necessarily happen in the real world and experiment has tested what happens if you lose ground what happens if the sensors break down but in a very different way so i just would like to understand his methodology and make sure that it's not the testing paradigm that's causing this so when a b c showed  in order to have these results your testimony would be that dr gilbert had to in induce faults by manipulation to create and generate an artificial voltage for the result for which he was seeking yes and go around  out that normally isn't going to happen as i'm driving one of your products down the road correct i believe so again i'm not an engineer that's what i need to study through exponent because they did the same study all right earlier i made the  about i think the american public we have seen what happens when dateline stage the stage crash between two trucks to claim that general motors fuel tank design caused fiery crash a crash test on television and we all pretty upset over it and so now what we have is a repeat scenario with regard to also using a manipulation not using a real world scenario so that type of that type of thing can be left to the credibility of the viewer in the american american public now i'm going to i'm going to shift gears i'm going to shift is let's go back to columbia when there is a crash in america and we have a concern we go to the product  exponent looks at columbia tries to gather as much information as we possibly can data and what's left when there is an airline that crashes n t s b will go in and try to recreate and rebuild that aircraft when i look at what exponent is doing and i look at the report and i look at the thousands of vehicles that they're looking at what bothers me is why why wouldn't you when  automobile who has been an identified as this sudden unintended acceleration why is it that product pulled aside and ripped apart so you can you can understand what is exactly going on those are the thousand ones and if there was a component failure they would take that component off and send it to the quality side to see what's going on but in the case of the electronic throttle if they don't get a cold reading out that shows a failure it's and they can't recreate it it's very very difficult to be able to do that now they may take the throttle body off if it's cracked or that somehow defective they'll take a pedal off of it's defective if an e c u is defective they'll take that off but in many cases that's what's so frustrating about unintended acceleration is it's very very difficult to duplicate and in unless they can duplicate it they just they have no way of knowing exactly what's tak in my limited view of things i always think in terms how as a consumer protective how is the best interest promoted and i've just concluded that one it's the manufacturer's own moral behavior first and foremost then we go into the governmental regulatory oversight and then we have our civil justice system and a great believer in the civil justice system the problem that's always after the fact way after the fact so i'm looking at the manufacturer's moral behavior and i'm looking at the capabilities proficiency and competency of the regulatory scheme that congress has in place when any of this breaks down congress will move forward and you heard mr waxman say look this way may need legislation and that's a process that we're engaging in this time it's going get hot and heavy and you're going to see all the different interests last week i was on the radio and when i simply said let us not rush to judgment that goes whether it's toyota where there's g m ford i don't care who it is an individual or corporation the interviewer then said are you apologizing for toyota so we've got that issue now we have members of congress they may be a little aggressive in fulfilling their duties you have letters going out that are saying it does sometimes appear our ever that the negative news is being encouraged by plaintiffs trial lawyers union activists and those interested in cutting into toyota's market share that's the environment it's not healthy it's not good and all these reasons which are totally wrong and ridiculous are being attributed to those individuals simply trying to do their jobs as members of congress so i'm hoping that this process will be fair but in the meantime if there is a rush to judgment this is the danger not just a toyota everybody that will be similarly situated some time in their lives where there is an individual or a company or a corporation is that months from now we may discover that it was an electronic and that all of the action that was taken was timely intelligence but it really won't matter we have an old saying now and i said this the other day everyone will remember the accusation no one will remember the exoneration and for a business in the united states people are making decisions today on what car they're going to buy by the time we threw out what the truth may be that is a huge been made and i'm going to tell you that i believe it's going to what's going on today will affect that decision and that's why we all have to be so careful and how we do this and that we're fair to all parties where it's going to be the consumer the smiths or even toyota but to be fair to everyone i want to know what you can tell toyota owners today regarding the safety of their vehicles what i can tell them and i'm not going to go through the detail of all of my family drive products i would not have my loved ones driving products recalled or not if i didn't feel they were safe so that's number one number number two is we have processes in place new processes in place that are going to ensure a lot more transparency and responsibility to make sure we make faster decisions that are the right decisions so everybody has defects everybody's going to have recalls but how quickly we react to protect that consumer how much the consumer sees us standing behind their product that's what's most important in  second tell you know thing we have a lot of dealers sitting behind me the way we start to build trust in our brand is through our dealers because our dealers are that are the true contact with a customer and they are doing a tremendous job in taking care of these situations i mean it almost eight hundred thousand customers already taken care of in about twenty days is an amazing number and you'll hear from the dealers that the customers are understanding sure there are one or two customers in each dealership that are pretty upset of what's going on but for the most part our loyal customers they know for the last fifty years that we've stood behind our product we've done the right thing for them well let me ask you this exciting he touched i have thirty five seconds but quickly you drive toyota's your family drives toyota's everybody you care about drives toyota is you going to quit driving to yoda's no sir and you're right that members of congress on this committee drive toyota i'm not going to ask them whether they're going to quit driving their toyota's my suspicion is that they will not so i think maybe that's the message that comes from this hearing today we're going to be aggressive we're going to be vigilant diligent we're going to get to the bottom of this the question is to what degree can we protect joined us member of the focus of the questions please five minutes same as chairman i appreciate you allowing me to address the hearing mr lynch thank you for attending today in intensity taking some tough question it's addressing the safety issues we're discussing today is vitally important but i'd like to focus my questions on a related matter that i believe reflects on toyota's disregard for its loyal customers and its loyal employees i'm referring to the decision recently to shut down operations nummi plant in fremont california which will cost us about thirty five thousand jobs in the state of california and i don't believe that toyota has done nearly enough to prevent this loss of jobs i have an opening statement that i'd like to includ the record mr chairman will be without objection a little less toyota's currently we're experiencing major public relations problems and the public concerned about safety failures is going to hurt your bottom line california is one of your biggest markets and it's obvious that keeping newly opened will help rebuild your image wouldn't that be beneficial to toyota are our image is beneficial but specifically  i i think we have to be clear that troy it is not shutting down new me new me is shutting down new me it's a separate corporation that was fifty percent owned by toyota and owned by general motors and when general motors moved into bankruptcy and the new partner became motors holding liquidation holding it was general motors abandoning nummi that set  that's that's the truth of the matter when they pulled out and they pulled out thirty percent of their volume that plant was difficult to become commercially viable it's a long way from our supply lines that we supply a lot of long way from your customer lines mister lenz i understand that pontiac vibe was only about twenty percent of production a newly n one to in two thousand and eight with toyota vehicles king up the rest of that production surely toyota could modify its operations to account for a twenty percent drop in production it seems to me that you're putting nomi out of business because of antipathy toward west coast workers not out of necessity unfortunately toyota hasn't demonstrated it made any meaningful effort to explore possibilities that would keep new me open and i was asking you do you expect california to believe that in the brief time between g m s announcement and your decision to close were you able to definitively determine that it was impossible to maintain operations at new yes it's not it's not financially viable to do it's a long way from our our logistics lines the volume twenty percent some pretty big number i mean california sells about thirteen to fourteen percent of the nation's sales that's a plant that has capacity for almost four hundred thousand vehicles that's building around three hundred at the most and we've got to remember that when this industry collapsed after lehman we had a forty percent collapse from the peak of the marketplace in two thousand two thousand and one two are we had last year there was tremendous overcapacity all across the united states and and it's not something you take lightly closing a plan  and you look at the workers behind me when when that market collapsed and we had one hundred thousand unassigned vehicles sitting in our ports that we didn't have dealers to be able to accept because their mentors were so high we didn't lay these people off we kept these people working because we know that they are a huge asset for us so we don't we don't we don't take closing a plant or new we doesn't take closing a plant lightly we believe in our workers they've done a tremendous job in getting us through all this so nummi is unfortunately we're going to stop ordering product at the end of march and we will do what we can to try to help the workers to  transition and hopefully i don't know if another assembly can go in there where they can redevelop the property and create jobs through the redevelopment and whatever goes in there but it's just it's not because i'm really thinking of your benefit as well as ours i mean i'll leave you with this parting thought you having a public relations nightmare right now and it may benefit you a slight amount to close a plant like that but you're going to face a public backlash in the west coast now on the other hand if you work with us to keep that open it's going to be a real plus for your public relations issues i just ask you to keep that in mind as you move forward just understand as well we're going to do whatever we can to help through that transition or not legally obligated but we are going to throw money into it to help through this i just wish that our partner of twenty five years would step up and do the same that's all you mr mcinerney just ask a few questions came has been a lot of testimony here a lot of questions so just make sure i'm correct you're the only independent analysis that you've had when you spoke on today show you said you have any pending analysis on your problems with the sudden acceleration is been exponent to my knowledge and you were referring to that report of the exponent right now nitsa has also done studies in the past but i don't know how they are so i don't want to i don't you don't have knowledge of any independent studies they don't ok not to my knowledge and there's been no independent electronic throttle control system studies not not of toys there may be industry wide i don't know ok duplicate it they get the same result as dr gilbert that to fail safe system did not receive the signal to enact so in other words the failsafe system whether it's an override by electric power was happen the diagnostic codes did not kick in to put in the failsafe system to get that braking going i believe what he's done is go gone around designed a way to go around the override system sure so whether it can happen or not and we don't know the source of it but it's  book and as i said to start the research yes and that could be of value to tell you in trying to resolve this you mention the swat team you're going to have at the end of march i guess at your name and in twenty four hours they'll have information be on the site let me ask you this mr dingell asked and a couple of questions have been about this event data recorder yes the event that a recorder as you said tells you what happens five seconds before an accident and one second after specific requests have been made on the auburn new york crash which was a two ten camry that has been seized you know where it is why isn't the information made available it's the conduct site visit on one twelve where they pulled the black box out if you will which results on that and they put the pedal off i don't know i because i know any t s a was also down there with our engineers but i don't know specifically  what the result was a problem mr jeff pinsky he was from minnesota he's had a tool seven lexus e s three fifty and had problems with it requested repeatedly from toyota the only information off the black box and he's always been a knight if if were to have this swat team were to be more transparent and bring forth this information why not on the fatal crashes especially the ones i mentioned why not disclose what happened on that black box well i think right now the issue is there is one tool in the entire united states and i believe it's still in the prototype stages so the final production tools we won't start seeing here until april so at about eight but standards for a black box were developed in two thousand and six by net so that everybody has to have a starting two thousand and twelve and certainly in thirteen correct it's in twenty goals we have standards in two thousand and six you're still trying to develop a prototype that's that's my understanding so the information of this black box and if i wanted to get the information if there's no mechanism in the be the process of making a defect assertion is there is a general manager of the quality group that has a committee with a number of different engineers and everyone else that has always been in japan with japanese that committee now is going to have people that will be be seated on that from other parts of the regions around the world united states for certain i don't know i'm assuming europe will probably be there as well so they will be part of they will be tied into all the information available into the decision process and we will have the ability to appeal that right if we don't believe it you of input but decision will still be made in japan yeah well the input will be made but we will have the ability to appeal that decision that we do not have today let me just ask on the black box there was that data stored was that data stored if i get a black box out of the south lake texas accident where would that data be stored with that go to have to go to japan to get download it i mean if we if we have the scan tool once these tools are available right right now because you don't have the scan tools i don't know if japan has tools and i we're in prototype stage i'm assuming that it's a global prototype stage i don't know i've got to tell you in the last three years i've seen them on searches but i don't recall anyone that was on an unintended incident could you provide us your analysis or or exponent analysis of when they do the gilbert casting the retesting on the gilbert and i just echo about the black box southlake is right outside of my district a very tragic accident right after christmas where a car went through an intersection it upside down in a pond and we occupied died some question as to whether or not they're made of metal but a medical emergency involved in that but i think the black box in addition to the other physical evidence the brake pads and that sort of thing will be a leader instructive for for your group and of course instructive for us as well as this information on these look backs if you get the car from tennessee and your engineers come up with a decision on chairman i think i'll a lot of the questions have already been asked but you know when i was asked by the media yesterday what question was i going to to ask i said that i would ask you know what did you know and when did you know it and what do you still know that we don't know and i listened to the hearing and misaligned so i can say is that i hope you can appreciate that that we are very skeptical because it certainly seems if you just look at the chain of events that there was an attempt to kind of sweep everything under the rug  and i'm still not sure that the question has been reasonably answered in terms of you know you talk about these the six vehicles that you that you tested but why would not your first inclination be to test the vehicles that accelerated when i heard mrs smith earlier on the first panel and she talked about how it just went one hundred miles an hour and  couldn't do anything to stop it wouldn't have just been logical to take that car and and others like that and just rip it apart i know mr barnett asked you it earlier but i'm not sure i'm i'm satisfied with with with you and again i don't know the specifics but it sounded as if she said that there was a technical person that was down there or did look at the car so i can't tell you if they didn't see anything that's probably why they didn't tear it apart if they were i've seen a component failure i'm sure that that component failure would have come off that car and we would have received and again it may have happened i don't know i don't know the specifics on her accident but it wasn't only her or her car there was there were others that gave similar stories and for how long was toyota saying it's it's just it's math floor mats or rugs or was sticky pedals when it just would seem clear by her story that i'm sure there were others like her that it wasn't that at all it may not be there or there are so many different causes they're very broad they're very rare and in some cases they're just very very difficult to duplicate so that i mean that's the frustrating part about researching what happens on some of these instances especially if if if there is something that's going on with the throttle if there aren't error codes and it can't be duplicated that was one of the challenges with the sticky pedal in the beginning was by the time the consumer got to the dealership all the moisture had dried from the pedal and the pedal wouldn't stick and you've got a consumer saying i'm telling you i know this thing's been sticken but by the time you get to the store it can't be replicated and that took a while to understand exactly what was going on but in every case with that happened in every case in surely once there were many different instances it seemed to be a pattern that you know you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to saying hey wait a minute you know maybe something is wrong there is there's you know not only the acceleration but we've heard about the steering and brakes and and other things and you know it just it just seems that if you if you look at everything it certainly seems to me that there was an attempt to keep it under the rug and keep going to you know table nuts not tell anybody anything and maybe they'll go away i just you know and of course with all the testimony i mean it's is to blame as well but i just don't think that toyota handled it properly so let me just go ahead well no in the in the case of brakes if you're talking about prius brake we jumped on that very quickly have taken care of that in the case of corolla steering it's being investigated right now so yes we have complaints on it and it's a has complaints and we're digging into that right now to find out what is the issue and let's let's let's make sure the customers are happy with our products and safe for their products so let me ask you as well as a look the last question then when i was asked yesterday what would i ask you and i said what did you know and when did you know it and what do you know that we don't know yet what do you know that we don't know yet what's going to come out in the in the days and weeks i know mr toyoda is testifying another committee tomorrow what  bombshells are going to come out that we don't yet know and i hope there aren't a more i've had enough bombshells for one year to get back to the good old days of two thousand and nine and i don't think it ever say that you know it right right now we have to fix the process so these things don't happen again i don't i don't know what's behind the curtain no no one knows in the auto industry as manufacturers what defects you could have down the road what challenges you have so it's important that we have build in quality and build in safety so we don't have these issues and that's why our processes are changing to make sure that we get back to where we once were and this this was a company for fifty years  that whenever you said toyota or you said camry it was quality dependability reliability and safety and we've stub their toe and we've got to get back to where that once was and we're going to do that well i would hope so thank you mr chairman for holding the hearing question mr chairman and michelin is very very quickly i could ask you a couple of yes no questions like have you enjoyed being here today and do you want to take any more questions and i guess as it would be yes and but  seriously i did want to ask you do you think that this is a as a software or hardware problem in the case of the t c yeah again based on our analysis of what we've seen based on going to accident sites and checking these cars out i don't think it's either right now but exponent has not tested the software yet so that's that's yet to come so if there is a software issue if there's an issue about how independently these two processes are working because that's the key to make sure that this thing works we'll know that but it could be either and you're going to get to the bottom of that we have to get to the bottom of it and absolutely and it may be that the bottom of it is they find nothing and we ok i'm going to ask the media to move move by the way please secretary la hood is here we'd like to hear his testimony and get it done before we have to go vote would i see you moving out if you keep on we're trying to get the secretary and saying say i know you're going to crush there but we're trying to move things along thank you mr chairman for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the important issue of toyota recent safety recalls ever since i was sworn in as the secretary of transportation thirteen months ago i have said that safety is the department's number one priority i'd like to think that we have demonstrated that commitment time and time and time again when the terrible crash of the washington metro system claimed nine lives and injured dozens of others last summer we quickly introduced legislation to give us federal safety oversight of transit systems sometimes we don't currently have when colgan air flight thirty four o seven crashed in buffalo we learned right away what many of the problems were and we did not wait a year for the n combat pilot fatigue and it has already been to all begun to overhaul pilot certificate pilot certification qualifications one of the hallmarks of my time as transportation secretary has been our work on distracted driving for all of us cell phones and blackberries and other electronic devices i'm on a rampage about people talking and texting while driving a bus a car a train or a plane so menace to society we recently exercised are authorities to ban truck drivers from texting the reason i say all of this my number one priority has been and will be as long as i'm in this post safety now for toyota the to recall situation is very serious and we're treating it seriously the three recalls involving toyota are among the largest in automobile history affecting more than six million people in this country and i'd like to say a word directly to consumers if you notice that your gas pedal or your brake is not responding as it normally would contact your toyota dealer right away the recent recalls involve three issues first excel or eight or pedal entrapment by floor mats which can lead to uncontrolled acceleration at very high speeds it's important to take your floor mats out of the driver side of your vehicle until your car has been repaired for this problem by a toyota three the dealer second seller eight or pedals sticking or returning slowly after being depressed if the pedal is harder to prove to depress or slower to return after releasing it this could be the precursor to what is known as a sticky pedal if your metal has three symptoms if your metal has these symptoms contact your toyota dealer immediately if your gas pedal becomes stuck for any reason steadily apply the brake put the car in neutral bring it to a stop in a safe place and call your dealer finally with the toyota prius for model year twenty ten and the lexus h s two fifty if you experience a change in your car's braking performance contact your toyota dealer now i want everyone to know that the national highway traffic safety administration has been one of the most has the most affective defect investigation programs in the world known as an it's its job is to investigate complaints and to look for defects it receives more than thirty thousand complaints from consumers every year and reviews every one of them quickly and carefully over just the past three years and it says defect and compliance investigation have resulted in five hundred twenty four recalls involving twenty three point five million cars of the one hundred investigation it's open in an average year there are currently forty four open defect investigations five in which involve toileting every step of the way mits officials have pushed toyotas to take corrective action so that consumers could be safe and happy with toyota responsiveness to our safety concerns the acting administrator of nitsa ron medford and two associates flew to japan in december of zero nine to clarify for toy water management what the company's legal obligations are to find and remedy safety defects and vehicle sold here in january our new administrator of nasa david strickland and ron medford now our deputy administrator told the president of toyota north america no on certain terms that we expect prop action following the disclosure of the sticky pedal pota publicly announced that recall two days later and i've also talked personally to the president of total toilet with potential fader they will deflect the facts on the road it's a has pressed hard to expedite the safety fixes if nitsa had opened a formal investigation and toyota had reason resisted a recall this would have consumed in the enormous amount of time and resources in effect extending the period in which owners of affected vehicles were at risk by engaging toyota directly and persuading the company to take action the agency avoided a lengthy investigation that would have delayed fixes for a year or more last week i announced that we are investigating whether toyota acted quickly enough in reporting the safety defects to nitsa as well as whether they took all appropriate action to protect consumers we have asked toyotas to turn over a wide range of documents which will show us when and how they learn about these safety problems and its will continue to make sure toyota is doing all of this promised to make its vehicle safe we will continue to investigate all possible causes of unintended acceleration while the recalls are important steps in that direction we don't maintain that they answer every question about that issue some people believe that electromagnetic interference has a dangerous effect on these vehicles although we are not aware of any incidents proven to be the cause by such interference nitsa is doing a thorough review of that subject to ensure safety if it's a finds a problem we will make sure it's resolved recently i spoke with by phone with mr toyota he assured me that toyota takes us safety concerns very seriously and that safety is the company's top priority i intend to hold him to that finally i want to remind everyone there is a reason we investigate safety defects and there's a reason we push automakers to do the right thing i listened to the nine one one tape of the saylor family's harrowing last moments mark saylor a california highway patrolman died last year along with his wife and his daughter and his brother in law when the accelerator got stuck the lexus they were driving crashed at more than one hundred twenty miles an hour that is a horrible tragedy and one i hope that no other family has to endure now mr chairman i i know that you all have to go vote and i'm certainly willing to stay and answer all the questions that any member wants i want the committee to know i was sworn in on january twenty third zero nine i'll take a back seat to nobody on safety i've done a lot we've done a lot so i'll try and answer every question as pacifically as i can during my time as the secretary and for those that i don't know the answer to prior to my tenure i'll be happy to get all the information possible for the record thank you very much thanking the secretary and you're right we do have votes w hold be in recess until five thirty five thirty and appreciate if you would stay and we look forward to answering questions and if you want to walk the floor with us here more than welcome to do so toyota which just further size the point everything is made in japan the problems here in america why couldn't we have dealt here with that in the united states or toyoda who will be in the united states this this week he's agreed to meet with me and one of the things i am going to stress to him is that they have some very good people in north america some very good people but perhaps they need to look at their business model and what i mean by that is that when their people they're good experience qualified professional people in north america make recommendations they need to listen to him well that your investigation show that met with the north american people but we decided to go directly to japan why because they could not make a decision here in united states because that maybe the people in japan were a little bit  safe we wanted it we wanted to give them an opportunity to hear directly from us that this is serious and when i talked to mr toyoda i said three things the first thing i said is this is a very serious matter for your company in america i want you to know that he is taking it seriously and we are not going to sleep until every one of your cars is safe for americans to drive and then i invited him to come to america why i called you after those article yesterday and i never had a chance to talk but i thought you did you've been proactive in trying to get on the front of this one the concerns i have and it's come out that seventy percent of this sudden unintended acceleration we still don't have an answer for in fact i think according to all the documents from that also from pyo their database that's only sixteen percent of these sudden accelerations are really addressed with the floor mat and said in my testimony we are going to do a complete review of the electronics we will meet with the folks from southern illinois university take a look at the results of what they've had to look at we'll look at what  the total folks have done with the people that they've hired we're going to get into this we're going to get into the weeds on the electronics we feel an obligation to do that because we get thirty thousand complaints a year  take every one seriously we don't just send him off to the side we look at everyone and we see if you start to stack up then we really get into it we're going to get into the weeds on the electronics i commit to you we're going to do that how about this event data recorder that would treat claude's information five seconds before an accident after well we're look we we have a review of that going on right now but it says you are not investigators have been at some of these accidents sites like the south lake texas one on january twelfth two thousand and ten they were there the one that happened up in new york that one was also folks were there in fact it says investigators from that's a took the black box on november twenty seventh what did you do with the what would your investigators do with the black box if you don't have any way to read it look at we we are our challenge is to investigate earlier today indicated that he was able to bypass a system and and a diagnostic code would not come up an error in a fail safe system it was a book and as we called it one of things that could happen on the sudden acceleration the city notified of the  test results when he found tried to contact us and only got back was a form e mail for say thank you for contacting us can you assure us that it was going to follow up with dr gilbert you have my one hundred percent commitment that we will get in the weeds on this we will talk to anybody that wants to talk to us we will look at studies that have been conducted already whether it's s i you or studies that have been done through the toyota program and we will figure this out i know that all of you think this is a serious issue and so we think it's a serious issue where we know how serious you think it is because you had him stop building cars here in united states certain models is that are they still building those cars again that i don't know i'll have to i'll have to get back to you on that doesn't it's a need the responsibility should say it's business and need to accept some responsibility we heard from the smiths today about how they felt that just came out and tr to convince some of the formats is there some responsibility shares here in this whole investigation well i will go back to if you look at my testimony mr chairman no one has talked more about safety in washington d c and around the country than ray la hood since january twenty third zero nine we had twelve safety summit's on regional jets we had a day and a half distracted driving conference we stepped up on a tarmac rule so that people don't have to sit on airlines more than three hours a week we suspended air traffic controllers when there was a crash over the hudson river between a helicopter and a small plane and we also investigated when the pilots over flew minneapolis by one hundred fifty might look at we're not sitting around on our hands safety is our number one priority we take it seriously we take every complaint seriously we look at it and when we  open investigations when we think it needs to be done no one doubts you're aggressive and force that action the problem we have up here if we have all these complaints under sudden surges in this vehicle how yoda vehicles will get seventy percent on result how do we resolve that seventy percent that is still unaccounted for unexplained and we have millions of the vehicle millions of these vehicles on the road well we we will we will continue our investigations which we have going on there are currently investigations going on there are recalls going on many of them sparked by the department of transportation and it's  july twenty second two thousand and four during that period of time there were five fatal accidents involving service and basically the investigator said it doesn't count because we're only looking for a moment to research those searches or that accelerator and i got stuck stayed on too long so we just disregarded it it was almost look like it looked at it with blinders on when we do this investigation to get that seventy percent we can't do that i am for the love of me make my past career i was investigator i've got you so i'm going to ask you can have made available to it and redacted accident report on the mark saylor accident if it's legally possible for us to do it absolutely and i don't you know you can see my problem when i try to read the report paragraph five is blacked out perhaps that's something that is not pertinent to be in  in lation we're open source and willing to come down to your place and review it under under armed guard if necessary but it raises questions back home i mean i have people on the radio talking about why can no one redacted report and again if it's something that relates to the accident that would be harmful to the family to have out in general circulation i understand that but i would certainly as a member of congress who does have some clearance to look at things i think that should be made available now let me just say mr burgess what i will do is ask our general counsel to brief you on this on what we can say and what we can say and we'll try and do that very quickly here as you know the once the information is denied to you the fantasy can become more extreme in the reality and it would just it would be helpful to me to be to know what what's been redacted from that on the on the issue of and i appreciate that you've only been there for one year appreciate your comments about safety being top priority siri brought to us a graph showing the uncommanded acceleration in the camry vehicle i believe i believe this is and it's a produced document and clearly you know without getting into great detail there there was a change about two thousand one or two thousand and two where the number of incidents were very low and then suddenly it goes high and stays high my understanding from mr lentz is testimony is that when sided with the time that the electronic throttle control became marketed on those automobiles and i would just ask question what should the should there have not been some curiosity at some point as to why this is happening now at a level that previously unprecedented what has changed in the manufacturing sure the electronic throttle control is one thing where there are other things that change in the manner factoring if safety is going to be job one it can't take that long to investigate these things and it certainly can't take a very dramatic and tragic accident to just part be in investigation so the only point i would make from that again it's a produce document i realize that there is the personnel does change from time to time but we have to keep that obviously that has to be that has to be foremost in our minds now from the nitsa documents that we have it looks like they've received one hundred thirteen vehicle owner questionnaires alleging sudden unintended acceleration related to the throttle the office of defect investigations believes that only fourteen of those questionnaires were relevant to the throttle control so how does that office narrow that number down how are how are cases included or excluded where only about ten percent of the cases that were brought to its attention were were actually thought to be an uncommanded excel or i looking at the documents by interviewing people by talking to people and then by making a judgment about whether it's something that validity or standing in light of some of the things that we've heard in our testimony today should we go back and look at those other nine out of town that were deemed not to be not to direct present true uncommanded accelerations perhaps they perhaps they deserve a closer look or closer scrutiny i take your point on that and i go back to what i said to chairman stupak that we are going to really get in the weeds  electronics and i assume that we'll be looking take a look back at some of those on i guess just very recently within the last day or two your inspector general from department transportation announced an audit initiated on the office of defective besta geishas the audit going to build on earlier works concerning implementation of the tran act this specific undertaking is going to focus on the recent actions taken by the agency regarding the toyota recalls obviously this is something you felt was necessary to do well look at the inspector general does his own thing he's an independent operator you don't take his cues from me he decided to do this i think either at the request of congress or because his people thought it was something to do he doesn't consult with me on these things he lets me know but he doesn't consult to see if i agree with him or not has he let you know that the scope of the investigation what it will include and can you share that with us pardon me can you share the the scope of the investigation i think it's up on our website i think he posted on his website which would be our web site i think it's up and when that report becomes available you will you will obviously making of a he will make it available as soon as his report is complete he puts it up on his web site now from everything we've heard today on the issues surrounding the toyota one commanded acceleration gives people the impression that there's a lot of problems with this product but if you actually list things down the number of problems per vehicle mile driven or four percent of market share i guess is a more appropriate measurement toyota is not really high on that list are they in terms of the number of incidents power per percentage of market share i mean it's a document that is that is available actually ranks toyota number seventeen there are sixteen other automobiles that have more problems per percentage of mark well i mean if you look at the complaints the thirty thousand complaints we receive and you look at the investigations we do and then you look at the recalls the vast majority of them are are not with toyota they're with other other brand of automobiles but we're talking today about an impending an increased level of screwed because of perhaps some of the uncommanded accelerations were missed in earlier investigations i guess the only question is are you going to go back and look at some of those other vehicle manufacturers that are that or higher in the list for these types of incidents yes and have you already initiated that we're just as i said we're just starting our our review and our our look back ok well mr chairman when those when when that data becomes available sudden unintended acceleration but then it's only looked at the electronic systems one time and that was in two thousand and four is that correct yes or do you think that the two thousand and four investigation was sufficient i think that under our watch we are going to get into the weeds and we're going to have a complete review on the electronics but looking back from here there was only one review and that was in two thousand and four would you say that was sufficient i know you're planning to do know the answer is no we've looked at the record and the two thousand and four investigation was not comprehensive or in depth it was headed by an individual who in an e mail to tell yoda fishelson said that he was not very knowledgeable about electronics throttle systems excluded the vast majority of complaints involving sudden unintended acceleration including the most dangerous types high speed events in which the brakes are unable to stop the vehicle it appears that it's a never independently evaluated toyota's claim about the adequacy of its systems and there's no evidence that it's a did its own testing of electron rodell control systems your staff told us that you had no electrical engineer on staff to help us assess the problem and they never hired an outside electrical engineer and i know you weren't around then so i don't blame you but i am concerned that i haven't heard you express any disagreements with any decisions made at the agency before your time and  stating that incorrectly do you feel the agency has done what it should have done prior to your being there when i tried to do was be forward looking mr chairman i've spent the last year talking about safety i've traveled the country i've been to thirty five states and eighty cities and everywhere i go i talk about safety whether it's cars safety airplanes safety trains safety the train crash in california was caused by a distracted train driver and that's why we decided to take on that cause and we will continue to do that look i can tell you i applaud you hard me i applaud you for your efforts and what you've told us about how high a priority safety is and i and i'm pleased that you're going to  take that position and try to steer the department of agency the national highway traffic safety agency under your watch to do the kind of job that needs to be done i think that part of it is leadership but i think there needs to be a fundamental reform and that's some of that you can do administratively and some may require legislation will be here to help you we want this agency as you want to do the job of protecting the safety of the american people i  must say as i look at the record it's not a happy one it's not a successful one in this not the one that you would you and i one for that agency let's both look forward and make the changes to assure the american people that the situation's going to be different in the future well mr chairman i would say this i don't know of another member congress while i was serving or since i left that has been more concerned about these issues than you have and i we really appreciate your support on this we may be coming to you and asking for some legislative remedies and i know you'll be there for us and that may be happening sooner rather than later and if you have legislative remedies we want to work with you on this well mr rush is the chairman of the subcommittee with the legislative jurisdiction and we're going to work with him and with you to do what we need to do in terms of the of the law to give you the powers and give that agency the power to do what needs to be done and i know you're determined to accomplish that goal so i look act or otherwise conducting its two thousand and nine and two thousand and ten recalls related to sudden unintended acceleration i'd rather get back to you on the record if i could sir unintended acceleration has the department of transportation received from toyota motor sales usa would you please submit list and a description of each and every one of these reports for the record yes or have you do you know whether you have received all of the or not i submit that for the record all right yes or no are the about you having the administrator or the acting administrator go over there while this investigation is going on yes i mean that was a special trip that was not a routine trip that was a special trip special trip why why was this a special trip that you and had been assured that we wanted to get their attention and tell him we're taking these safety issues seriously and they need to take them seriously and immediately upon return of our new acting away i think they were a little safety i think that they were a little safety deaf and we wanted to create some hearing devices for them so we took a big megaphone with us and we got their attention you're telling me that you felt it necessary to do this because of the safety of american public is that right that's correct have you had do that before not with toyota with anybody else not that i know  vehicle safety defects different in japan that in the united states i'll get back to you on the record on the record very well the japanese requirements is this regard more or less problem that you don't deal with with toyota the way you have to deal with other automobile makers i told chairman stupak earlier that i think the business model for making decisions need some government is going to use ownership in automobiles to confer benefits or disadvantage or anybody i want to know about it is is there any truth in the assumption that these governors are making that is somewhere other talked to three of those four governors and i told them that that letter was not accurate our investigation of any car company is not based on who they are the idea that we would not take seriously complaints from people who drive toyotas belies belief and the idea that we would do it because our government owns sixty percent of g m is baloney will be pleased to hear that in president obama's budget for the department of transportation there will be sixty six new positions at mit's that's what the president is proposing we have one hundred twenty five engineers and some of them are electrical engineers the idea that we don't have the experts to do the work is not quite accurate we do have electrical engineers we have one hundred twenty five engineers and the president has requested in his budget request to all of you sixty six new positions that well we're going to we're moving away from stagnation yes sir which countries are they what they told this committee in committee staff during the investigation they said they have engineers who take some classes but we have one hundred twenty five engineers and we have electrical engineers as a part of the their expertise for this well that's amazing the staff didn't know you had all that expertise so we with here today is that toyota was aggregating all this information in tokyo but they weren't sharing it with with their dealers their employees people are in different countries and and so where we're at a inflection point here where obviously we have to change the system we have to give you more power and we have to just make sure that this is not occur in the future so others like to walk through a few things and maybe get your response to that because i think it will help us to flesh out the authorities you will need and in the things that we have to put in place to make sure we don't see a recurrence so it turns out that toyota recalled a lexus in the u k in two thousand because of a floor mat problem that was identical to that involved in the more recent recalls here in the united states it's my understanding that the department of transportation was never informed of that recall in two thousand and three the department turned down a consumer protection petition filed by an individual from braintree massachusetts alleging sudden acceleration problems involving his ninety nine lexus saying the apartment had no reason to think there were excessive problems with lexus based on what it knew at the time it wasn't getting the information from toyota so you know it was not in a situation those see the entire situation do you think the department might have reached a different conclusion had it known about the two thousand and u k lexus recall involving valving the floor mats and trapping accelerator pedals don't even trying to guess mr markey i would assume that we would have but that's a guess the law doesn't require automakers to report on foreign safety problems that it might have had that do not result  in an actual recall but we've learned recently that one of toyota's tactics when dealing with safety regulators is to use lobbyists to try to limit the scope of recalls on a prevent them from occurring at all  do you think that requiring automatic automakers to more broadly report safety problems that they have encountered in other countries could help you do your job with us during today's hearing toyota claimed to be just beginning to examine the possibility that there are problems with its vehicles electronics while an outside academic said he proved that real world circumstances existed under which the software that is supposed to automatically turn cars off if the throttle electronics fail does not work we've also learned that toyota had evidently validated that result do you think it would it would be inaccurate to assert that toyota has identified and proposed remedies for all of the sudden acceleration problems that have been documented for its vehicles look at what we're going to do a complete comprehensive down in the weeds review  electronics will take information that was presented to your committee today we'll look at all the data will look at all the information we will not rest until we finally find out if electronics are a part of this problem can i can i ask do you think that you need expanded authority to enable you to more easily conduct mandatory recalls do you need more authority those are really not really no i mean we do these investigations we meet information and if we've missed the target on the electronics we will correct that we're going to do that we're going to have a complete review in the early warning database  to consist of reports provided by auto manufacturers to the department and these reports are generally kept secret unless the department opens up an investigation what do you think about the public in terms of them providing being provided with more information regarding potential safety defects that automakers tell the department about even before an investigation is opened a recall is an else for transparency the more information we can give the public the better do you need authority to do that do we have to change any i'll have to i'll look i don't know for sure mr markey out i'll get back to you on that ok that would be helpful because we want to be as helpful of course we want to be as helpful to you as we can be we think that you know you are clearly in my opinion a great secretary of transportation thank you we want to work with you thank you accomplish you know i appreciate that i mean we have had we've had issues with them and that's the reason that ron medford our acting then acting administrator went to japan ron came to me and said look at i don't i don't i don't think you're listening to us i need to go to japan and  and what i said earlier is toyota has some very good people in north america very professional people they know what they're doing but i'm not sure that they were able to really communicate that to the folks in tokyo and that's a reason ron felt he had to go there i'm not going to i'm not going to trash the people in north america toyotas they're good people they're professional people and i told mr toyota when i talked to him i said safety is number one you need to take this seriously and  at the agency since two thousand and three that subpoena power once and all those years of investigation well we have other authority other than subpoena power and we've used it from time to time we have other enforcement mechanisms but you know as i said at the top in my testimony i'm going to be forward looking here sure i've been in this job a little over a year if you want me to go back and account for what happened in zero four i'll do that oh no i don't but what but what i do want to ask you so number one you don't know why they didn't do that before i don't personally know but i could find out number two do you reserve the right to use those subpoena power going forward if you don't get adequate  great my second and last question and following up on the questions mr rush and also mr stupak were asking about the next budget you said that that there are sixty six new positions going to fund those extra positions and will they be able to work in this particular part of look at if if the congress approves our budget with additional staff we will take those resources and put them where they're needed ok so you think you think that you'll be able to hire the sixty six new positions within that flat budget i think we'll be able to you if we get sixty six new positions and you provide the money for we'll take those people and put them where they're needed if they're needed on looking into electronics we'll do that if they're needed in other areas we'll do that ok but but so your view is that the sixty six new people aren't necessarily looking into electronics they're just they're going to be they're going to be a human resource that we're going to use where we need them where the problems are ok so when you when so let's say you do need them in electronics because it seems like from past years again not speaking about the last year when you've been secretary but from past years this has been a diff in the agency if you put them over there where where you going to take it from in the current enforcement well i don't know the specifics on that but and i'd be happy to get back to you  'll keep our fingers crossed that you provided sixty six i'll just i'll just tell you mr secretary what we're concerned about not just with a lot of the other consumer agencies is over the last eight to ten years these agencies have been starved of resources and we're concerned that if you take sixty six new positions which might be authorized but if there are no additional funding for the agency that we're going to dance at other places where we're all we're all we're already short on a force you know look at i would assume if we get the authorization we're going to get the money to pay for my mean that that would be our goal ok and that would be in addition to your fiscal two thousand and eleven budget our two thousand and eleven budget would be the sixty six additional people plus the money to pay for  increase in salary count look at if you are through i sixty six i'll work with our friends on the appropriations committee to find the money thank you required it said to create an early warning system to gather and analyze more information on out of safety to eliminate defects in a two thousand and four report and i realize this is before you came but in that report from the department of transportation inspector general it was stated that the cost estimates for the project are way above what had been anticipated and that the computer system that existed at that time did not have the advance analytical capabilities that were envisioned by the law didn't have the money but they didn't have the capability of creating that early having that early warning system to gather  information do you know if that problem has been corrected since the inspector general report that in two thousand and four it has been and i can tell you this when we got into this toyota thing i've been going over this and going over this i think we have some outstanding people they work very hard we get thirty thousand complaints a year we look at what other organizations are saying and doing we talk to car companies and we take everyone seriously we don't set any aside and when we really see a curve and see something that really catches us we begin to look at that very carefully and so i think we have a good system in place hopefully we get a few more resources in terms of people but i think the system works very well if somebody has a complaint we take it seriously if it's an individual driver or or a k so it's very difficult for us they only have one reader to read these devices and it's very difficult to get the information ok so finding ways to get information that is relevant to us and force safety  concerns here is something that we should feel it is in our do think that all of this is been a big wake up call for toyota i think you'll find that when mr toyota comes on capitol hill tomorrow when he makes some visits to some folks i mean i think they  get it now they need to be more attuned and sensitive to these things thank you mr secretary and also just because we have the opportunity to make sure the records clear here on certain things  reviewed the report issued by the cars program was happy to see that positive jobs impact of at least sixty thousand jobs but i also want to make sure that people understand because i think there's been some effort to confuse the record about the way that we've talked a lot about resources and what you need to do to accomplish the safety functions that fall with responsibility and we want to make sure that you always have what you need and if you need more than you have now we want to make sure you got it but just to clarify it's my understanding that i mean which also of course has responsibility over fuel economy standards which is why correct it is correct but i will say this congresswoman and you know this in the first four days of that program which was your stepchild or child or however you want to characterize it was your idea two  hundred fifty thousand cars were sold it was a wildly popular program and i'm not going to tell you we weren't overwhelmed when you sell two hundred fifty thousand cars and trying to get the money out the door to dealers it became a very serious issue for us and we we re trying to incorporate a lot of resources including r f a friends out in oklahoma city who do a lot of good work but they also know how to process paper we use their expertise we hired people from the outside to come in but i want people to know correct that is an extraordinarily i think important it is to be a lot because it's easily swept under the rug by those who might want to discredit what was clearly as you point out wildly popular was lifeline to the automobile industry no no one could have ever sold seven or eight hundred thousand cars in less than thirty days it was a lifeline to to car salesman to car dealers to the loan companies to the credit unions that made the loans to the local governments that got the sales tax the spin off on that was incredible it was a lot more than three billion dollars thank you thank you very much and i appreciation appreciate that clarification thank you michigan hi ray thank you for for being here and answering our questions and waiting to being here at this late late hour let me just say i've been i've been meeting as i think other members have with some of the toyota dealers today who this couldn't have happened at a worse time in many ways with the downturn in the economy and they're very worried about  their futures and we have to be too because there's a lot of jobs involved in dealerships and the manufacture of cars they said that their sale of toyota says down like fifty percent right now which is understandable but one of the other things that they feel is that there's been disproportionate focus on this particular situation of toyota and they pointed out that there had been over the last year one hundred  forty three or something like that recalls some related to the safety of other automobile manufacturers so what i wanted to ask you is how would you rate toyota performance in dealing with this on safety issues compared to other makers do we have a particular problem here the vast majority of recalls are not not on toyotas they're on other and that's what they were saying that oh it is and you know we put people know what that is if we put it out there we're not trying to hide that they want blaming no no and they know that and the reason that people are focusing on this now is because of the horrific accident that occurred in san diego where these people were lost their lives and and that really highlighted the unfortunate circumstances by which that happened and you all want to get to the bottom of it and so do we and i know there are people on this committee all day they've been talking about the electronics we're going to get in the weeds on that we feel an obligation to do that if we've overlooked it won't guarantee it won't happen on my watch we're to we're going to look into it but you know the idea that we're picking on toyota is just not accurate i mean if you look at it look at the statistics over the last three years twenty three million recalls of automobiles as a result of our investigations and the vast majority were not toilet and i think they were actually mostly just worried about the publicity that had then been around this look at congresswoman if you and i were in charge of publicity there would be a lot of different stories written about everything this is true i also agree i said we get some of us have the same problems one of the things the toilet is doing is and styling in some of the recalled cars not all the models of software fix that make sure that the the brakes override the excel operator this seems like a really good idea is there some way that this could be required  standard safety when i heard mr lentz say that they were doing it in the majority of their models as he was sitting here today and we had not heard that before and it's something that i think we really should look into it that's a way to override the electrical problem or a sticky pedal or floor mat pedal that someone hasn't taken care of look at any way that we can save lives and save injuries and correct something that's wrong i think we should look at it testimony in the office and i got to spend some time with him this afternoon and so i just want placed on the record very proud of him and for the work he's done and and i know my good friend and and now former colleague sir trailer good would appreciate  the connection as of that and i just want to on the record raise a good friend and a mentor of mine and as you know i've been a little combative in my three years the last three years especially and i think some of that style i learned from the sitting secretary as he there's something to be said about telling it straight and forcefully and that's always been race style and i appreciate it and on the record i appreciate your friendship and support of the years and i know you're working in the best interest of the country so thank you for what you do thank you for the very good words kind words and we are going to look at the his research we're going to look at everything in his testimony today but we want to look at the documents and see what he's done it hopefully will be helpful to us welcome to the committee thank you mr gonzales questions please thank you very much and the first thing mr chairman could i ask unanimous consent that we all agree with and to that we don't have to if you couple of things one i think you said there were two hundred fifty thousand cars sold on cash for clunkers i think that made in the first few days that's right sure there was a clever hundred fifty thousand cars sold and i know i had some of my dealers complaining that the money wasn't being paid quickly right up the alternative would be for the cars to remain on their lots and when i reminded them of that they were happy to wait a couple days let me start off with a couple hours or variations first of all in your testimony written testimony i'm going to read from it and it's it does not contend that the two recalls will fully resolve all concerns about unintended acceleration in toyota vehicles however with one exception it's a has not vance in two thousand and nine due to a defective trim panel some consumers and others believe that toyota celica tronic throttle control a t c systems and perhaps such systems in other manufactures vehicles are susceptible to electromagnetic interference e m i that can theoretically cause unintended acceleration by resulting in incorrect signals to the engine to be absolutely sure that the agency is aware of all potential defects all stand here and tell you how can we help you with it the problem was and we've had members make reference to it was that members of nits away here and this is from a letter actually it's a body of a letter that has been forwarded to you but it's dated february twenty second so i doubt even had a chance to look at it as the agency responsible for ensuring that the vehicles on the road are safe it is essential that it's have ample expertise to test and analyze electronic systems and to evaluate the sufficiency of tests and  and the analysis of the automobile and auto makers performance it appears however the nitsa lacks is expertise hampering the ability of its office defects investigation o d i to examine possible a chronic defect in vehicles in the briefing on feb eighteenth officials told the committee staff that the agency has no electrical engineers or software engineers on staff that is not accurate is that correct we have  to electrical engineers we have one hundred twenty five engineers we have two electrical engineers and we're about ready to hire another one and the third thing i would say  that when we need outside expertise we use it we do i mean we're not bashful about doing it we don't feel we have the expertise will go out and find it and i think that's an important point in the reason for that we've been talking about maybe expanding your authority and i don't think you're going to be bashful about coming here and saying legislatively speaking you need a fix but we also want to be very sensitive to the expanded resources that you may require and there's not going to be anybody on either side of this are going to give you whatever you need to get to the bottom of this it is good to see you are here and to receive the assurance that you're aggressively pursuing this i will end with one question is toyota cooperating with your department one hundred percent now thank you very much and you'll back one hundred percent now they weren't always cooperating with you i don't know that we would have had to go to japan i don't know if i would have had to pick up the phone and talk to sure you heard the testimony compelling testimony to the smiths who were here of course the the uncommanded acceleration in her vehicle they voiced a lot of frustration over getting anyone to toil to take them seriously or listen to their problems or they also voiced some frustration in getting the national highway traffic safety administration to listen to them and take them seriously and i got the impression that they were still waiting for a response from that so so i would appreciate it if you would look into that we will be in touch with them i heard the mr lance say that he didn't know what would happen to the vehicle but he was going to make an effort to find it i would just suggest that maybe that's a lot of to take the same trajectory i think you would be very interested to know if some of the things that professor gilbert brought up today actually can exist in a real world situation and if that car was the laboratory that created that thank goodness no  in the experiment but let's get that data and find out if indeed that's what professor gilbert produced in a laboratory was what mrs smith encountered when she drove her car on the freeway that we know where the car is we've talked to the owner of the car and  hope to be able to explore that