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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan 

Chairman Emeritus 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

FRANK PALLONE, JR., New Jersey 

BART GORDON, Tennessee 

BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois 

ANNA G. ESHOO, California 

BART STUPAK, Michigan 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

Vice Chairman 

LOIS CAPPS, California 

MICHAEL F. DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANE HARMAN, California 

TOM ALLEN, Maine 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

G.K. BUTTERFIELD, North Carolina 

CHARLIE MELANCON, Louisiana 

JOHN BARROW, Georgia 

BARON P. HILL, Indiana 

DORIS O. MATSUI, California 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

KATHY CASTOR, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio 

JERRY MCNERNEY, California 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

JOE BARTON, Texas 

Ranking Member 

RALPH M. HALL, Texas 

FRED UPTON, Michigan 

CLIFF STEARNS, Florida 

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

ROY BLUNT, Missouri 

STEVE BUYER, Indiana 

GEORGE RADANOVICH, California 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

MARY BONO MACK, California 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

LEE TERRY, Nebraska 

MIKE ROGERS, Michigan 

SUE WILKINS MYRICK, North Carolina 

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee 

PHIL GINGREY, Georgia 

STEVE SCALISE, Louisiana 


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SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS

BART STUPAK, Michigan, Chairman 

BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa 

Vice Chairman 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

DIANA DEGETTE, Colorado 

MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania 

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands 

PETER WELCH, Vermont 

GENE GREEN, Texas 

BETTY SUTTON, Ohio 

JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan (ex officio) 

GREG WALDEN, Oregon 

Ranking Member 

ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky 

MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 


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(V) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hon. Bart Stupak, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 1 

Hon. Joe Barton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 4 

Hon. Henry A. Waxman, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

California, opening statement ............................................................................. 5 

Hon. Michael C. Burgess, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, opening statement .................................................................................... 7 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 10 

Hon. Marsha Blackburn, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Tennessee, opening statement ............................................................................ 16 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 17 

Hon. Bobby L. Rush, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 18 

Hon. Phil Gingrey, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 19 

Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement .................................................... 20 

Hon. John Sullivan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Oklahoma, opening statement .................................................................................... 21 

Hon. Diana DeGette, a Representative in Congress from the State of Colorado, opening statement ...................................................................................... 22 

Hon. Donna M. Christensen, a Representative in Congress from the Virgin 

Islands, opening statement ................................................................................. 22 

Hon. Gene Green, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 23 

Hon. Betty Sutton, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio, 

prepared statement .............................................................................................. 25 

Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Illinois, opening statement .............................................................................. 26 

Hon. Bruce L. Braley, a Representative in Congress from the State of Iowa, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 27 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 29 

Hon. Peter Welch, a Representative in Congress from the State of Vermont, 

opening statement ................................................................................................ 33 

Hon. Jerry McNerney, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement .................................................................................. 127 

WITNESSES

Eddie and Rhonda Smith of Sevierville, Tennessee.............................................. 34, 42 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 38 

Sean Kane, President of Safety Research & Strategies, Incorporated ................ 43 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 47 

David Gilbert, Associate Professor of Automotive Technology at Southern 

Illinois University ................................................................................................ 52 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 54 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 372 

James E. Lentz, President and Chief Operating Officer, Toyota Motor Sales, 

USA, Inc ................................................................................................................ 86 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 89 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 376 

Raymond H. LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation ................................................................................................................ 134 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 137 


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VI 

Raymond H. LaHood, Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation—Continued 

Answers to submitted questions ...................................................................... 396 

SUBMITTED MATERIAL

Letter of February 23, 2010, from Exponent to the Committee .......................... 166 

Report dated February 5, 2010, entitled Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration ........................................................................................................................ 168 

Report dated February 21, 2010, entitled Toyota Electronic Throttle Control 

Investigation ......................................................................................................... 353 

Letter of February 21, 2010, from Neil Hannemann to the Committee ............. 368 


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RESPONSE BY TOYOTA AND NHTSA TO INCIDENTS OF SUDDEN UNINTENDED ACCELERATION 

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2010 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS, 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 11:02 a.m., in Room 

2123, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bart Stupak [chairman 

of the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Stupak, Braley, Markey, DeGette, 

Doyle, Schakowsky, Ross, Christensen, Welch, Green, Sutton, Dingell (ex officio), Waxman (ex officio); Sullivan, Burgess, Blackburn, 

Gingrey, and Barton (ex officio). 

Also Present: Representatives Gonzalez, Rush, Engel, Gordon, 

McNerney, Shimkus, Buyer, Whitfield, Terry, and Pitts. 

Staff Present: Phil Barnett, Staff Director, Kristin Amerling, 

Chief Counsel; Bruce Wolpe, Senior Advisor; Timothy Robinson, 

Counsel; Anna Laitin, Professional Staff Member; Dave Leviss, 

Chief Oversight Counsel; Anne Tindall, Counsel; Scott Schloegel, 

Investigator; Ali Neubauer, Special Assistant; Derrick Franklin, 

Detailee; Karen Lightfoot, Communications Director, Senior Policy 

Advisor; Elizabeth Letter, Special Assistant; Lindsay Vidal, Special 

Assistant; Earley Green, Chief Clerk; Jen Berenholz, Deputy Clerk; 

Mitchell Smiley, Special Assistant; Matt Eisenberg, Staff Assistant; 

Alan Slobodin, Chief Minority Counsel; Kevin Kohl, Minority Professional Staff; and Garrett Golding, Minority Legislative Analyst. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BART STUPAK, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN 

Mr. STUPAK. This meeting will come to order. 

Today, we have a hearing titled Response by Toyota and NHTSA 

to Incidents of Sudden Unintended Acceleration. 

We have a number of Members who are present for this hearing 

who are not members of the subcommittee but are members of the 

full committee. We welcome them, and I note 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 complete their questioning, full committee members will be allowed to ask questions. 

Members who are not on the subcommittee or the full committee 


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are welcome to observe, but they will not be permitted to give a 

verbal opening statement or ask questions due to time constraints. 

I ask unanimous consent that Congressman Burgess be allowed 

to serve as ranking member for today’s hearing. 

Without objection, the request is accepted. 

The chairman, ranking member, and chairman emeritus will now 

be recognized for a 5-minute opening statement. Other members of 

the subcommittee will be recognized for 3-minute opening statements. And Mr. Rush, the chairman of the CPTC Subcommittee, 

will also be allowed to give an opening statement along with the 

ranking member, if they so desire. So we will begin with the opening statements. I will begin. 

Ten years ago, this committee investigated the Firestone tire recalls which caused the deaths of dozens of people and expressed 

vulnerabilities in the government’s oversight and recall authority. 

In response, Congress quickly passed the THREAT Act which was 

intended to provide enhanced authority for the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration to gather and analyze data from 

automobile manufacturers and provide an early warning system for 

catastrophic defects. Now, a decade later, we face a serious auto 

safety problem that calls into question whether the THREAT Act 

is achieving the purposes we intended. 

Today’s hearing will examine whether Toyota Motor Corporation 

and NHTSA acted in a timely fashion to address countless complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Sudden unintended acceleration describes a broad range of events in 

which a vehicle accelerates rapidly and a driver is unable to immediately slow down or stop the vehicle. 

Over the past several months, Toyota Motor Corporation has 

issued two major recalls for defects associated with accelerator 

problems in eight popular models. The first recall, announced in 

October of 2009, addressed floor mats that can jam against the gas 

pedal, causing it to become trapped in a full throttle position. Toyota eventually opened this floor mat recall to 4.26 million vehicles, 

and just last month Toyota announced another recall of gas pedals 

that can stick or return slowly. 

Toyota’s leadership has been ambiguous about whether these two 

recalls fully account for and address the problem of sudden unintended acceleration. Thousands of Toyota owners whose cars were 

not subject to either recall have reported to the company that their 

vehicles suddenly surged or accelerated to high speeds. A staff 

analysis of documents Toyota provided to the committee shows that 

roughly 70 percent of the sudden unintended acceleration events 

recorded in Toyota’s own customer call database involved vehicles 

that are not covered by the a floor mat or sticky pedal recalls. The 

fixes Toyota has advertised for this problem do not provide much 

assurance to these drivers. 

Our investigation has shown that Toyota has repeatedly dismissed the possibility of electronic failures could be responsible for 

incidents of sudden unintended acceleration. At the same time, 

Toyota provided software upgrades to certain vehicles to ensure 

that in instances where the gas and brakes were both depressed 

the brakes will override the gas. It seems like this software upgrade provides important safety protection, but we are left to ask, 


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what will Toyota do for owners of its cars that cannot receive the 

safety upgrade? 

Equally troubling is that officials at NHTSA appear to have 

bought into Toyota’s explanation of these events. In closing investigations and in briefings of committee staff, NHTSA has repeated 

Toyota ’s insistence that sudden unintended acceleration is caused 

by human error or limited mechanical problems, rather than problems in the electronic system. NHTSA made this determination 

without having electrical or software engineers review the problem. 

One of our witnesses today will tell us how a NHTSA investigator sent to inspect her vehicle, ‘‘seemed to arrive with a preconceived idea to sell to us that it was a floor mat problem,’’ end 

of quote. This begs the question of whether NHTSA is too cozy with 

the industry they oversee or whether they are simply stuck in a 

mechanical mind-set, rather than evolving to keep up with the new 

generation of electronics and computer-run components. 

In an attempt to quell concerns that sudden unintended acceleration occurs, Toyota attorneys commissioned a study titled, Testing 

and Analysis of Toyota and Lexus Vehicles and Components for 

Concerns Related to Unintended Acceleration by a company called 

Exponent. Toyota has presented this preliminary report to prove 

that the electronic system cannot cause sudden unintended acceleration. 

However, this committee requested an independent expert assessment of the Exponent study; and these experts identified numerous shortcomings, including the review did not follow sound scientific method; major categories of testing such as electromagnetic 

interference and radio frequency interference were not addressed; 

only one of the seven vehicles used in the study was on the recall 

list; and the study did not examine a single vehicle that had experienced sudden unintended acceleration. 

It is clear that the flawed Exponent study is nowhere near adequate for a valid scientific review. 

Toyota owes it to its customers, the American people, and government regulators to complete a comprehensive and scientifically 

sound review of their electronic system. 

One individual who has taken a close look at Toyota’s electronic 

gas pedals is Dr. David Gilbert at Southern Illinois University in 

Carbondale, Illinois. Dr. Gilbert will release his interim report 

showing how he was able to short-circuit the electronic gas pedal 

and mimic an unintended acceleration incident without triggering 

any diagnostic trouble codes in the vehicle’s computer. Dr. Gilbert’s 

report is the first study of this kind, and we are fortunate to have 

him and Mr. Sean Kane here to explain it. 

In summary, what we have found is quite troubling. Toyota all 

but ignored pleas from consumers to examine sudden unintended 

acceleration events. They boast in a briefing of saving Toyota $100 

million by negotiating a limited recall. They claim that they first 

became aware of sticking pedals in late October of 2009 when, in 

fact, they had received numerous complaints many months and 

years earlier. They misled the American public by saying that they 

and other independent sources have thoroughly analyzed the electronic system and eliminated electronics as a possible cause of sudden unintended acceleration when, in fact, the only such review 


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was a flawed study conducted by a company retained by Toyota’s 

lawyers. 

Toyota and NHTSA, for that matter, have a lot of explaining to 

do to the American people, to Toyota owners and dealers. I look forward to an informational and productive hearing. 

I next yield to the gentleman, Mr. Barton from Texas, for an 

opening statement. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Chairman Stupak. 

This is a little housekeeping before I give the opening statement. 

As you know, the ranking member on our side on this subcommittee is Congressman Greg Walden. He has stepped off the 

committee so that we can put Parker Griffith of Alabama on the 

committee. Therefore, for today’s hearing, we officially don’t have 

a ranking member. I have asked Congressman Burgess if he would 

do that today. But to give the opening statement, it will be myself. 

Later this week, Chairman Waxman—I think—has indicated 

that he will have a regular business committee meeting in which 

we will formally replace Mr. Walden. So that is why I am here. 

Mr. STUPAK. But for today’s hearing, Mr. Burgess will be ranking? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOE BARTON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BARTON. Yes, sir, as soon as I give this opening statement. 

Mr. Chairman, I am going to put my opening statement in the 

record in its entirety, so I am going to speak extemporaneously. 

When the Republicans were in the majority, we held similar 

hearings on Ford and Firestone tires. So I felt, as the ranking 

member of the full committee when Mr. Waxman and you approached me about these hearings, that it was only fair that the 

Republicans support this investigation. The American people do 

have a right to know, Mr. Chairman, and this subcommittee has 

always—regardless of which party controlled the Congress and regardless of which member of this committee chaired this subcommittee—has got a great record of getting the facts on the table. 

And I will say on the record, Mr. Chairman, that you are one of 

the best at getting the facts on the record. 

Having said that, we do want to have an open mind on what the 

problem is. 

I was stunned to learn yesterday that—you know, it shows how 

long it has been since I have worked on a car. But I was under the 

impression that the steering mechanism and the fuel acceleration 

mechanism was like it was years ago, that it was mechanically 

linked. It is not. It is 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 linked—to show how old I am—to the carburetor, but it is 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 on the pedal, there 

is a linkage that is going into the engine, that is going up to the 

fuel injection system, the carburetor and making it work. It is all 

electronic. 

The recall that Toyota was undertaking and the actual changes, 

the modifications, what they are doing is they are going in and 


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shaving part of the gas pedal off at the bottom, and then they are 

putting a metal washer insert behind the pedal so that it feels a 

little differently. They have exhaustively looked at the computer 

programs and electronics to see if there is some computer malfunction. So far, they can’t find it. 

Now, maybe there is. And like the study you have indicated, Mr. 

Chairman, maybe there is something in their program that is 

wrong. 

But I was under the assumption, as an industrial engineer, that 

it was still a mechanical system and there was something wrong 

with their design or something wrong with their linkage system or 

something wrong with their connection. Well, that is all electronic. 

And what we need to do, Mr. Chairman—I don’t believe that we 

should—and I am not saying that you are attempting to do this— 

that we should go on a witch hunt. We should actually try to find 

out in the true and best sense of protecting the American people 

that, if there is a problem, what it is. If there is a problem, what 

Toyota is 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 Toyota has done something wrong and 

is trying to cover it up. Now maybe they have. If that comes out 

in these documents and in the testimony, I hope the Congress will 

come down on Toyota very forcefully. But if they haven’t, you 

know, the people that I talk to have worked in the automotive industry for 30 years or more, and they have got absolutely no interest in covering up a problem that kills people, that hurts people, 

that endangers people’s lives. But it appears to be that, unless 

there is some electronic problem, it is possible that it could just be 

too many people putting too many floor mats in their cars. 

And I know that sounds silly, and it would seem incredulous to 

stipulate that that might be the problem. But, based on the observation of the 16 million vehicles, I believe, that Toyota has investigated or have records on, they have had a handful, maybe a 

dozen, that have had some problems. So we need to find the facts, 

and I know, Mr. Chairman, you and Mr. Waxman are great at finding the facts, and myself and the Republicans on the committee are 

going to help you. 

So, with that, I would yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Barton. It has been a cooperative 

effort. I look forward to continuing to work with you on this matter. 

A statement from the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Waxman, sir. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WAXMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. WAXMAN. Chairman Stupak, I want to thank you for holding 

today’s hearing on reports of sudden unintended acceleration in 

Toyota vehicles. 

I am a great admirer of Toyota. Toyota makes good cars. I have 

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 


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energy security. Perhaps that is why I am so disappointed in the 

company’s response to reports of Toyota vehicles racing 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 vehicle safety. Airbags are triggered by electronic controls. Electronic vehicle stability controls keep cars from swerving 

out of control, and fuel efficiency has increased. 

Like any advancement, the increased 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 over 

100,000 pages of documents from Toyota and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. These documents show that 

both Toyota and NHTSA have received thousands of complaints of 

runaway Toyota vehicles, and they show that these complaints increased after the introduction of electronic throttle controls. 

But what is most significant is what is missing from the documents. There is no evidence that Toyota or the government’s agency, NHTSA, took a serious look at the possibility that electronic defects could be causing the problem. Toyota did not initiate a study 

into possible electronic effects until just 2 months ago, and NHTSA 

still does not have an electrical or software engineer on staff. 

Our review indicates that Toyota received as many as 2,600 complaints of runaway vehicles through its telephone hotline alone. 

Over 700 of these incidents resulted in accidents. Toyota had three 

responses: first, blame the driver; second, blame the floor mat; 

third, blame a sticky gas pedal. And NHTSA, without doing any 

meaningful independent review, accepted Toyota’s explanations. 

Today, we will hear from Toyota’s U.S. President, Jim Lentz, 

who will testify; and he has cooperated with our investigation, 

which I very much appreciate. He has said that Toyota was ‘‘very 

confident that the fix in place is going to stop what’s going on.’’ As 

we will learn today, that seems unlikely. 

On our first panel, we are going to hear from Rhonda and Eddie 

Smith, who will describe Rhonda’s harrowing account of driving a 

runaway Toyota vehicle. Their account does not sound like a driver 

error, a floor mat problem, or a sticky pedal. It sounds like an electronic defect. 

On the same panel, we are going to hear from two automotive 

experts, Sean Kane and David Gilbert. They have been trying to 

identify possible electronic defects in Toyota vehicles. I am not an 

electronics expert, but if what they say is true, Toyota vehicles 

have a serious flaw in their electronic control systems that leaves 

them vulnerable to sudden unintended acceleration. 

One question we will ask today is, why didn’t Toyota and the 

government agency do the kind of investigation that Mr. Kane and 

Dr. Gilbert have done? Toyota failed its customers, and the government neglected its responsibilities. Today we will try to find out 

why. 

Given all that Toyota has achieved over the past 50 years, it 

would be wrong for Toyota to be permanently impaired as a result 

of the safety failures that have occurred. Toyota is a great comVerDate Mar 15 2010 08:42 Nov 09, 2012 Jkt 076008 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008

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pany, 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 electronic defects 

must be actively investigated, and safety must start coming first. 

Fundamental reforms are also needed at NHTSA. The agency 

lacked the expertise and resources to critically assess Toyota’s insistence that its vehicles could not fail. 

Ultimately, I believe that addressing this problem will require 

legislation. Carmakers have entered the electronics era, but 

NHTSA seems stuck in a mechanical mind-set. We need to make 

sure the Federal safety agency has the tools and resources it needs 

to ensure the safety of the electronic controls and onboard computers that run today’s automobiles. 

Again, I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I 

look forward to hearing from our witnesses so that, as a result of 

this hearing, we can take a constructive step forward to correct this 

problem and make sure that future problems that may even affect 

people’s lives are dealt with so that they will not occur. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Next, we will hear from the ranking member, Mr. Burgess of 

Texas, for 5 minutes, please. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL C. BURGESS, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you and 

Chairman Waxman for convening this important hearing. 

I thank our witnesses for being here. Thank you to the Smiths 

from Tennessee for sharing your compelling story with us today. 

So far, this committee has received thousands of documents from 

both Toyota Motor Company and the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration, showing the complaints they have received 

over the years and their investigations into those complaints. While 

this committee’s investigation is ongoing, it is clear that Toyota 

and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration received 

numerous complaints about sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. 

Lately, you can’t pick up the newspaper without reading a new 

announcement about a problem with a Toyota—Lexus, Camry, 

Prius, and now Corolla. In 4 short weeks, we heard in rapid succession that there was a problem with floor mats, then the pedals got 

stuck in the floor mat, that the pedals themselves were sticky and 

stayed depressed even after the driver took his or her foot off the 

gas. 

Many of us are surprised at the swiftness, the breadth, and the 

depth of this recall by a company that, really, we are all familiar 

with for having had a good reputation as a car company that 

makes quality, safe products; and many owners are very loyal to 

the brand. In fact, last year, Toyota was the number one in auto 

sales in the United States. Corolla is the number one seller worldwide. 

Unfortunately, the issue at the heart of this hearing is not about 

loyalty. It is the battle between economics and safety, and safety 

must always come first. The economics of this debate says that 


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Toyota made more money last year in the recession than any other 

automaker, over $800 million; and Toyota’s infrastructure is built 

on 1,500 auto dealers in this country and numerous manufacturing 

plants, all of which provide 200,000 needed jobs in this recession. 

In fact, Mr. Chairman, I have a letter from my Governor about 

the Toyota plant in San Anthony, Texas; and I will submit that for 

the record. 

I am uncomfortably aware of the fact that this government, through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, has given $64 billion 

to prop up General Motors and Chrysler. This is an inherent conflict of interest, and it has only grown since last month when the 

General Accountability Office said that the American taxpayer 

would lose over $30 billion of their investment into those two companies. So we really are not just a disinterested panel of individual 

car owners and stockholders. This is why we need to get out of the 

business of bailing out business. 

But, again, nothing should surpass the safety of the American 

consumer, which is why we are here. A document created by the 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s staffer during 

the course of the 2004 investigation into sudden acceleration shows 

a spike in these problems starting in 2002, the year that Toyota 

put in electronic throttle control in some of its cars. We have also 

learned that State Farm noted an increase in claims related to unintended acceleration as early as 2004 and shared its claims data 

with the agency in 2006. 

Yet here we are, 4 years later, and there isn’t a conclusive answer as to what caused the unintended acceleration. Is it Toyota’s 

fault? Is it the fault of the parts dealer, the operator? 

These questions, of course, are cold comfort for the families who 

lost loved ones in accidents following an acceleration event, and 

they deserve answers. But even as we work now to figure out as 

soon as we can what happened it is important that we get the full 

story and the correct answer so we can fix the problems going forward. 

We know that there were signals that Toyota and the National 

Highway Traffic Safety Administration both received in the form of 

driver complaints and warranty claims. We know NHTSA attempted to look into the issue; and, for reasons I hope that Secretary LaHood will explain today, NHTSA did not find an electrical 

problem with Toyota’s electronic throttle control. 

We also note Toyota did lots of testing and field investigations 

of these events and concluded that the problems were floor mats 

and sticky pedals, both problems that can be termed mechanical in 

nature. We do not yet have a good handle on what electrical test 

Toyota did on its cars during preproduction. We do not know how 

Toyota reached a conclusion that cars were not having electrical 

problems. We know that Toyota has recently hired an outside firm 

to run down these problems, but did Toyota do anything as these 

complaints were coming in? And, if not, why not? 

I hope we start getting a better idea of Toyota’s response to these 

questions today and a fuller picture of what is wrong with these 

cars. Toyota’s reputation for safety and reliability has been its 

stock in trade. I would say to Mr. Lentz, it is why people buy your 

cars and drive their families in them. It is why I own a Prius. We 


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hope you can explain today why Toyota is confident that floor mats 

and sticky pedals have caused some of these events and what you 

are doing to figure out the causes of the other unintended acceleration events. 

I also welcome Secretary LaHood. He has always worked in a bipartisan manner. I would like to publicly thank him for coming to 

my district last fall for a transportation event. His courtesy is always appreciated. 

But I do look forward to hearing Mr. LaHood explain why it 

seems that NHTSA has been engaging in a sudden acceleration of 

Toyota-related inquiries. Why the sudden ramp-up? What was 

NHTSA doing for the last 5 years as the drivers called the agency 

to complain about runaway cars? Were the Toyota complaints that 

NHTSA was seeing different in nature or number from the complaints related to other manufacturers? And I do hope we can get 

some insight into how NHTSA investigated these complaints. 

Thank you again, Chairman Waxman, Chairman Stupak, for convening this hearing. I know this will be the start of a long and multilayered process to discover the truth and what initiated the recalls and what we do going forward to fix the problem for the 

American consumer. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burgess follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. 

Mr. Dingell for an opening statement, please. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I commend you for this hearing. I 

thank you for your efforts. 

I will be asking yes-or-no questions today, and I hope no one will 

perceive this as discourteous or mean-spirited. I know you will conduct a fair hearing. And I ask unanimous consent to insert my full 

statement in the record because I would rather use the time for 

questioning. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Dingell. 

Mrs. Blackburn for an opening statement, please. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARSHA BLACKBURN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE 

Mrs. BLACKBURN. Thank 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 of that. 

This hearing is of utmost importance, but I am starting to become a little bit concerned about the tone 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 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 issue involving 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. 

Also, again, Mr. Chairman, let me say that this is too important 

an issue for us to play around with or to play politics with. And 

it is not a new issue. While I feel that many Members of this body 

and, unfortunately, this committee are inserting themselves at the 

11th hour, this is something that I have been working on for years. 

I have three letters that I sent in 2007 on this issue. I sent one 

to Chairman Dingell, another to Toyota, and another one to 

NHTSA, encouraging and urging this committee and the administration to look at the issue of unexpected acceleration in the Toyota 

Tacoma. 

In conclusion, I would just ask that we all listen to our expert 

panelists today in an effort to find out the truth and to draw reasonable conclusions as to how to best move forward to assess the 

lessons learned and to be certain that mistakes of the past are not 

repeated in the future. To do anything else would be irresponsible 

at a time when there is so much on the line. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I ask unanimous consent to submit my letters for the record. 

Mr. STUPAK. Without objection, your letters will be submitted for 

the record. 

[The information was unavailable at the time of printing.] 

[The prepared statement of Mrs. Blackburn follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. By unanimous consent, I am going to ask Chairman 

Rush, who is chairman of the Consumer Protection Subcommittee 

who has jurisdiction over NHTSA, to give an opening statement at 

this time. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY L. RUSH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I really appreciate you recognizing me, although I am not a member of this 

subcommittee, but I do have an opening statement. 

Currently, there are more than 205 million licensed motorists in 

the United States. And as our families and workforce become increasingly mobile, our society has, likewise, become more dependent on the so-called smartness features, energy efficiency factors, 

and the safety of our automobiles. Understanding this reality all 

too well, automobile dealers and makers, especially manufacturers 

of the high quality that Toyota has historically represented, basically brag in all sorts of slick advertising that their vehicles are the 

biggest, the baddest, and the boldest and, indeed, the safest car on 

the road. 

So what happened to Toyota? Hear me when I say that I am profoundly discomfited and disturbed by the findings of our committee 

staff. 

My concerns, Mr. Chairman, go far beyond Toyota’s safety practices and recall decisions. They stand to the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration’s apparent sluggishness in reinventing itself. It appears as if NHTSA failed to assign an appropriate mixture of staff and resources to keep up with the evolving 

and changing auto design technology, especially with respect to increased computerization. 

I am adamant about getting to the bottom of the causes for sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota’s fleet of passenger vehicles. 

As chairman of the Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection 

Subcommittee, I will be conducting a separate hearing in March to 

look into further NHTSA resources, staffing, and management philosophies as part of that agency’s reauthorization. 

Mr. Chairman, my sympathies and condolences go out to these 

families who have lost loved ones and certainly those consumers 

who have sustained grave injuries in crashes and accidents involving faulty Toyota and Lexus automobiles. I also extend these same 

sentiments to any automobile driver on the highways and streets 

and byways of our Nation who had the misfortune of encountering 

one of these faulty vehicles. 

The fact is that when these motorists and passengers took the 

simple routine step of getting into their cars, they had no idea that 

their entrusted vehicles had the potential to become literally killing 

machines. This is beyond the expectations, and this is totally unacceptable. 

I, along with millions of Americans, will be paying close attention 

to the answers given here today as well as to their testimony before 

other congressional committees today and in the future. Quite 

frankly, if some of the alleged behavior and failure to act that I 

have read in the media turns out to be true, then Toyota is perhaps 

driving down the road to an inquiry by the Justice Department. 


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Mr. Chairman, I promise all motorists, passengers, and pedestrians that my subcommittee will do everything in its power to restore confidence in NHTSA; and I will also work to ensure that affected Toyota and Lexus owners have full and immediate recourse 

to whatever equipment they need to remedy these safety defects. 

My hope is that consumers will once again have peace of mind 

when they turn on their vehicles and, yes, when they apply their 

brakes. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I appreciate this hearing and opportunity to provide testimony at the hearing. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Rush. 

Mr. Gingrey for an opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PHIL GINGREY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Mr. GINGREY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate this opportunity to offer a few opening remarks, and 

I certainly look forward to listening to the testimony of our witnesses as we seek to understand the full scope and impact of sudden unintended acceleration. 

While 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, NHTSA, I would like to echo the concerns of others 

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 vet a full range of witnesses, review over 70,000 pages 

of documents, and more deeply look into the underlying complex 

mechanical and electronic issues. Certainly we have an obligation 

to investigate potential threats, but we also have an obligation to 

get the whole truth to apply wisdom in our deliberations. 

Additionally, I know some have expressed concern at the possibility that since the Federal Government now has a vested interest 

in some of our domestic auto manufacturers it may have some incentive to highlight potential flaws with competing manufacturers. 

While I hope and I believe this is not the case, just because I am 

paranoid doesn’t mean somebody isn’t out to get me. We have to 

be cognizant of perception, especially in this post-bailout world 

where the Federal Government has already placed itself in the 

business of picking economic winners and losers. 

Nonetheless, our first and foremost obligation is to the safety and 

security of the American people; and if there is a problem here that 

can jeopardize people’s safety and lives, we must identify it, understand it, and assure that it is addressed and it doesn’t happen 

again. So I look forward, along with my colleagues, to listen to and 

very carefully consider the testimony of our witness as we seek to 

get to the root of this issue. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you; and I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Gingrey. 

Mr. Markey for an opening statement, 3 minutes, please. 


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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH 

OF MASSACHUSETTS 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

Like millions of Americans, I drive a Toyota, a 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 its 

stellar reputation for safe, reliable, and fuel-efficient vehicles. And 

like millions of Americans, I am troubled by the series of revelations that have led us to today’s hearing; and, as the recall continues, I also find myself wondering what went so wrong. 

The October 2009 recall of more than 4 million vehicles due to 

floor mats that were entrapping accelerator pedals raises troubling 

questions about what Toyota knew and when they knew it. While 

the government seemed to have first started to investigate this 

problem in 2007, I have learned of a Lexus recall undertaken by 

Toyota in the United Kingdom in the year 2000 because—and I 

quote—‘‘there is a possibility that the driver’s side carpet mat may 

rotate around the central fixing and interfere with the operation of 

the accelerator pedal.’’ 

And then in Canada in 2003, Toyota Celicas were recalled because ‘‘the driver’s floor mat may slide along the interior floor 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 and 

interfere with the accelerator pedal.’’ 

If Toyota first learned that this could happen 10 years ago in the 

U.K. and then again in Canada 7 years ago, why didn’t it do something before additional fatalities and other serious accidents occurred? 

Toyota’s response to increased scrutiny of its safety record leaves 

much to be desired. In recent days, we have learned of internal 

documents that cite Toyota’s success at limiting the outcome of the 

government’s safety investigations which reportedly saved $100 

million. Saving money should not come at the expense of saving 

lives. 

And, finally, many safety experts who have reviewed complaints 

regarding sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles do not believe 

that floor mats and sticky pedals can fully account for all of the 

complaints. Some have speculated that there may be more problems, particularly in the areas of the vehicles’ electronic controls. 

While Toyota asserts that its outside experts found nothing 

wrong with their cars’ electronics, 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 

is due to how you put your boot on the gas pedal or whether it is 

because Toyota needs to reboot the electronic software in its cars. 

That is what this hearing will be all about, and that is what the 

reforms will be that we ultimately pass as legislation. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Markey. 

Mr. Sullivan for an opening statement, 3 minutes, please. 


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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN SULLIVAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you. 

I first want to thank Chairman Stupak and Ranking Member 

Burgess for holding this hearing. I am pleased to be a 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 250 million passenger vehicles on the roads, safety must remain our number one priority; and statistical information indicates that we are meeting that goal. Over the last 50 

years, significant technological advancements in the design and 

construction of automobiles and reasonable Federal regulatory initiatives have increased overall road and vehicle safety. As a result, 

fatalities and serious injuries resulting from motor vehicle crashes 

in the U.S. are at the lowest level in 49 years, despite constant 

growth in licensed drivers and registered vehicles. 

Over the past week, I had the privilege of visiting and speaking 

with a Toyota dealer, Jim Norton, in my district and saw some of 

these problems and the 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 do what it is meant to do by shedding light on this situation so that we can maintain the U.S. position as the world’s leader in auto safety. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. 

On this side, Mr. Doyle for an opening statement. 

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. 

Mr. Chairman, this investigation is not intended to attack any 

one person or one company. This investigation is to see if the cars 

we drive are safe. It is to help us determine whether car manufacturers have done all they can do to ensure our safety, and it is 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. 

Mr. STUPAK. On this side, we have other Members who are here 

but are not members of the subcommittee. They are welcome to 

submit a written statement. Thank you for being here, Mr. Shimkus, Mr. Buyer, Mr. Whitfield, and Mr. Terry. 

On this side, next will be Ms. DeGette for an opening statement, 

please. 


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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DIANA DEGETTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, you need to look no further than me to find a 

loyal long-time Toyota owner. I have three Toyotas, and I have two 

daughters. My 1988 Camry is the car that I brought my 20-yearold daughter home from the hospital in, and it is the car she drives 

now. 

Most recently, after years of satisfaction with the Toyotas, I was 

excited to get one of the very first Camry hybrids. And imagine 

how I felt when my staff came in and told me what Toyota told us 

to do if the accelerator sticks and we can’t slow the car down. 

How did we get from 1988 to this? While Toyota has always had 

great consumer loyalty and, as they will remind you, a low percentage of safety recalls in the U.S., persistent questions exist. 

When and how did Toyota learn of these acceleration issues and 

how did they respond? Was this revealed to U.S. regulators and 

how did they respond? What was the role of NHTSA and did they 

take this investigation seriously? Did they make a deal with Toyota 

that limited a tough and thorough investigation? Has Toyota adequately analyzed all of the potential consequences of unintended 

acceleration, including whether or not electronic throttle systems 

may be a part of the cause? Do the recalls to date encompass the 

entire problem? 

Now, look, these questions, to me, they are not partisan questions. They are questions all of us should be asking on behalf of 

our constituents who drive Toyotas and, like me, have been satisfied Toyota customers for many, many years. And in the end, for 

me, the answers to these questions are not academic, and here is 

why: In less than 2 months, my 16-year-old daughter will be getting her license, and the car that she is going to be driving is the 

1994 Camry wagon. So let’s get this right. Let’s make sure these 

cars are safe for all American teenagers and adults to drive. 

I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Mrs. Christensen, opening statement, please. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. DONNA M. CHRISTENSEN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE VIRGIN ISLANDS 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

After years of buying only American-made make and model cars, 

because I was also trying to be a responsible global citizen, when 

it was time to replace my 12-year-old car, I went in search of a hybrid. I decided on a Prius but ended up with a cute little Solara 

convertible, soothing my conscience by reminding myself that Toyota made cars in this country and, of course, of what was then your 

stellar history for safety quality and service. 

To tell you how I felt about my car, when that commercial asked, 

when you turn on your car, does your car return the favor, I used 

to be able to answer yes. Now I am weary as I drive it, and when 

I go online, all I find out is that it is no longer being made. We 

Solara owners also need to know if there has ever been a problem 


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and what was done to correct it so that we know we don’t have to 

worry. 

But that is not the most important part of my story. The one 

that gives me sleepless nights right now is that my two daughters 

and three and a half grandchildren drive in Toyota-made cars 

every day, a 2006 RAV4 and a 2005 RX330 Lexus. So I want to 

hear from Mr. Lentz and Secretary LaHood assurances that they 

are and will be safe from any manufactured cars’ failures and that, 

if they have a problem, they won’t have to go through the ordeal 

that Mr. and Mrs. Smith had to go through. 

And I want to say that I do appreciate the efforts Toyota is undertaking, but it is too late for the family in San Diego and only 

by the grace of God do we have an intact Smith family here with 

us today. 

So take much more than your press releases and lobbying. And 

I must say that those of your lobbyists with whom I have worked 

I have great respect for you, but it is time for you to not just rebuild your image but to rebuild our trust. I hope that you will be 

able to do that quickly, not just for Toyota’s good name but for the 

lives you carry in your cars every day and for the many direct and 

indirect jobs you provide in the United States and the families that 

those jobs support. 

I also want to use this opportunity to say to other car manufacturers—because Secretary LaHood will attest that similar complaints come in on every make of car—that I also depend on all of 

you to put quality and safety over profits, to do the right thing by 

all of us consumers, to respond to complaints immediately, to investigate the complaints fully, and not to wait to be asked or to be 

made to issue a recall but to do so early when lives are at risk for 

whatever reason. 

And to the NHTSA and to all who have regulatory authority, we 

need you to exercise that authority as though the lives of your children and grandchildren, like mine and countless others, depend on 

your decisions. 

I want to thank Mr. and Mrs. Smith for their persistence and for 

being here today to tell their personal story, to welcome Mr. Kane, 

Mr. Gilbert, and Mr. Lentz. 

Secretary LaHood, when you arrive, it is always good to see you 

and to have you back. 

Thank you, Chairman Stupak and Ranking Member Walden for 

ensuring once again that we fulfill our oversight responsibility on 

yet another very important issue in such a timely manner. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Mr. Green for an opening statement, please. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE GREEN, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing 

today on the recall of Toyota vehicles. 

I would like to recognize a person in the audience, when I was 

much younger, as a State legislator in Texas, Joan Claybrook, who 

is here and a former administrator I think in the Carter administration on the highway safety issue. 


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Mr. Chairman, I think with opening statements you will hear 

personal stories from our own members but also I think express 

our disappointment in the Federal and Toyota’s response to the initial accidents. 

And, on a personal note, like my colleagues, I have to admit I 

have always driven Chevrolets. But the second generation in my 

family, my two children who are now adults, actually drive Toyotas. My son loves his Toyota Tundra. In fact, he is on his second 

truck; and it is built in Texas, he tells me. I remind him my Chevrolet Tahoe is also built in Texas. 

So I guess that is where the frustration is, is that Toyota has 

had such an image of perfection and if there is a problem fixing it. 

We know from at least the publicity and from the hearing and testimony that is under review that that fell down, and that just 

wasn’t what people expected. 

Since national attention was brought late last summer, Toyota 

has recalled more than 6.5 million cars for two different problems. 

But as we hear from our first panel today, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 

this issue was present in Toyota cars for several years, and we are 

here today to examine whether Toyota and the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration responded in a necessary and timely 

manner. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I want to thank you for being here to recall 

your harrowing experience and to shed some light on the problems 

you faced when you tried to bring this matter to the attention of 

both Toyota and the government officials. 

The two separate issues for recall of Toyota vehicles were socalled pedal entrapment and the sticky pedal. In September of 

2007, Toyota first issued a recall for all-weather floor mats in 

Lexus and Camry vehicles that caused the pedal entrapment. 

While this took place over 6 months after NHTSA initially opened 

its investigation into the pedal entrapment issue, response to the 

recall was low. 

It took another crash due to pedal entrapment—luckily not 

fatal—for NHTSA to urge Toyota to reissue the recall notice in 

January of last year, 2009. Unfortunately, the recall was still not 

widely responded to by consumers and even a dealer, who last August loaned a car to a Mark Saylor and his family. The loaner car 

had a floor mat from a different model that trapped the accelerator. 

After that crash, NHTSA determined Toyota address the issue 

more thoroughly than just replacing floor mats, which resulted in 

a Toyota recall of vehicles in October of 2009 and expanded in November to reshape or replace the accelerator pedal for 4.26 million 

vehicles. 

What we need to look at today—and I hope some of our witnesses can answer it—is why neither NHTSA nor Toyota realized 

there was not enough clearance for the accelerator when the issue 

first came up in 2007 and why this issue was not addressed more 

quickly. 

The second issue of the sticky pedal did receive a quicker response, and I commend Toyota for bringing information to NHTSA 

before an investigation was open for quickly issuing a recall. 

There are, however, other issues in Toyota vehicles that have 

been reported to NHTSA involving accelerator problems; and it is 


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important NHTSA investigate these issues thoroughly before dismissing them. To do that, NHTSA must have the necessary resources and hire staff to investigate all issues, whether it is mechanical or something in the electrical system. 

I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses on what we can 

do to support NHTSA’s mission and what changes are being made 

following this series of recalls. Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being here; and, Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding 

this very timely hearing. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Green. 

Ms. Sutton of Ohio for an opening statement of 3 minutes, 

please. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BETTY SUTTON, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Ms. SUTTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. 

For almost every American buying an automobile is one of the 

most important purchases, the biggest purchases of their lives. 

Consumers spend countless hours researching vehicles as they prepare to make this large and important purchase. 

And why do they do that? They do that because they know they 

need a vehicle they can count on. They know that they will need 

a car to transport them as they go about their daily lives; and, 

most importantly, they want to know that they have purchased a 

car that will transport the most precious cargo that they have, 

which is their families, their children. 

Trust is a fragile thing. It is hard to win, and it is easy to lose, 

and it finds its hold in promises kept and honesty sustained, which 

is why the problems that the millions of Toyotas have been experiencing have been so shocking. 

As documents have become public, we have learned that Toyota 

has been aware of these problems for years. It was revealed this 

week that Toyota officials took credit for saving $100 million by 

successfully negotiating a limited recall on floor mats with NHTSA 

several years ago. 

Consumers deserve better. It is unacceptable when companies 

and importers pay more attention to their costs than to the safety 

of their customers. According to NHTSA’s data, 34 people have died 

in the past decade in crashes that may have been caused by sudden 

unintended accelerations in Toyota vehicles. Toyota and NHTSA 

have received thousands of complaints involving unintended accelerations from across the country. 

Yes, this hearing is extraordinarily important. In many instances, consumers were told that they installed the floor mats incorrectly, but the installation of floor mats can’t possibly explain 

thousands of complaints. 

Recently, Toyota identified a problem with sticky pedals and are 

currently altering or replacing these devices. But the committee’s 

investigation has revealed that Toyota’s own counsel stated that a 

sticky pedal ‘‘typically does not translate into a sudden high-speed 

acceleration event,’’ which leaves Americans wondering about the 

extent of the problems. 


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Toyota says that the problems are not related to the electronic 

throttle control system, but 6 years ago NHTSA compiled data that 

showed that Toyota Camrys with electronic throttle controls had 

over 400 percent more vehicle speed complaints than those with 

manual controls. 

These are very concerning issues that we have to get to the bottom of. There is little doubt that Toyota’s disappointing actions and 

the disappointing things that have come to light in the course of 

this investigation have to be looked at, and they have resulted in 

the loss of sales for this company. I am very concerned that they 

will also result in the loss of jobs for workers who have done nothing through the fault of their own to face that potential consequence. 

But for the safety of all Americans this recall needs to be done 

right, and the problems need to be fixed, and the American people 

need to have the solace of knowing that NHTSA and Toyota are 

giving the highest of priority to ensuring the safety of the vehicles 

and the precious cargo that they carry. 

I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Next, we will hear from Ms. Schakowsky of Illinois, a member 

of the subcommittee. Ms. Schakowsky. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses for coming. I want to just 

especially note David Gilbert, who teaches in my State as an associate professor of automotive technology at Southern Illinois University. I look forward to the testimony of all of our witnesses. 

Like my colleagues, I am extremely concerned about the circumstances that bring us here today. I am concerned that Toyota 

put unsafe products on the market. I am concerned that Federal 

regulators had knowledge of unintended acceleration in some Toyota models in late 2003, as Secretary LaHood has acknowledged, 

but that it took 3 years before an initial investigation into floor mat 

problems was started. 

I am pleased that Toyota has taken action on the issue of pedals 

being caught in floor mats as well as the issue of sticky pedals and 

that recalls have followed, but I remain concerned about reports of 

other unintended acceleration incidents that don’t fit neatly into either of those categories and that the company has dismissed those 

reports. If there is a problem with the electronic system that controls acceleration, we need to know what it is, and it needs to be 

fixed immediately. 

We have also heard reports that State Farm Insurance reported 

Toyota had acceleration problems to the Department of Transportation in 2004 and that since 2000 there have been more than 

2,600 complaints about unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles 

and possible links to 34 deaths. I am concerned about whether 

NHTSA has had the resources necessary to sufficiently investigate 

these complaints; and I look forward to hearing from my former 


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colleague, Secretary LaHood, about what he needs to effectively rebuild the agency. 

In the coming months, Chairman Rush and I, as the Vice Chair 

of the committee, will be working on NHTSA reauthorization; and 

the pieces of the puzzle that we are talking about today are critical 

to our discussions about the future of the agency and whether it 

needs additional resources in terms of funding, expertise or authority. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Last, but not least, a member of our subcommittee, Mr. Braley 

of Iowa, for 3 minutes for an opening statement, please. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BRUCE L. BRALEY, A 

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF IOWA 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to make this clear at the beginning in response to some 

of the concerns mentioned on the other side of the aisle: I am an 

equal opportunity consumer safety advocate. I think 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 Toyota, with the deserved reputation for its commitment to excellence and safety that you have heard mentioned 

here today, why do they refuse for so long to seriously address the 

possibility of a failure of its electronic throttle control system as a 

contributing factor to sudden unintended accelerations? 

Two, once this committee began its investigation of this problem, 

why did Toyota turn to its product liability defense attorneys at 

Bowman and Brook to hire its independent expert, Exponent, Inc., 

to analyze this problem. 

Three, was the interim report produced by Exponent, Inc., to justify Toyota’s position the equivalent of junk science, and how much 

credibility should it be given by this committee and American consumers? 

Four, is NHTSA, 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 upon electronic and computer data? 

Five, is there data available in these vehicles that is being withheld from the American public and from regulators of public safety 

that would give us clues into the underlying cause of these problems, and I am talking specifically about the black boxes that now 

provide countless amounts of data, and yet are protected from public disclosure in every attempt to try to find out what type of computer data might be available to try to justify and explain why 

these problems happen. 

These are some of the questions I hope that American consumers 

get answers to today. 


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I ask unanimous consent to submit my full statement for the 

record, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Braley follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Without objection, your statement and all statements of members will be submitted for the record. 

I misspoke, Mr. Welch is a valuable member of this subcommittee. I didn’t see you down there, Peter, if you have an opening statement? 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PETER WELCH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Mr. WELCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

There really is one proposition that is not negotiable, and that 

is the safety of the American people, the American consumer, and 

that proposition requires us to ask two questions: Is the National 

Highway Transportation Safety Administration up to the task of 

the job, and what do they need to do in order to do that job better? 

Second, what did Toyota do, did it do it soon enough, and is it 

doing it now aggressively enough? 

But this question of protecting the public does require governmental response, whether it is involving a car or a toy manufactured from China that is imported here and used by our kids. And 

the fundamental responsibility when it comes to safety is both with 

government to have agencies that are looking out for the interests 

of the American people, and government has been woefully inadequate in doing that, not just in some consumer safety issues, but 

even in financial products like subprime mortgages. 

Mr. Chairman, I am glad our committee is back on the job. 

But, secondly, we have an obligation to be fair to all concerned, 

that is to the dealers, to the manufacturer, to the folks who work 

in my case Toyota dealerships in Vermont. I have had a chance to 

speak to Dave Birmingham and Karen and Dan Luneau who are 

very proud of the work they do. 640 Vermonters work in this. So 

this hearing is going to make certain that we get to the bottom of 

these questions about the government and about Toyota, but it has 

to be fair to all concerned. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Welch. 

Let me also thank other members of the committee who are 

present but are not members of the subcommittee but are interested in this hearing, but they are here and their presence is appreciated. Mr. Gonzalez is here, Mr. Engel is here and Mr. Gordon 

is here. Thank you for being here. If you want to submit any written opening statement, we will be happy to receive it. 

That concludes all of our opening statements. Before we have our 

first panel, Mr. Lentz of Toyota has been here with some of his 

staff and they were courteous enough and didn’t want to interrupt 

the opening statement. If they would like to come forward and 

have a chair, we would be happy to have them. I always appreciate 

it when witnesses, no matter what panel they are on, will sit 

through a full hearing so they get a full favor of our hearings. 

So if Mr. Lentz and his staff would like to come up, that will be 

great. We will recess for a minute while they do that. There is 

about six seats up front here, if you would like to take the seats 

up front. That would be great. 

Let me call our first panel of witnesses. On our first panel we 

have Mr. Sean Kane, who is President of Safety Research and 


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Strategies, Incorporated; Dr. David Gilbert, who is an Associate 

Professor of Automotive Technology at Southern Illinois University; 

Eddie and Rhonda Smith of Sevierville, Tennessee, who own a 

Lexus ES350 that experienced sudden unintended acceleration in 

2006. I ask the witnesses come forward. 

It is the policy of this subcommittee to take all testimony under 

oath. Please be advised that you have the right under the rules of 

the House to be advised by counsel during your testimony. Do any 

of you wish to be represented by counsel? 

Everyone indicating nodding their head no. I take it as a no 

then. I am going to ask you to please rise and raise your right hand 

to take the oath. 

[Witnesses sworn.] 

Mr. STUPAK. Let the record reflect that the witnesses replied in 

the affirmative. Each of you are now under oath. 

We will hear a 5-minute opening statement from our witnesses. 

You may submit a longer statement for inclusion in the hearing 

record. 

Mr. Smith, if you don’t mind, do you want to start, or would you 

like Mrs. Smith to start? Rhonda, do you want to start first? I am 

going to ask you to pull that mike up, turn on that button there. 

The green light should go on. I understand you are going to go 5 

minutes and you are going to give it to your husband and he is 

going to go 5 minutes. Is that correct? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. When you are ready. Thank you for being here. 

STATEMENTS OF EDDIE AND RHONDA SMITH OF 

SEVIERVILLE, TENNESSEE; SEAN KANE, PRESIDENT OF 

SAFETY RESEARCH & STRATEGIES, INCORPORATED; AND 

DR. DAVID GILBERT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY AT SOUTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY 

STATEMENT OF RHONDA SMITH 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. I would like to begin by thanking the honorable members of this committee and also Mr. Sean Kane and his 

staff for inviting us here to testify today regarding the much publicized sudden unintended acceleration, or often known as SUA, 

that has been and is currently being experienced by Toyota drivers, 

not only in the United States, but all over the world. 

SUA has been the cause of numerous deaths and will continue 

to be unless addressed by this committee, Toyota, and NHTSA. We 

truly appreciate this opportunity to share our story now since we 

have attempted numerous times since October 2006. 

My name is Rhonda Smith and this is my husband—— 

Mr. DOYLE. Mr. Chairman, could we get the microphone up? It 

is hard to hear her. 

Mr. STUPAK. Try that. 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Is that better? 

My name is Rhonda Smith, and this is my husband of 38 years, 

Eddie Smith. I am a retired social worker with the State of Tennessee and Eddie is a Senior Vice President at a bank in 

Sevierville, Tennessee. I am truly thankful to be here today, and 

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lessly, unnecessarily, and I would like to share an incident with 

you concerning SUA that I experienced October 12, 2006, in our 

new Lexus ES350. 

This car had 2,728 miles on it when the incident occurred. The 

vehicle had a keyless push button ignition and required a key fob 

to be present inside the car in order for it to start. 

On that Thursday, October 12th, 2006, and I am going to read 

this, because I tell you, it still upsets me today, I was driving from 

my home in Sevierville down Highway 66 to the interstate, Interstate 40, and upon entering the interstate, I accelerated with everyone else into the flow of traffic. And at this point I merged into 

the second lane, not going into passing gear. 

At this time, I lost all control of the acceleration of the vehicle. 

The car goes into passing gear and the cruise light comes on. At 

this time, I am thinking that maybe the cruise is what caused the 

car to keep accelerating as my foot is not on the gas pedal. I take 

off the cruise control, but the car continues to accelerate. 

To make a long story short, I put the car into all available gears, 

including neutral, but then I put it in reverse and it remains in reverse as the car speeds to over 100 miles per hour down the interstate. 

I placed both feet on the brake after I firmly engaged the emergency brake, and nothing slows the car. I figured the car was 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. 

I called my husband on the Bluetooth phone system. I knew— 

I am sorry—I knew he could not help me, but I wanted to hear his 

voice one more time. After six miles, God intervened as the car 

came very slowly to a stop. I pulled it to the left median. 

With the car stopped and both feet still on the brake, the motor 

still revved up and down. At 35 miles an hour, it would not shut 

off. Finally, at 33 miles per hour, I was able to turn the engine off. 

After my husband arrived, he found nothing unusual about the 

accelerator or the floor mats, but the strange thing was that the 

dash lights and the radio were still on. After the wrecker arrived, 

we gave the vehicle fob to the wrecker driver. When he hooked the 

car and prepared to winch it onto the rollback, he asked my husband to put the car in neutral so he could start the winch. 

The driver was standing 20 to 25 feet away at the rollback controls. Without thinking, my husband sat down in the car without 

the key fob and was able to shift the car into neutral, which he 

shouldn’t have been able to do. But when he did that, the car actually tried to start itself. We have a notarized statement from 

Tommy Clayton, the wrecker driver, attesting to this. 

Toyota said they would inspect our Lexus and contact us. After 

10 days, we still had not received a call back. We called again and 

got the same assurances. Toyota promised us they would look into 

our complaint several more times over the next few weeks. 

When we finally forced Toyota to respond in writing, we received 

a five-sentence analysis stating, and I quote, ‘‘When properly maintained, the brakes will always override the accelerator.’’ Well, we 

know that is a lie. And we were outraged that Toyota would suggest in that statement also that the brakes had not properly been 


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maintained in order for that to happen, and the car had less than 

3,000 miles on it. 

Once again we contacted our dealer and expressed our disgust 

with Toyota’s handling. They recommended we contact NCDS, 

which is the National Center for Dispute Settlement, and ask for 

an arbitration hearing. 

Our NCDS hearing was a total farce. The representative for 

Lexus was Mr. Leonard St. Amand, their Tennessee district field 

technician. Mr. St. Amand, although only an hour away in Kingsport, did not show his face, and he attended via speakerphone. He 

insisted that he could not recreate the incident and that I had more 

than likely caused this problem by standing on the brakes while 

spinning the tires. 

Well, of course, we were furious that Toyota called us liars the 

second time. NCDS denied our claim for a total refund of our purchase price for this specific car, which is all we were asking for. 

In mid-March 2007 we turned to NHTSA for help. Mr. Steve 

Chan and Mr. D. Scott Yon, safety defects engineers, responded. 

Mr. Yon took over our claim and seemed to be receptive of our concerns that sudden unintended acceleration in Lexus vehicles could 

cause serious injury, and we told them possibly death at that time, 

that somebody was really going to get hurt. We furnished pictures 

of the car and documentation of what had transpired since October 

2006. 

On April 11, 2007, Mr. Yon flew to Knoxville, Tennessee, and 

drove to Sevierville to inspect the car. My husband will address 

that in a moment. 

Since neither Toyota nor NHTSA took us seriously, we tried to 

alert the public through the news media back then. We contacted 

numerous news agencies, a lot that are probably here today, and 

we tried all types of media, only to have one local station take an 

interest in our claim that Toyota and NHTSA were ignoring a 

deadly problem. 

Only one local station, Don Dare with WATE–TV channel 6 in 

Knoxville, did the story, which aired spring of 2007. We repeated 

our strong belief that the problem was somewhere in the electronics. 

After the Santee, California, crash that killed a California highway patrolman and his family, WATE–TV did a second story on 

Toyota’s sudden unintended acceleration. This was broadcast in 

February 2010, showing our original interview and a current interview. We have never wavered from our belief that our problem was 

electronic, not wandering floor mats. We forwarded this 2010 video 

to Toyota and NHTSA and received no response. 

In early 2008, we reluctantly let go of our mission to persuade 

Toyota and NHTSA to deal with the problem because the effort 

was too traumatizing. But we are here today because for the first 

time we feel our story has been given more than a token of attention. Unfortunately, it took almost 4 years and injuries and lives 

lost to prompt Congress to take up this important issue. 

In 2006 and 2007, we hoped that our efforts spared others the 

unnecessary terror and pain of an SUA incident, and it pains our 

hearts deeply to realize that we failed. But this failure is surely 

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onstrated an uncaring attitude and disregard for life. The results 

have been tragic, and today I must say, shame on you, Toyota, for 

being so greedy, and shame on you, NHTSA, for not doing your job. 

It is our hope that this testimony will help all of Toyota’s customers in a way that Toyota has not yet done to this day. 

Once again, I would like to thank this committee for taking the 

time to listen to our story. It is about time we were heard, and I 

hope that Toyota and NHTSA will be held accountable for the poor 

decisions that have cost some people their lives. We would also like 

to ask this committee to set a higher standard for NHTSA to be 

held more accountable in the future. 

I thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. and Mrs. Smith follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mrs. Smith. Mr. Smith, your opening 

statement. Please pull that mike up. 

STATEMENT OF EDDIE SMITH 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. Good morning. I am sorry, it is good afternoon. 

I would also like to take an opportunity to thank the honorable 

members of this committee for inviting us to testify today and to 

share our sudden unintended acceleration experience, along with 

my thoughts and feelings. As my wife told you, my name is Eddie 

G. Smith. I am the husband of Rhonda, who you just heard speak. 

We purchased this 2000 Lexus ES350 because of Toyota’s exemplary claim of safety, as we have young grandchildren. 

It has been a true experience trying to decide what to say today. 

You have all heard my wife describe her experience. Now, take a 

minute and put yourself on the other end of the cell phone listening 

to what you think are the last words you will ever hear her speak 

and the imminent death of your lifelong best friend and spouse and 

not being able to do anything about it. 

Besides this being the most terrifying, traumatizing experience of 

my wife’s entire life, it is also the most frightening and heartwrenching thing I have ever experienced. Needless to say, she was 

spared by the grace of God and is still by my side today. 

We have never been crusaders for any cause, other than our God, 

family, and freedom. However, we have been on a mission to get 

this injustice to the American people noticed, addressed, and fixed. 

Toyota was informed of this potentially deadly problem in 2006 

and was warned by us numerous times that lives would be lost if 

this was left unattended. We phoned, e-mailed and wrote numerous 

letters trying to get Toyota to correct this sudden unintended acceleration problem. 

Our complete customer satisfaction that we received, as Rhonda 

said, was a statement from Toyota stating if properly maintained 

the brakes would always override accelerations. They called us 

liars. 

Next, Toyota pushed this to arbitration with the National Center 

for Dispute Settlement. This was one of the biggest wastes of my 

time and my wife’s time and money we have never seen. It was a 

complete setup meeting to try and make us go away, and we didn’t. 

Once again we were called liars, and actually accused of ruining 

our own brakes and transmission. This had the complete smell of 

a prearranged decision by Toyota and NCDS. 

Now we have NHTSA. As you know, NHTSA by their own admission on the Web site is that it is our U.S. administration responsible for reducing deaths, injuries, and economic losses resulting 

from crashes. Their mission statement is to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic 

costs. 

At first we got the good warm feeling that someone actually did 

believe us who cared enough to try and prevent any further possibility of loss of life. They even made a trip to inspect our vehicle. 

We finally felt our government would actually step in and bring 

Toyota to task and resolve this issue, thus sparing others from 

going through the experience my wife went through. 


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Were we ever wrong again. Now their claim was it was probably 

the floor mats, thus a massive mail-out of small orange warning 

stickers to place on the rubber mats. This was their fix. 

After reading Mr. Yon’s report, we realized that NHTSA had only 

sat in to sell us on the idea that this problem was not electronics, 

rather a floor mat. They went through the motions and tried to appease us with this absurd theory. 

I was present during the complete investigation by Mr. Yon. The 

floor mat test referred to in Mr. Yon’s report, as you have all read, 

was a complete fabrication of the truth. This never happened and 

was never shown to us at any time during his visit. Once again we 

felt we had only received lip service. 

Now that lives have been lost and sudden unintended acceleration seems to finally have been admitted an electronic issue, why 

do Toyota and NHTSA not remember Rhonda Smith’s pleas in 2006 

for someone to take heed and fix this killer problem. 

My point from all this is to say for a purported reliable and safety concerned company, such as Toyota claims to be, they sure took 

the easiest and cheapest route on the electronic issue brought to 

their attention by us in 2006. How many American lives should 

have been spared? My customer satisfaction from Toyota and 

NHTSA consists of an extremely traumatized wife. I was labeled a 

destructive, lying idiot. And I paid the repair bill to fix the brakes, 

rotors and drums on our 2007 Lexus. 

Many have experienced sudden unintended acceleration, and unfortunately some are not alive today to be able to tell their story. 

Rhonda is here today to testify before this committee for all those 

who have died and their families. Hopefully some justice will finally be served. 

To Toyota, I say your quality and safety record has been totally 

destroyed by your past and present words and actions. Now your 

integrity has come into play. How are you going to handle this? We 

are here today to help see that you don’t shove the American people under the rug again and that your true colors are finally revealed. 

To NHTSA, I feel you have totally failed the American public, 

and I personally feel you as our government watchdog need to stop 

feeding from your Japanese bowl. 

Thank you very much for your time. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. 

Next we will hear from Mr. Kane from Safety Research and 

Strategies. Your opening statement, please, sir. 

STATEMENT OF SEAN KANE 

Mr. KANE. Yes, thank you, Chairman Stupak and members of 

the committee. 

Mr. STUPAK. Hold that up a little bit closer. 

Mr. KANE. Thank you, Chairman Stupak and members of the 

committee, for holding this important hearing, for inviting me to 

come testify before you today. 

I am the President and Founder of Safety Research & Strategies. 

We are a research and advocacy firm that specializes in automotive 

and consumer product safety issues. 


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In addition to providing factual research to attorneys, engineers, 

corporations, and government, we leverage our understanding of 

the safety issues to advocate on behalf of consumers. That is part 

of my company’s mission. That is what I have been doing for nearly 

20 years. 

I have been invited here to really help the committee in understanding how did we get here today with Toyota 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 am submitting our report, Toyota Sudden Unintended Acceleration, which provides a detailed examination of the 

issue. We released our report on February 5th and we had an addendum on the 19th to provide the committee and the public with 

context for the crisis that has been really in its making for many 

years. 

I am also submitting a preliminary report, Toyota Electronic 

Throttle Control Investigation, which we commissioned with automotive technology professor Dr. David Gilbert of Southern Illinois 

University at Carbondale. Dr. Gilbert’s preliminary report provides 

critical insight into the fail-safe detection capabilities of the electrical circuitry designed to prevent unintended acceleration in some 

electronic throttle controlled vehicles manufactured by Toyota. 

In our report, we look at the complexities and inconsistencies in 

the public record. Almost everything we have been informed by is 

in clear view and in the public record. It is difficult to find sometimes, but we spent a lot of time reviewing those records. And what 

we have concluded from the records that we have examined is that 

neither Toyota nor the National Highway Safety Administration 

has identified all the causes of sudden unintended acceleration in 

Toyota and Lexus models, nor has the auto maker implemented 

remedies that address the types of complaints that consumers are 

reporting, and that concerns us greatly. 

We are really concerned about the unintended acceleration circumstances that many drivers and witnesses have reported to Toyota in their Lexus models and how they have been handled. They 

are rooted in the fact that many of these incidents don’t relate to 

the recalls. In our analysis of about 2,263 complaints, we found 

that nearly half of those complaints fall outside of any recall whatsoever. 

Listening to the experiences of the Smiths of a Lexus that raced 

down the highway, they are fortunate to be here today. Others are 

less fortunate. The problem may be rare, but it is serious. 

Jeff Pepski of Plymouth, Minnesota, he petitioned NHTSA to investigate the defect in his Lexus. He also experienced unintended 

acceleration at a highway speed. To try and bring his car under 

control, he put his foot underneath the pedal to pull back on the 

pedal. He had carpeted floor mats in his car. 

Neither one of those relate back to these recall issues. If it was 

a sticky pedal, that pedal would have returned with the foot. If it 

was a floor mat, it would have been crept up and forward, and it 

would have to have been an all-weather floor mat. He had carpeted 

floor mats in his vehicle. 

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celerations that were summarily dismissed by Toyota as driver 

error or floor mats, yielded only a couple of small recalls. It took 

a horrific crash, one that we all know about, that occurred on August 28, 2009, that killed a CHP officer and his family, that haunting 911 call. It was a watershed moment in this crisis. 

Due to neglect and the failure to address these root causes and 

by NHTSA’s failure to thoroughly investigate some of the consumer 

claims, despite the steady stream of these claims, it is hard to understand why a CHP officer couldn’t bring control to his car. The 

evidence in NHTSA’s public record is ambiguous. If it was a floor 

mat, Toyota is guilty of failing to acknowledge a very serious and 

real consequence of pedal entrapment for years. 

Since the agency pointed out in a 2007 investigation drivers 

could easily stop a runaway vehicle, the very fact that a 

mispositioned or incorrect floor mat could even cause this kind of 

problem, this significant outcome, speaks volumes to the way Toyota has handled this safety issue today. The simplest of problems, 

a floor mat interference, hasn’t been handled appropriately. 

If the floor mat didn’t confine the pedal, then Toyota and Lexus 

owners have a real cause for worry that their vehicles have an unidentified defect constituting a severe safety hazard. 

Based on our surveillance of the complaint data, which is in the 

public record, extensive interviews with consumers who have experienced SUA, 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 SUA incident, consumers frequently report to Toyota dealers that their field technical specialist could find no vehiclerelated problems. Specifically, they report the absence of what is 

called a diagnostic trouble code, a DTC, an error code. 

Toyota has consistently argued that its electronic throttle control 

design in fail-safe systems was built with multiple redundancies 

and that the electronic throttle cannot malfunction with its diagnostic system without it catching an error and employing fail-safe 

modes. 

In response to NHTSA, the company flatly rejected the concept 

of unintended acceleration. In fact, they stated, ‘‘With regard to allegations of unintended acceleration, Toyota does not believe that 

uncontrolled acceleration can occur without the driver applying the 

accelerator pedal. If an abnormal condition occurs, such as the 

ETC, the electronic throttle control, sending the signal to a throttle 

body to open the throttle without applying the accelerator pedal 

due to a failure of a component or a malfunctioning of the system, 

or the throttle were to simply open on its own, the system would 

go into fail-safe mode.’’ 

Because drivers’ real-world experiences are running counter to 

what these statements reflect and Toyota’s unshakeable belief that 

their system was infallible, we felt it was important to examine 

that malfunction detection system and the fail-safe capabilities of 

Toyota’s vehicles with ETC. 

As a result, we commissioned some research in this area. The 

findings are still very preliminary, but they are urgent. The urgent 


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nature of them has had us working long nights and weekends with 

Dr. Gilbert to get the preliminary report to this committee. 

We have learned from Dr. Gilbert’s preliminary study that there 

are conditions in the Toyota Lexus models tested in which the redundancy of electronic circuits in the electronic throttle control are 

lost, particularly in what is called the accelerator pedal position 

sensor. Losing circuit redundancy in the system creates a loss of 

fail-safe modes that Toyota has programmed, and notably the system will not detect an error. No DTC, no diagnostic trouble codes 

are found. 

Once this happens, you have now loaded the gun. In this State, 

lacking a redundant fail-safe, various scenarios can be introduced 

in the electronic control module, the computer, that read wide open 

throttle without any input from the driver, and again without setting a single diagnostic trouble code, no errors. This should never 

happen. 

Simply increasing voltage to the pedal position sensor while in 

a compromised state can induce this uncommanded wide-open 

throttle condition. These scenarios can occur because Toyota’s failsafe parameters are broad. The design allows a wide window of opportunity for problems to occur that are not seen as abnormal by 

the computer. 

Dr. Gilbert’s testing demonstrates that vehicles can react to sensor areas in ways that appear consistent with consumer complaints 

of unintended acceleration. We must emphasize that at this point 

it is going to take additional research to make the connection between the two, but his work provides an important baseline for understanding potential electronic root causes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. 

At this point we simply have two bookends. One end of it is Dr. 

Gilbert’s analysis which finds there are holes in the Toyota system 

that can allow these failures to occur undetected. On the other 

hand, we have got reports from folks like the Smiths where clearly 

their incidents are related to electronic problems, and yet no diagnostic trouble codes are found when their cars are brought in. 

Mr. STUPAK. I am going to have to ask you to wrap it up. 

Mr. KANE. So how do we get here today? We get here today because like many large scale problems, they are complicated, they 

are multifaceted, they are multi-root caused. There is no one simple solution. 

At this point, there is 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 Toyota’s 

problem. They created this crisis, and this problem has been festering beneath the surface for years. It took a crisis and it took a 

crash that captured the Nation’s attention to get this to a place 

where it is today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kane follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Kane. 

Mr. Gilbert, your opening statement please. I am going to ask 

you to turn that mike on and pull it towards you more. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID GILBERT 

Mr. GILBERT. Chairman Waxman, Subcommittee Chairman Stupak, and the honorable members of the Committee on Energy and 

Commerce, I thank you for holding this important hearing and allowing me the opportunity to testify before you today. 

Like so many of you have expressed, I have nothing against the 

Toyota Motor Company. They have a fine reputation of building a 

traditional line of very dependable vehicles. They have been very 

supportive of the school at which I work. I thought enough of the 

product brand to put my son in one. 

So, with that said, a little bit about myself. I have been a technical educator involved with automotive diagnostics and troubleshooting for almost 30 years. I have been witness to many evolutionary changes over that time. 

When I first began teaching at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M 

College, electronic fuel injection vehicles were relatively new. Over 

the years, automotive technologies continued to progress, from fundamental mechanical systems to more sophisticated electrical and 

electronic systems. 

Now, as an automotive technical educator at Southern Illinois 

University in Carbondale, I have found electrical diagnostic skills 

to be supremely important in diagnosing and repairing modern 

automobiles and I have spent many hours studying and analyzing 

new circuits and components. 

Based on my knowledge of real world failures in components, I 

purposely duplicate multiple types of electronic problems in donated vehicles for my students to study and diagnose. This provides my students with an opportunity to analyze wiring schematic, service information, and actively diagnosed problems. 

SIU automotive technology graduates have found employment in 

virtually every aspect of the automotive industry. Students graduating from SIU have the technical skills to work closely with automotive design engineers to ensure reliable vehicle service in real 

world situations. I believe the exemplary student placement record 

is a result of the rigor of the program and the emphasis is on problem solving. 

It stands to reason then that my daily teaching responsibilities 

would include application and understanding of electronic throttle 

control diagnostics. I have the unique perspective in my employment to research and study multiple vehicles and electronic throttle control system diagnostics. 

In this preliminary report, my initial findings question the integrity and consistency of Toyota electronic control modules to detect 

potential electronic throttle control system malfunctions. The absence of a stored diagnostic trouble code in the vehicle’s computer 

is no guarantee that a problem does not exist. I instruct all my 

automotive students of this fundamental statement: You can have 

a code with no problem, and you can have a problem with no code. 

My curiosity with Toyota electronic throttle control systems 

began simply with a search for the truth concerning unintended acVerDate Mar 15 2010 08:42 Nov 09, 2012 Jkt 076008 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008

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celeration. I recently purchased a 2010 Toyota Tundra, and with 

the growing attention in the media to what seemed to be increasing 

events of sudden unintended acceleration, I made the decision to 

investigate the foundation of these claims on my own. 

Based on my working knowledge of electronic throttle controls, I 

did not expect the system to be easily fooled without detecting a 

circuit fault and setting a diagnostic trouble code. It was late one 

evening when I made a startling discovery. Electrical circuit faults 

could be introduced in the electronic throttle control system without setting a code. The discovery opened a window of opportunity 

within the electronic throttle control system for a potential problem 

without a code. 

Without a code set, the vehicle computer will not logically enter 

into a fail-safe mode of operation. All vehicle manufacturers have 

recognized the importance of electronic throttle control systems to 

perform exactly as they intended. 

Since the vehicle computer will only react to defective sensor inputs outside the range of the program limitations if the circuit is 

defective, as far as the computer is concerned it must be good. 

Knowing properly operating electronic throttle control systems and 

components are vital to safe operation, I proceeded to investigate 

the problem with much more urgency. 

Because of its role to accurately convey the vehicle driver demands for throttle opening, accelerator pedal sensor voltage inputs 

need to be confirmable by the vehicle’s computer as absolutely correct. A complete or partial failure of these electrical circuits, sensors, wiring or actuators in combination with an 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 strategies should not be underestimated. Sudden unintended acceleration of vehicles is a very serious safety concern that needs to be addressed without delay. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gilbert follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Gilbert. 

That concludes the testimony. We will go to questions. I am 

going to start with the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Waxman, please. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much. I want to thank all the witnesses for your testimony on this first panel. 

Toyota has maintained over and over again that it is not the 

electronics. It is not the electrical system. There are other reasons 

to 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 an outside engineering consulting firm called Exponent. And we have asked people to evaluate Exponent’s analysis, 

and they said it was not a very good analysis. In fact, they thought 

it failed to follow a scientific—it failed to stand up to a scientific 

evaluation. So if Exponent’s analysis doesn’t adequately explain 

things, we need to find another explanation. 

Now, we are 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. That is Mr. 

Lentz’s testimony. We are going to hear it in a little bit. 

Dr. Gilbert, you have given us a preliminary report. You looked 

at an alternative explanation to test this hypothesis. Briefly and in 

layman terms, what did you find, that it is possible to have electronic failure? 

Mr. GILBERT. First off, it requires a thorough understanding of 

the system. The accelerator pedal position sensor input into the 

PCM is an input directly from the driver. If that circuitry or if that 

sensor is in error, then it is quite possible that that command that 

is being given to the vehicle’s onboard computer will be accepted 

as a valid request to open the throttle. As a result of that, that is 

where I focused my investigation at the very beginning. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, they have a fail-safe built in. Are you saying 

the fail-safe failed? 

Mr. GILBERT. The fail-safe will only come into play if the vehicle’s onboard computer is able to detect a fault in the circuit. What 

my preliminary findings have shown is that there is a large 

amount of leniency in the programming of the fail-safe strategies 

that will allow certain abnormalities to occur without the vehicle’s 

onboard computer being able to detect that a fault exists. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Is this like an electronic short between two pedal 

sensors that could override the fail-safe, meaning that a failure 

would not be read as an error and would not cut off engine power 

in a sudden unintended acceleration situation? 

Mr. GILBERT. It could be interpreted as a short. Yes, it could. 

Mr. WAXMAN. So, in other words, you discovered a scenario 

where a failure in Toyota’s 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? Did you spend millions of dollars and spend years studying 

it? 


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Mr. GILBERT. Well, if I might say, after 30 years of automotive 

technology teaching and electronic engine controls, I discovered it 

in about 3–1/2 hours. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Three-and-a-half hours. 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And how much money did this take for you to 

spend to come up with this conclusion? 

Mr. GILBERT. With the equipment that I had on hand, basically 

very little, if anything. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, it is really astounding, because what you are 

describing are findings for us that relate to reports of sudden unintended acceleration, and my understanding is that you did this but 

Toyota did not. Did you report your findings to Toyota and have 

you heard from the company about your report? 

Mr. GILBERT. 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. Eventually they did call me back and I talked with I am 

told some engineers with Toyota, and I told them exactly what I 

had done and expressed my concern for this type of a problem. 

And in that conversation I told them, specifically I said what I 

have done is I have introduced a fault within the electronic system 

that should have been detected as a circuit fault, set a DTC and 

reduced engine power. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Can we say with certainty that what you concluded is the absolute cause for the sudden accelerator problem? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir. What this does is this opens the opportunity to have other problems occur without detection. 

Mr. WAXMAN. So the essential point here is that if Toyota didn’t 

believe this could happen, they didn’t look for it. They looked 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 didn’t look to see if the fail-safe 

failed. 

Mr. Chairman, I just think that we need to look at all the explanations and not put blinders in the way, which Toyota apparently 

did, in trying to assess the reason for serious problem in many of 

those vehicles. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Waxman. 

Mr. Barton for questions. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask some 

questions of Mr. Gilbert, but I want to ask Mr. and Mrs. Smith 

some questions first. 

I listened to your testimony or watched it on television in my office, so I have been participating visually in the hearing, even 

though I haven’t been here in person. 

Mrs. Smith, when your car was going down the highway, it just 

kind of went crazy, that is a very non-technical term, and you apparently did everything you could. You tried to put it in neutral, 

you tried to turn the engine off, you put both feet on the brake, and 

it just kept going, isn’t that right? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. That is correct. 


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Mr. BARTON. And somehow God intervened and it slowed down 

and you finally got out of the car. When you called the Toyota people to come, did they take physical possession of your car? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. We didn’t call the Toyota people. 

Mr. BARTON. You didn’t call the Toyota people? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. No. We just called—we had AAA. 

Mr. BARTON. Did anybody inspect the car to see if there were 

physical cuts in the wiring or somehow the electrical components 

had been shorted out? Did anybody do that inspection? 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. May I answer that? I was in my vehicle trying 

to catch up with her, which was impossible, or just at least to be 

there. When I got there, she was still sitting in the vehicle. I inspected what a man would normally inspect to see if there was 

anything wrong, which includes floor mats, and this was not a floor 

mat problem. 

My answer to your question is we had the car towed to 

Sevierville and then directly to the Lexus dealer in Kingsport, Tennessee, on a rollback wrecker. No one touched the vehicle until it 

got to the Lexus dealership. Now, were there wires cut or were 

there not wires cut? 

Mr. BARTON. I am not insinuating anything. 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. We don’t know. 

Mr. BARTON. I will stipulate your testimony is credible, you had 

a runaway vehicle. It wasn’t caused by a floor mat problem. It 

wasn’t caused by you putting your foot on the pedal and going to 

sleep. Something went wild in your car. 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BARTON. So what I am trying to figure out is based on what 

Mr. Gilbert said, he has 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 there is 

so much stuff under there now, I couldn’t work on one if my life 

depended on it. But I would assume if Toyota actually inspected 

your car, they would have torn the thing apart trying to find out 

what the problem is. Did that happen? 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. Mr. Lamont, he was the field technician for 

Lexus that was sent to Kingsport. His report back to us was there 

was nothing wrong with it. 

Mr. BARTON. Mr. Chairman, has my time already expired? 

Mr. STUPAK. Go ahead, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BARTON. Because I see I am minus 4 minutes and 20 seconds. 

Mr. STUPAK. No, go ahead. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. Now I want to go to Mr. Gilbert. The minority 

has 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 are 

very credible and respected in the industry. 

If I understood what you said, you decided on your own to look 

into this, or did Toyota approach you and ask you to look into this? 

Mr. GILBERT. I did this on my own. 

Mr. BARTON. You did this on your own. 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. BARTON. And you actually went out and bought a car, or you 

got access to a car? 

Mr. GILBERT. I should explain a little bit. Toyota Motor Company 

has been very generous with vehicle donations. We had a number 

of Toyota vehicles in the fleet, and they are listed in the report, 

that were donated for educational purposes, and those were at my 

disposal. So one of the first vehicles that I looked at was a 2007 

Toyota Tundra, which is similar to the vehicle I purchased. And 

that was part of my interest. 

Mr. BARTON. You got access to some Toyotas. 

Mr. GILBERT. Absolutely. 

Mr. BARTON. From what little minority staff and myself have 

been able to evaluate your testimony, you are saying that there 

could be some sort of an electronic physical fault in the electronic 

system, a physical impairment that would cause an electric circuit 

malfunction? Or are you saying there is a physical defect, an actual 

impairment in terms of a cut or some sort of a friction point that 

gets thin and there is a short that occurs because of that? 

Mr. GILBERT. First of all, you have to understand a little bit 

about the fail-safe strategies that they have in place for all accelerator pedal position sensors that vehicle manufacturers put on. 

Typically they try to run circuitry that is redundant. In other 

words, if you look in the preliminary report, you can see an example of this. They run separate—they actually have two signal circuits within the pedal position sensor itself. Each has their own 

power supply, each has their own ground circuit, and each has 

their 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? 

Mr. BARTON. I took electrical engineering. I made C’s, but I did 

take it. 

Mr. GILBERT. OK, great. It is 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 vehicle’s onboard computer is exactly correct. 

OK. With that said, if for some reason that circuit becomes compromised, shorted to power, shorted to ground, or shorted signalto-signal, then at that point you should be able, within the vehicle’s 

computer, to detect that circuit abnormality and set a DTC. That 

would allow the vehicle to turn on an MIL, or a malfunction indicator lamp, warn the driver, and—— 

Mr. BARTON. Well, there should be, to be non-technical, if something starts going wrong in the circuitry, there should be a default 

program that stops the engine. 

Mr. GILBERT. Exactly. And that is the other thing that happens. 

Mr. BARTON. Applies the brake. That is what the Toyota engineers told me. They said if something goes wrong, we give the 

brake circuit power over the accelerator circuit so that it stops the 

car. That didn’t happen in Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s case. 

Mr. GILBERT. That is not true with all Toyota vehicles at this 

point. They are in the process of reprogramming their vehicles’ onboard computers to introduce into this this fail-safe characteristic. 

It is important to note that the fail-safe is going to be looking at 

two driver inputs instead of just one from the accelerator pedal. 


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Logically, why would you be driving down the road at 60–65 miles 

an hour or maybe even faster with your foot on the brake and your 

foot on the accelerator pedal at the same time? 

Mr. BARTON. Well, logically you shouldn’t. But if something—— 

Mr. GILBERT. Logically you should not. But if something was to 

fail, I am looking at intuitively for people driving, when something 

fails like that and your vehicle starts to accelerate on its own, your 

first intuitive thing is to step on the brake. So at that point, if we 

have an incorrect signal going into the vehicle’s onboard computer, 

plus the application of the brake, the PCM would say hey, we have 

got a problem, shut her down. 

Mr. BARTON. Right. And that didn’t happen in their case. I know 

my time has 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 any way? 

Mr. GILBERT. As far as changing their driving characteristics, no. 

Mr. BARTON. I am talking about to create these faults or shorts, 

did you cut anything? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir. The only thing that we did was we tapped 

into the accelerator pedal position sensor circuits so we could monitor voltages and modify those circuits in such a way that we could 

manipulate, if you would, the signals going to the onboard computers. 

Mr. BARTON. But in layman’s terms, your hypothesis is it is possible there could be a computer malfunction, and it is possible if 

they don’t have this default mechanism that overrides it, in the absence of the computer knowing exactly what to do, it just doesn’t 

do anything—— 

Mr. GILBERT. It takes the command. 

Mr. BARTON. —and the renegade signal runs away? 

Mr. GILBERT. It takes the command as one that is valid, and as 

a result of that it opens the throttle. 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Barton. 

Mrs. Smith, let met ask you this question, if I may. When you 

were driving down the highway and your vehicle was a runaway 

vehicle, you said you put your vehicle in reverse? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. And what happened when it went into reverse? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Nothing. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Smith, was the transmission ripped up or anything when you got the vehicle? I mean, if you are going close to 

100 miles an hour and you throw your vehicle into reverse, you are 

going to be dropping your transmission. 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. My suggestion to her was to put it in reverse, 

hold on, and hopefully the transmission will yank loose and you 

will survive the crash. No, sir, the transmission didn’t yank loose. 

Mr. STUPAK. Let me ask you this then. You also state in your testimony that when the wrecker driver, you were standing back 

there, you went to put it in neutral. 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. STUPAK. And the vehicle started up? 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. Yes, sir. It attempted to start with me. 


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Mr. STUPAK. The engine started up. 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. Should it start as a general rule in neutral? 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. It absolutely will not. 

Mr. STUPAK. But you didn’t have the fob, right? 

Mr. EDDIE SMITH. That is exactly right. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mrs. Smith, in your testimony you have attached 

the documents provided to the committee in Exhibit B in which you 

received a response from Toyota, is that correct? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. The response from Toyota about the—— 

Mr. STUPAK. Dated December 4, 2006. It was from Toyota sent 

to you and your husband on your complaint, is that correct? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. And in there do they say if properly maintained the 

brakes will always override the acceleration? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. That is what it says. 

Mr. STUPAK. OK. And in this case, they talked about your incident. 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 

that what they told you? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. That is the letter I got. That is what they 

told me. 

Mr. STUPAK. All right. Mr. Gilbert, Dr. Gilbert—— 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. STUPAK. You heard the Smiths’ testimony. You heard their 

incident. In order for it to occur as the Smiths said, would two totally different systems have to fail at exactly the same time, the 

throttle linkage and the brakes? Can you defeat those systems? 

Mr. GILBERT. Without actually looking at the transmission and 

what is allowable under normal conditions, it is possible that at 

that high a speed, for safety reasons, because obviously if you go 

down the road and throw your transmission in reverse, it is not a 

very good thing, that may not have been allowed by the transmission controls. 

Mr. STUPAK. OK. 

Mr. GILBERT. So it is possible that maybe reverse wasn’t a good 

choice. 

Mr. STUPAK. Was or was not a good choice? 

Mr. GILBERT. Was not. Neutral would be my choice. 

Mr. STUPAK. But she already did that. That didn’t work. 

Mr. GILBERT. You know, I don’t know now exactly how that could 

happen. 

Mr. STUPAK. Without an override. 

Mr. GILBERT. Well—— 

Mr. STUPAK. I guess what I am trying to get at, you have I believe they say there are four fail-safe systems here in these Toyotas. So having been a police officer and spent a little time doing 

this, if I am going 100 miles an hour and I throw something in reverse, my car is coming to a halt. And you are right, there is going 

to be a pretty good crash, and I hope I can survive. That didn’t 

work here. So obviously something is wrong here. 

Mr. GILBERT. I can’t answer exactly what happened in her case 

without—— 


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Mr. STUPAK. When your car is on a wrecker and you come to put 

it until neutral so you can tow it, the engine should not start up 

and start revving, should it? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir, it should not. 

Mr. STUPAK. OK. So besides all these electronics, we’ve just got 

some basic mechanics, at least in this car, that’s not working. 

Mr. Kane, you said you went to the public record and looked at 

NHTSA’s public records; and you saw 2,263 incidents, if you will, 

of sudden unintended acceleration. Half of those could not be explained away or, if my math is pretty good, that’s 1,131 cases can’t 

be explained away. So if it’s not the pedal sticking, if it’s not the 

mat, what else can it be under this electronic throttle control system? What else is left? Electronics, right? 

Mr. KANE. I think that when we look at the complaints and you 

eliminate the physical impediments that could possibly cause 

this—and 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 the control systems of these cars. 

In interviewing many, many consumers and in reviewing incidents of complaints what we are seeing are incidents that cannot 

be explained by either one of the sticky pedal or by the floor mat 

recall simply because the drivers and witnesses have often seen 

this, including folks who have actually brought them to Toyota 

dealers, and the dealers have witnessed the cars racing without 

any driver, without any floor mat interference, and without any 

sticky pedal. 

Mr. STUPAK. So for these 1,130-some incidents you have sort of 

ruled out the physical part. 

Mr. KANE. You can never conclusively rule out physical just from 

all of those complaints, but certainly the evidence suggests very 

strongly that there is more going on. 

Again, one of the things that has happened in this crisis is the 

consumer voice has been tamped down. You heard from the 

Smiths. Their story is very similar. What they report they are told 

is not credible. Consumers’ complaints have been used against 

them, saying it’s not credible. These are scenarios where folks get 

into this, are urgent, and people certainly can make mistakes. But 

there are too many problems that continue to be reported by consumers that are consistent and can’t be explained away as simply 

driver error or some kind of physical impediment. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. 

My time has expired. Mr. Burgess for questions. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Again, thank you to the Smiths for sharing your very compelling 

story with us. I’ve always wondered what would happen if I inadvertently went into reverse going down the road. I have always 

been fearful of accidentally doing that. Now to understand that 

nothing happens, I guess—I don’t know that I am mollified by that. 

Mr. Gilbert, let me ask you a question on this. You said that you 

did these tests that you and Mr. Barton just went through and that 

you concluded that this may be a very serious problem. 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. BURGESS. And you called Toyota and they took some time 

getting back to you. But they did get back to you? 

Mr. GILBERT. They got back with me. I explained the situation 

in detail. I told them even, you know, a resistance value for them 

to begin testing with. They asked me for that. So I gave it to them. 

And they said that they would look into it and get back with me. 

But, of course, I have not heard back from them to date. 

Mr. BURGESS. So what was the length of time between the moment the light bulb went off above your head and Toyota got back 

with you about getting more information? 

Mr. GILBERT. 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. 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 DCT. 

In addition to that, I wanted to test it on another vehicle. I 

should say for the record that the Toyota Tundra that we worked 

on was clearly labeled as a prototype. So, as a result of that, it 

could be somewhat different. So I tried it on another vehicle and 

had very similar results. And at that point I became very alarmed. 

Mr. BURGESS. So from that point to the point where Toyota gets 

back with you, what’s the time interval? What are we talking 

about? 

Mr. GILBERT. Probably a matter of a few days. 

Mr. BURGESS. A few days. Were you satisfied with the response 

you got from Toyota after talking with them? 

Mr. GILBERT. Initially, you know, I expressed a 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, you 

know, expressed his concern. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, if you weren’t satisfied that things were proceeding with correct dispatch, at any point did you consider calling 

the Federal agency, the NHTSA folks? 

Mr. GILBERT. Actually, almost simultaneously with that, I sent 

an electronic letter to NHTSA to their hotline. 

Mr. BURGESS. And—— 

Mr. GILBERT. And also a written letter. 

Mr. BURGESS. And—— 

Mr. GILBERT. And it was registered to—— 

Mr. BURGESS. And their response to you was—— 

Mr. GILBERT. I have not—I got a response back on the electronic 

version. It said, you know, thank you very much for your concern, 

and we’ll look into it. 

Mr. BURGESS. So, to the best of your knowledge, they’ve not duplicated your tests at this point? Or—— 

Mr. GILBERT. I’m not sure what—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Let me ask you a question. We hear this compelling story of this harrowing high-speed chase down the freeway. 

And what would you expect to see? 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—like 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—how the 


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real-world event occurred with the theoretic that you produced in 

the laboratory? 

Mr. GILBERT. If I may, I will use an analogy that I use in class 

a lot of times. If you’re sitting at home watching your television 

and that television screen blinks, do you take it in for a repair? No, 

you don’t. How come? Well, it just blinked once. 

Mr. BURGESS. Problem solved. 

Mr. GILBERT. However, if you are dealing with electronics on a 

car and it blinks once, it could be a very serious thing. And in this 

case it might have blinked. 

Mr. BURGESS. But I guess, if I understood your answers to Mr. 

Barton’s questions, there would have to be some breach in the insulation, there would have to be two wires coming in contact with 

each other, or could this all be the fault of the computer chip and 

the logic employed therein? 

Mr. GILBERT. If you reviewed the service information, you will 

see that typically, you know, what is our problem? Our problem is 

is we need to ensure that the integrity of what is being sent to the 

computer is consistent with what’s being done and everybody is on 

the same page. So the problem lies in where does the problem lie? 

It can actually be in a number of places. It could be within the sensor itself, the APP sensor itself. It could be in the wiring itself. 

Mr. BURGESS. Would there be any diagnostic feature where 

someone could look at that and say, here is a problem with the sensor? 

Mr. GILBERT. Possibly. 

Mr. BURGESS. The problem being a breach in insulation or a—— 

Mr. GILBERT. It could be, but it may not be an obvious problem. 

It may be something that is in a microchip somewhere that’s malfunctioned. If you will—if you will look at the report—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes, here is our problem. We just got your stuff 

really late in this sequence, like 10:13 this morning. 

Mr. GILBERT. If you will look, please, on page 5. 

Mr. BURGESS. Of which document am I looking at? 

Mr. GILBERT. At the preliminary report. There should be a picture there similar to this. Can you see it? 

Mr. BURGESS. We’re there. 

Mr. GILBERT. If you will look at the printed circuit board, if you 

will, that is a microchip. Essentially both of those electronic circuits are contained within that small tiny chip. I am told by Toyota—when I talked with them, I asked a question. I said, are those 

two separate circuits within that microchip? They assured me that 

it was. Those are in very—— 

Mr. BURGESS. I’m going to break you off. I have gone too long. 

The Chairman’s going to smack me. 

Have you done this on any other make or model of car besides 

Toyota products? 

Mr. GILBERT. As far as this type of test? 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes. 

Mr. GILBERT. Absolutely. 

Mr. BURGESS. And—— 

Mr. GILBERT. They are able to detect a circuit abnormality almost instantly. 


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Mr. BURGESS. And what is it about the Toyota design that 

doesn’t allow it to detect that abnormality, the proximity of the two 

sensors? 

Mr. GILBERT. I would say it’s not so much the proximity of the 

two sensors but the strategy that they use to detect circuit faults 

between the two. These two voltages rise together 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. 

It’s all about voltage. And if these two are somehow interconnected 

through a resistance or a defective chip or chafed wiring a bad connection, you know, I don’t know. I need to have a vehicle that’s actually failed to investigate further under normal conditions. 

Mr. BURGESS. And have you had the opportunity to inspect a vehicle like the Smiths that has actually failed? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir, I have not. 

Mr. BURGESS. I know our time is up. Let me ask you, Mr. Chairman—and I realize I am just the acting ranking member, so I don’t 

know the rules very 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 some things will come up when Mr. Lentz testifies that we 

would like to get clarification and Mr. Gilbert would be able to participate in that? Would that be permissible? 

Mr. STUPAK. I’m not going to guarantee we’re going to call Mr. 

Gilbert back. I’m not sure what his plans are. 

But time is up. We’re going to the next one. If Mr. Gilbert wants 

to stay around, there would be a possibility to recall. That would 

take unanimous consent of the committee to do that. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. 

Mr. GILBERT. I would be more than happy to stay. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Dingell for questions. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, thank you. No questions at this 

time. I would like to express my sympathy and condolences to the 

panel members who have suffered personal or family losses. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Gingrey for questions, please. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and for Mr. Kane and 

Mr. Gilbert. But, also, I want to express my gratitude to the 

Smiths for being strong and brave and coming before the committee and explaining to us the harrowing experience that you 

went through, Mrs. Smith. 

Listening to Mr. Gilbert, it’s almost like I am thinking of Marisa 

Tomei in My Cousin Vinny as you started explaining some of these 

things to us about what happened to the car. 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 by 

other makes which also have the electronic throttle control system? 

Is there any unique difference? 

Mr. GILBERT. The most unique thing that I detected with the 

throttle—the accelerator pedal strategy, if you will, for verification 

of the two signals is the fact that those two signals rise on the 

same plane in unison, separated by a given amount of voltage. 

I might also add that that difference between those two voltages 

is very, very small according to their—is allowed to be almost exVerDate Mar 15 2010 08:42 Nov 09, 2012 Jkt 076008 PO 00000 Frm 00076 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008

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actly, if you will, the same voltage. So they only have to be separated by 2/100 of a volt to still be considered by the vehicle’s onboard computer as correct. 

With that said, if you look at some other vehicle manufacturers— 

and one of the first electronic throttle systems that I investigated 

was one that was made by Honda, and I actually did some training 

in Atlanta, Georgia, for the Honda training instructors where I investigated how it worked, fail-safe properties and that sort of thing, 

and basically gave the Honda instructors some information so that 

they could use it in their class. As a result of that, I was able to 

look at a lot of differences between the two. 

The thing that’s interesting—and if you will look, there is—I did 

include a different—if you look on page 13, there is, you know, an 

example of the rising planes for Toyota. And then if you 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 a Honda or some other 

manufacturers—significant difference between that. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Gilbert, you are getting me a little bit confused. I was just simply going to ask you to tell me what a ute was. 

Let me go ahead. Toyota maintains that their electronic throttle 

control has built-in redundancies and sensors and that if there was 

a problem with a sensor, the car’s computer would recognize the 

different signals and it would go into this so-called fail-safe mode. 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GINGREY. Can you identify a point where Toyota should have 

realized that the problems the cars were experiencing were not mechanical but they were probably electrical? What is the signals that 

Toyota missed in this instance? 

Mr. GILBERT. 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 their report. They did 19 

tests 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 up front was to see if those two circuits 

could be somehow intertwined or interconnected. 

The reason I did that was because they rose on the same plane 

of voltages. If I would have done that on a Buick or a Honda, it’s 

quite possible that that vehicle’s CCM, as soon as it detected any 

sort of connection and saw those two voltages not operating within 

their normal plane of operation, it would have set a DTC or a code. 

Mr. GINGREY. Either Mr. Kane or Mr. Gilbert, is Exponent involved in your talks with Toyota? 

Mr. KANE. I don’t believe they were involved. They may have 

been on the phone. We don’t know. 

If I can just step back, because I think that we can help answer 

your question in looking at is the Toyota system different from 

other electronic control systems. I think what Dr. Gilbert has identified is in fact, yes, it is. It’s different in a couple of key ways. 

First of all, it’s different in the way it’s designed. Its very strategy and how they detect error codes 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 cars that have been examined. 


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Now again, the report is preliminary. Dr. Gilbert has been working literally around the clock to help document as much as is possible. What he has found so far is other manufacturers’ cars do not 

have that same strategy. They employ a multitude of other strategies to ensure that a DTC is set so the error code is 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 nonfail-safe. So whatever happens to that sensor, 

whatever that sensor reacts to, the computer is just going to do 

what it says because there is no fail-safe any longer. So there is 

an outlier. 

Mr. BRALEY [presiding]. We have a lot of witnesses on our second 

panel, and we really need to move as quickly as we can. And you 

have a right, Mr. Gingrey, to submit additional questions, and we 

will attempt to get those answered, if you prefer. 

The Chair recognizes Mr. Rush at this time for 3 minutes. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Kane, how many years have you been following this area of 

concern here? How many years have you been following the issues 

surrounding automobile safety? 

Mr. KANE. Well, I started this work back in 1991 at the Center 

for Auto Safety; and sudden unintended acceleration has been a 

controversial and difficult issue since the very day I stepped into 

this problem. 

Mr. RUSH. As recently as last month, you released a comprehensive report regarding NHTSA’s history and pattern of treatment of 

sudden unintended acceleration. Is that correct? 

Mr. KANE. That’s accurate. 

Mr. RUSH. I want to note that your study reached similar conclusions as this committee’s preliminary investigation, and that is 

that NHTSA did not prioritize consumer concerns about certain unintended acceleration and did not conduct thorough investigations 

into the possible causes of these incidents. Do you concur with that 

conclusion? 

Mr. KANE. Yes, I do agree with that. I think when you look at 

what happened—and I don’t take lightly my criticism of the agency, because, frankly, I have worked very closely with a number of 

the folks in the defects office. They work very hard. They have an 

impossible job. They are always chasing a constantly moving technological environment that is moving at a rapid pace beyond, oftentimes, what their resources allow them to deal with. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you. And I totally concur with that. 

But my question is, under the current authority that NHTSA 

has, what more could NHTSA have done to protect consumers in 

this area? And what is it you would like for them to do? 

And following that question, are there answers that you would 

like NHTSA to take but that they may not be legally authorized 

to do? What can we do as we look forward to reauthorizing NHTSA 

to making them a leaner, meaner fighting machine for the American consumer? 

Mr. KANE. That’s a real good question. We’ve looked at this very 

closely, and I can say that one of the things that really needs to 

happen, because we often are evaluating data NHTSA has as well 

and we can reach some different conclusions—but at the end of the 


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day, I think they really need to pay close attention and 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. When we looked, for example, at 

surveillance systems like the early warning reporting system that 

this committee was involved in following Firestone, the use of that 

data in a meaningful way would 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—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 

to then go do our investigations and I think that those tools need 

to be employed more properly and 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 NHTSA from 1989 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 consumers, what are they saying, and 

listen carefully. I think what we’ve heard in our interviews with 

many consumers who experience firsthand NHTSA investigators, 

the NHTSA 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 the investigations need to be open-minded 

without the preconceived notion and the tools need to be in place 

and, furthermore, the counsel at the agency must be willing to sink 

their teeth into complex issues even though they may take time 

and a great deal of effort to pursue to get to an end. 

Mr. RUSH. Does NHTSA have the authority, do they have the 

personnel, do they have the resources to accomplish what you have 

laid out in your opinion? 

Mr. KANE. Clearly, the agency is always the underdog here, and 

we certainly—I can empathize being an underdog in a small company, working 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 be able to 

reach out more frequently and have the ability to reach out more 

frequently to folks who have the expertise like we were able to do 

as we reached out to Dr. Gilbert and he reached out to us. We can 

move quickly in doing that without the bureaucracy. I think that 

the agency would benefit from the ability to do that and particularly in this rapidly moving technological environment today. 

Mr. RUSH. Do you have any additional comments along those 

lines? 

Mr. GILBERT. I don’t believe so. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back the balance 

of my time. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you. 


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The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. 

Sullivan, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

In Mr. Kane’s statement, he states—this is to you, Mr. Gilbert— 

he states that you were commissioned to test Toyota’s electronic 

throttle control system. What direction or parameters were you 

given and what was the purpose of this study? 

Mr. GILBERT. The purpose of the study was to—and that’s what 

I outlined in the report. The purpose of the study was to basically 

contribute to a better understanding of electronic engine controls 

and the system malfunctions. That was the purpose of that, OK? 

Because of what I had discovered with the anomalies, if you will, 

within the fail-safe capabilities of this, this electronic throttle control system, that’s where I focused my preliminary report; and so 

that’s what I looked at, was 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 vehicle’s onboard computer and lead 

to some sort of an unsafe condition? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. And what directions were you given? 

Mr. GILBERT. Pretty much freedom to do whatever I needed to 

do. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. And when did you start your work? 

Mr. GILBERT. Good question. 

Mr. KANE. I think—if I could jump in here for a moment, I think 

Dr. Gilbert and I, we had some communications between him and 

my engineer in my 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 to you investigate this further? And Dr. Gilbert indicated 

that he needed some additional tools and he needed a little bit of 

time because he had some vehicles, and we authorized him to do 

whatever he needed to do to document this as quickly as possible. 

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 and to document what we could. Because, clearly, 

there is a diagnostic strategy within Toyota there is appearing to 

be an outlier. 

Now, again, I want to emphasize, do we know that this is the 

cause of unintended acceleration? The answer is no. We have a 

bookend here with Dr. Gilbert’s work. We have a bookend on this 

end with consumer complaints, and the interesting part is that this 

matches up against what Dr. Gilbert is telling us. 

Are there other possibilities? Absolutely. We have always—from 

the very beginning, we have maintained that this problem is multifaceted and multi-root cause. There is no one singular problem 

here. But what Dr. Gilbert is pointing out to us is informing us to 

look at the next steps. 

Mr. GILBERT. If I could expand on that a little bit. You know, my 

curiosity was first piqued by watching the news media and the— 

you know the publicity that was going on about that. I first called 

Mr. Kane—and I believe it was November something. It was just 

a casual conversation, some questions about it. And, you know, it 

kind of piqued my interest; and that’s why I went ahead and 


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looked into it on my own. There was no agreement between us to 

do anything. I just simply investigated. 

When I found what I did initially, the first thing I did was I 

drafted a letter to NHTSA. I contacted Toyota, and then I also contacted Mr. Kane to tell him of what I had found. Literally within 

seconds I had an e-mail response back from Mr. Kane, and that’s 

where it proceeded from then. And he was willing to give us whatever we needed equipment-wise and that sort of thing to jump 

ahead, if you will, into investigating that. So that’s what I did. 

With approval of the university, we proceeded into our research. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, Mr. Gilbert, were you told when you began 

your work that this may be used in preparation for litigation? 

Mr. GILBERT. You know, I assumed that that was where it could 

go, OK? My main search was for the truth. If you would have said 

that I would be sitting here today, I would have been really floored. 

But, you know, my main purpose was to get to the bottom of this, 

and that’s where I would like to be. I would like to take this research a little farther. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. How many vehicles or how many brands or manufacturers did you do similar tests on? 

Mr. GILBERT. Have we done? Currently, today, within this research—and, of course, it’s not included in this report—but we’ve 

simply—you know, we’ve looked into a Buick Lucerne that we 

have. We’ve looked into a Ford F–150. We also have a Chrysler 

product that we had planned on using. We just simply ran out of 

time to be able to do the time for the exhaustive testing that we 

need to be able to. 

Because other systems are different, we have to approach their 

strategies from a different direction. None were quite as easy as 

the Toyota to crack. And as a matter of fact, the Buick Lucerne, 

we’ve not been able to do it, anything close to what we’ve done with 

this. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. Gilbert, how does Toyota fix the problem you 

demonstrated in your study? 

Mr. GILBERT. How would they fix it? My first recommendation 

would be the brake pedal fail-safe, where if the accelerator input 

was high along with the brake pedal application that the vehicle 

would go back to the fail-safe mode, set an DTC, and reduce power. 

That’s the first thing that needs to be done. They need to be reprogrammed. Currently, it’s my understanding that some vehicles 

have that; some do not. Some are scheduled to be reprogrammed; 

some are not. 

The next thing that needs to happen is they need to re-evaluate 

their fault detection strategy in this area. They either need to 

tighten their parameters, change the strategy altogether, or do 

something to ensure that the type of problem that I have been able 

to introduce into the system is detectable. By detection, that means 

that then the fail-safe reduced engine power and that sort of thing 

is now in play. 

Mr. STUPAK. [presiding.] The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Ms. DeGette for questions, please. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 


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Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I really want to thank you for coming today. 

I think the thing that has got to be the most frustrating is that 

this horrible thing happened to you and then nobody believed you. 

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 went—and she finally she did what you did, Mrs. Smith. 

She went off the highway and drove into some trees so that she 

wouldn’t hurt anybody else. Luckily, she lived. 

But the same thing happened. The Toyota lawyer sent them letters saying, obviously, it was some problem with your maintaining 

the car, because there was nothing wrong. 

So thank you for—it’s hard for you to sit here and say this and 

for people to deny your credibility. So I just want to say that. 

I have a couple of questions for you, Mr. Gilbert. You heard the 

Smiths talk today about what happened, and I’m sure you have 

read their testimony as well. Is what Mrs. Smith accounts as happening with her car consistent with a floor mat failure in your experience? 

Mr. GILBERT. I think we need to be perfectly clear in that floor 

pedal or accelerator pedal entrapment with a floor mat is considerably different than what I’ve—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. So your answer would be no? 

Mr. GILBERT. Restate the question, please. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Is what she testified happen to her car consistent 

with a floor mat problem? 

Mr. GILBERT. It’s more consistent—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Is it consistent with a floor mat problem? Yes or 

no, if you can. 

Mr. GILBERT. I would say no. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Would her problem be consistent with an accelerator sticking? 

Mr. GILBERT. Sticking? It doesn’t sound like that to me. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Would it be a problem with the brake, some 

kind of a worn brakes or something like that? 

Mr. GILBERT. I might address the brake statement a little bit further. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Sir, I apologize. If you can make it short, because 

I only have 5 minutes. Thanks. 

Mr. GILBERT. If the brakes are applied while the vehicle is going 

down the highway and the throttle suddenly snaps to wide open 

throttle, you have two things to overcome. Not only do you have the 

kinetic energy of the vehicle moving forward that you have to got 

to bring to a halt, but you also have the full power output of the 

engine. At that point, the brakes are going to get very hot very 

quick, and they’re going to start to fade fast. 

Ms. DEGETTE. But would the original problem be caused by a 

brake problem of the acceleration that Mrs. Smith experienced? 

Mr. GILBERT. No. Brakes don’t have anything to do with the acceleration. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Right. OK. 

Now here is something you might not know. Just today, Toyota’s 

lawyers told the committee staff that Toyota was able to duplicate 

your tests. The Toyota lawyers also said that they had the same 


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outcome that you had in your test but with no error codes. But 

they also said, the conditions that you imposed on your testing 

were ‘‘sabotaged’’ because you manipulated the electronics to make 

that happen. And they claimed that this could happen if you ‘‘sabotage’’ any car. Can you talk very quickly—— 

No, let me ask you this. Could what you did to those Toyotas get 

that outcome happen to Toyotas in real-world conditions? 

Mr. GILBERT. In my opinion, yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. And now certainly most of us aren’t engineers. I never even got a C in any 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? 

Mr. GILBERT. It could be an anomaly in the accelerator pedal 

sensor itself. It could be a problem within the wiring harness. It 

could be a problem within the vehicle’s onboard 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 mismanufactured from the very day that they 

were built. The fail-safe detection capabilities of the onboard computer are going to accept that as valid. So it’s possible that 

mismanufacturing of some component along the line has somehow 

compromised the safety. I don’t know exactly. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So it could happen in the real world? 

Mr. GILBERT. Absolutely. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And is it significant to you that Toyota’s independent consultant confirmed your tests? Does that make a difference to you? 

Mr. GILBERT. They said that they were able to duplicate my conditions without setting a DTC. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yep. 

Mr. GILBERT. I think that’s significant. They should look at that 

and say, why didn’t it? 

Ms. DEGETTE. One last question, why do you think Toyota wasn’t 

able to figure this out previously? 

Mr. GILBERT. Maybe they didn’t ask the right questions. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Doyle for questions. 

Mr. DOYLE. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I will be brief. 

To the Smiths, thank you so much for your testimony today. We 

appreciate you being here. 

Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Kane, you said Toyota will be introducing 

a software fix or some sort of patch to institute a fail-safe where, 

if the accelerator and brakes are both on, the brakes win. 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 

NHTSA should be called for some sort of a hardware fix or to swap 

the CPU? How do we deal with the cars that aren’t easily addressed with this software patch? 

Mr. KANE. I think that that raises the question from the very 

get-go, what are the technological problems that give rise to that? 

I mean, frankly, these vehicles have substantially similar electronic 

throttle control systems going back as far as 2002, and I have not 

heard that there is a technological obstacle to installing a brake to 


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override. It is something we have advocated independently of Dr. 

Gilbert in his work. We believe that it is a critical safety omission 

on behalf of Toyota that has led us in part to where we are today 

simply because there is no driver control in the event of a runaway 

engine. Dr. Gilbert and I have talked about this subsequently, and 

it’s something that has to happen. The technological obstacles need 

to be looked at closely to see if they’re legitimate. 

Mr. DOYLE. Do you have anything to add to that, Dr. Gilbert? 

Mr. GILBERT. I think it’s important to note that the very initial 

problem needs to also be addressed in that the fail-safe detection 

capabilities of this electronic throttle control system apparently fall 

short of where they need to be. The fail-safe or the brake pedal 

override, if you will, is just an added measure of safety in the event 

that if for some reason this circuit was not detected as being defective then at least the driver has some second course of action that 

should force it into a fail-safe mode. That’s exactly what it would 

want. It may be possible that other vehicle manufacturers may 

want to address this same situation as well, and I’m told that there 

is a number of them that do. 

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Doyle. 

Mrs. Christensen for questions, please. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and, again, I 

thank all of you for being here, particularly the Smiths. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I am not clear. In light of the recalls that 

have happened now, have you been contacted by your dealer, the 

district field technician, NHTSA, or anyone to rectify the problems 

that you have gone through over the last couple of years? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Have I been contacted by anyone? 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Yes. You got no response from your dealer, 

from the technician, and from NHTSA over the last few years, is 

that correct? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. That’s correct, yes. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. In light of the recalls, has anyone come back 

and contacted you? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. No, ma’am. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. And we’ve been told I think that in case of 

unintended acceleration, what should happen is to apply the brake, 

put the car in neutral, and bring it to a safe stop. Isn’t that what 

you did? Would that be—— 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. I tried. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. And it did not stop the car? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. It did not. But also I think there is something I didn’t mention. Of course, you all on the panel know about 

my letter. But this car also, something electronic, it was doing the 

revving up and down, also, and I think other people in this room 

did not know that. But my car, even when it was parked on the 

side of the road and I was trying to push that button to stop it, 

it was still revving up and down. So that was another little extra 

nice thing there about the electronics. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I did read that in your testimony. 

I had a question about the break override, but I think that that 

was answered. 


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Mr. Kane, you are laying most of the blame on Toyota; and I 

would like to know, in your experience, judging—looking at your 

experience with Toyota and their 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, the way that it—— 

Mr. KANE. That’s a good question. Certainly—we’ve certainly 

seen other manufacturers try and push these safety measures 

down. 

I think what’s particularly troubling is that Toyota holds a special place here in the United States amongst owners. As you know, 

we’ve heard from many of the members here that Toyota is a 

lauded brand. People look at Toyota as being the most reliable, as 

a company that we can all stand behind and that we know that 

their products are reliable. 

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 that 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. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. But the answer to your question, though, I 

think is—because while Toyota’s on the spot today, your response 

from other manufacturers has been similar? 

Mr. KANE. Unfortunately, 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 experience. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. OK. Unless Dr. Gilbert has anything to comment on that question, I have no further—— 

Mr. GILBERT. I would like to comment on a statement that Mrs. 

Smith has made. She mentions the fact of the engine revving, oK. 

One of the things that the onboard computer will do is, if the RPMs 

of an engine get to a certain limit, in order to keep from destroying 

the engine the rev limiter will kick in. And what that will do is it 

will give a very pronounced audible revving of the engine. This is 

consistent with a situation where wide-open throttle exists. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you for that clarification. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Mr. Braley for questions, please. 

Mr. BRALEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you graciously accepted the responsibility 

earlier in your testimony of speaking on behalf of the people who 

aren’t alive to tell their stories of what happened with the sudden 

acceleration that they did not 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 have sat here throughout this hearing, I am struck 

by the fact that you both seem like reasonable, intelligent, articulate, sophisticated people, and yet every time you have 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 is willing to do something about it. 


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Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Well, it made us very, very angry. I tried 

and my husband tried so hard to send it out to the media, and I 

knew no one would listen to me as a little person or to my husband. So I knew from the very first. And so I even—you don’t know 

some of the movie stars and Oprah and all those big people. I 

thought if I can just get them—if I can just get them to get on to 

this, because I knew I couldn’t fight, we could not fight the a big 

company like that. But we got no response from that. 

But to be treated like we were, there are no words to express the 

anger that was there. I mean, to even get slapped in the face time 

after time and to literally—and to be literally be called liars, which 

we are not. But what are you going to do? We did all we could do. 

Mr. BRALEY. And I congratulate you for that. I think you should 

have called Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei. 

I want to talk about My Cousin Vinny with Mr. Kane and Mr. 

Gilbert. It is probably one of the best movies on trial advocacy and 

engineering I have ever seen. And one of the scenes, a classic scene 

in that movie is when they are sitting in this rundown hotel room 

arguing over who is responsible for a leaking faucet. And Marisa 

Tomei, Mona Lisa Vito, the character in that movie, said to Joe 

Pesci that she turned off the faucet. He said, are you sure? She 

said, I am sure. And he said, are you sure you are sure? And she 

said, I am. 

One of the reasons that scene is so important is because I have 

right here the reference manual on scientific evidence that is used 

in Federal courtrooms all over the country to deal with scientific 

evidence and engineering, and there is a specific chapter in here 

called Success and Failure in Engineering that gets right to the 

heart of that faucet scene. It talks about the role of failure in engineering design. 

Failure is a central idea in engineering. In fact, one definition of 

engineering might be that it is the avoidance of failure. When a device, machine, or structure is designed by an engineer, every way 

in which it might credibly fail must be anticipated to ensure that 

it is designed to function properly. But, gentlemen, if you completely exclude from your analysis one potential problem that 

might be contributing to sudden unanticipated acceleration, you’re 

not doing your job as an engineer, are you? 

Mr. GILBERT. Absolutely. 

Mr. BRALEY. And one of the things that we know is that—and 

this is something that is true in a lot of disciplines, 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 fields that both 

of you work in, that it’s the rigor of a discipline of repeated testing 

and ruling out of potential causes that leads you to the ultimate 

truth of what’s causing a problem? 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BRALEY. And this same manual goes on and talks about how 

successful designs can lead to failure. And we’ve seen that, where 

a product which is used on multiple applications, hundreds and 

thousands, maybe millions of times does not encounter an outside 

event like the ones you’ve been talking about that will trigger a 

catastrophic incident that can lead to the sudden death of people 


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like we’ve heard about at this hearing. And it’s not that these companies are bad or are intending to build defects into the product. 

It’s just sometimes the rigorous application of design analysis and 

failure analysis has not been applied to correct a problem. Do you 

agree with that? 

Mr. KANE. I do. 

Mr. GILBERT. Yes. 

Mr. BRALEY. Mr. Chairman, I think that’s been one of the problems of 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 will yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Braley. 

That concludes questions by all members of the subcommittee. 

Oh, Ms. Schakowsky. Sorry. I didn’t see you there, Jan. You are 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. 

Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Kane, you have both done extensive research 

on the electronic throttle systems of Toyota. Have you done any 

similar research on other brands? Do you intend to do so? Do you 

think that the problem that you found in Toyota might be common 

to other vehicles or present in other vehicles? 

Mr. GILBERT. It is possible that there may be other vehicles that 

may use a strategy that’s not ironclad as well. You know, that requires a much more in-depth investigation of those systems as well. 

You’ve got to remember that in order for you to be able to look into 

what it takes to set a diagnostic trouble code or a fault in this system you first have to identify what the parameters are for the vehicle’s manufacturers to allow such a thing to occur. Most of them 

are very, very tight. 

When I first started into this, I had a preconceived notion that 

it was probably going to be an impossible task. So you can imagine 

my surprise when I found that it was as straightforward as it was 

to be able to introduce a fault. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Kane? 

Mr. KANE. Yes. I think generally looking at—as someone who 

does defect detection work and surveillance on problems in the field 

and using the various data sets, there clearly could be problems 

with other manufacturers. But what’s interesting in looking at 

these problems is that we’re now at a place where our regulations 

are still very behind in the technology. The technology that’s in 

these cars and controls these cars—I mean, the fact that we don’t 

have requirements, for example, for a brake to idle override on 

electronics despite the recognition of the problems that can occur 

may be some shortcomings that could address that on a more broad 

basis. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. 

I wanted to ask the Smiths a question and add my thanks to 

both of you for being here. You absolutely did the right thing, and 

you went to Toyota, and you went to NHTSA. It sounds like you 

went to Oprah. But you stated that prior to inspecting your vehicle, 

NHTSA seemed to have already decided that the event you experienced was caused by a floor mat trapping of your accelerator pedal. 


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And you must have been surprised. You must not have been surprised when NHTSA’s incident report blamed the floor mats for 

your harrowing experience. Do you think that it was the floor mat 

that caused the unintended acceleration? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. No. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And the committee received a copy of a vehicle 

and incident site inspection memorandum for your vehicle drafted 

by Scott Yon, an investigator with NHTSA on May 2nd, 2007. And 

Mr. Smith, halfway through the first paragraph, states—NHTSA 

states, ‘‘No electronic interrogation of any vehicle system was performed.’’ That means that NHTSA decided that it did not need to 

investigate whether electronics played a role in your wife’s experience. How do you feel about NHTSA’s decision not to even inspect 

your car’s electronic system? 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. Well, it was when I received that in the 

mail, I called Mr. Yon and questioned him about that. Because I 

told him all along, even when he came down, I said it was not my 

floor mats. My floor mats did not make all those other things happen to my car. They couldn’t have. And I told him that something 

else needed to be checked out. The electronics needed to be checked 

out on that car. 

And I have a note—I don’t know if it’s on that original one 

there—but I have a note at the top that he told me that further 

investigation was going to be done on that type of vehicle, that it 

was an ongoing investigation. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. And did you receive any further notification 

about what happened? Or did you inquire about—— 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. I received nothing else. And also at that 

point he said that he was being taken off of the investigation, and 

I thought that was rather strange. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you. 

Mrs. RHONDA SMITH. So I never—no, I just gave up on it then. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Thank you, all of you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. That now concludes questions from members of the 

subcommittee. There are a number of members here from the full 

committee, as I recognized earlier. They will be allowed to ask 

questions. 

Mr. Buyer, questions, please, 5 minutes. 

Mr. BUYER. Thank you very much. 

For the purpose of open disclosure, just down the road from 

where I live is Lafayette, Indiana. Subaru makes the Toyota Camry 

there in Lafayette. 

I also personally know a lot of people who work on the line, and 

they are very sharp. They take a lot of pride in what they do. 

And I would also recognize—I don’t care whether it’s Toyota or 

any other company out there—if, in fact, they’ve done things to 

cover up an error, I assure you that their brand is blemished, and 

it requires good-faith commitments on their part to then restore 

trust and confidence in people to buy that product. 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 uncomfortable here today, Mr. Chairman, with regard to some of the tesVerDate Mar 15 2010 08:42 Nov 09, 2012 Jkt 076008 PO 00000 Frm 00088 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008

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timony. 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 someway, somehow and that we also have to 

make sure that the advocacy is pure. 

So, Mr. Kane, I am uncomfortable with regard to your advocacy 

here today. I just want you to know that. And also that of Mr. Gilbert. 

Mr. Kane, your firm, Safety Research & Strategies, has released 

a report on February 5 detailing a number of allegations against 

Toyota related to sudden unintended acceleration. You noted in 

your report that 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. You would 

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? 

Mr. KANE. Let me tell you that—— 

Mr. BUYER. No, what does the word ‘‘sponsored’’ mean? 

Mr. KANE. The word ‘‘sponsor’’ means we have done work for 

these folks to represent the victims—— 

Mr. BUYER. How much have you been paid by these firms? 

Mr. KANE. Frankly, I have not a lot of calculation on that, but 

what I can tell you is—— 

Mr. BUYER. Is it $1 million? 

Mr. KANE. No, sir. 

Mr. BUYER. Is it $500,000? 

Mr. KANE. It is far less than it cost me to be here today. 

Mr. BUYER. Is it $100,000? 

Mr. KANE. No, sir. 

Mr. BUYER. Then what is it? 

Mr. KANE. I don’t know the answer. 

Mr. BUYER. You don’t know how much lawyers are paying you 

with regard to your report? Of these five attorneys who have sponsored your research, how many of these law firms right now are 

suing Toyota? 

Mr. KANE. I believe every one of them. They represent the voice 

of a victim in the problem that we are dealing with today. We are 

informed by those victims. 

Mr. BUYER. So you are acknowledging that you are being sponsored by five litigation trial lawyer firms of whom are suing Toyota, 

is that correct? 

Mr. KANE. If your intimation is—— 

Mr. BUYER. No, that is not my intimation. Is that correct? 

Mr. KANE. It is correct that we have worked for those—— 

Mr. BUYER. Is it correct? 

Mr. KANE. If your intimation is that our advocacy is somehow informed by—— 

Mr. STUPAK. OK. OK. Hold on here. Hold on. Buyer, hold on. You 

can’t be talking over each other. 

Mr. BUYER. I directed him to answer a simple question, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Then tell him he is not responsive. 

Mr. BUYER. You are nonresponsive. 


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Mr. KANE. I am responsive to your question, Congressman. I 

have answered your question. 

Mr. BUYER. Do you acknowledge—— 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Kane. 

Mr. BUYER. Do you acknowledge that the five law firms that 

have sponsored you are involved in litigation against Toyota? 

Mr. KANE. That is accurate. 

Mr. BUYER. Thank you. Thank you. 

Now with regard to Mr. Gilbert, I don’t understand what the 

word—now we’ve kind of dissected what the word ‘‘sponsored’’ 

means. Sponsored means being paid. What does the word ‘‘commissioned’’ mean? Are you being—when Mr. Kane commissions to you 

do a report, are you doing it for free? Or are you being paid? 

Mr. GILBERT. I am being paid. 

Mr. BUYER. All right. How much money are you being paid for 

this report by Mr. Kane? Is it more than $100,000? 

Mr. GILBERT. No. 

Mr. BUYER. How much money are you being paid by Mr. Kane? 

Mr. GILBERT. Whatever he is paying me, it’s not enough, trust 

me. 

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Kane, how much have you paid? 

Mr. KANE. I can answer that question if you would like. 

Mr. BUYER. Mr. Kane, how much have you paid? 

Mr. KANE. I have paid Dr. Gilbert $1,800, and I have sent him some technical equipment that cost me approximately $4,000, sir. 

Mr. BUYER. How much more money is to be paid? 

Mr. KANE. We have entered an agreement where as his time he will be paid $150 per hour for his service moving forward. 

Mr. BUYER. Moving forward. 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 am getting a better picture. 

Now with regard to this question about manipulation, Mr. Gilbert, in order for you—I don’t understand what the word ‘‘manipulation’’ means. In order for you to—the vehicles that you use, are 

these vehicles that had an acceleration problem or they did not? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir. They did not. These were normally—— 

Mr. BUYER. Did you cut three wires in order to manipulate this? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir. The circuit remained intact from the accelerator pedal to the ACM. The only thing that I did—because of 

safety purposes—is I tapped into those circuits so I could watch 

them with an oscilloscope and understand what was going on. 

I might back up and say that I had the decision on whether to 

push the send button to NHTSA. I had the decision on my own to 

contact Toyota. I had the decision on my own to contact Mr. Kane. 

To be quite honest, at the moment that I discovered this, I was sick 

at my stomach. 

Mr. BUYER. Mr. 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 point to find the problem. And I think America, Mr. Chairman, has learned that whenever—you know, from the Dateline incident whereby they re-created the staged crash for the fuel tank, 

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lem, that doesn’t work very well. But I believe that smart minds 

are actually going to resolve this problem, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding this hearing. 

Mr. STUPAK. As the ranking member said, we’ve looked at over 

100,000 pages of documents. We will continue to have further hearings in this area. This is probably the first of a number of hearings 

we will have. 

Next, Mr. Gonzalez is a member of the committee. Your turn for 

questions, please. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you very for this opportunity. 

I guess I need to start off 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 will ask Mr. Kane and Mr. Gilbert, the fact that 

you have these relationships as has been explained, has that altered or modified any of your testimony here today? 

Mr. Kane? 

Mr. KANE. No, it has not. We prepared our report at our own—— 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Yes or no would be fine. Mr. Gilbert? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, it has not. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. The Toyota Tundra plant located in San Antonio, 

Texas, is not in my district. I represent half the city. But I would 

have been really proud to have had that particular enterprise in 

my district because of the type of corporate citizen that Toyota has 

been in our area, the opportunities that it has presented. But that 

doesn’t mean that any individual or corporation is not going to be 

held to the same standard, whether they are 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? 

Mr. KANE. Absolutely. As we have said in our report, we agree 

that that can happen. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And Toyota has addressed that? 

Mr. KANE. Very late. Yes, they have lately. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. They have addressed it. It is not an existing condition that you should be concerned about. 

Mr. KANE. It is a problem they have experienced for years and 

they have not addressed it in all models. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I do wish we were in a courtroom, because I 

would have the help of a judge that you would answer the questions succinctly without any editorializing. Unintended acceleration 

could also be caused by a sticky accelerator. You don’t dispute that, 

do you? 

Mr. KANE. Yes, I do. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. You do dispute that the present corrective action 

being taken by Toyota on the sticky acceleration pedal is not—— 

Mr. KANE. It does not result in unintended acceleration as we 

have looked at unintended acceleration. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Well, it is going to be how you are going to define 

it, if it is going to be sudden, if it is going to be constant and so 

on. But you are saying it has nothing to do—you are on the record 

today saying that a sticky pedal has nothing to do with unintended 

acceleration or maintaining acceleration at a certain point? 


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Mr. KANE. Maintaining at one point is different. It is not sudden 

unintended acceleration, sir. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. And we can get into that debate. But we have 

confused all of that, if you haven’t noticed, but no one, and I am 

hoping maybe other panels and other committees will go into the 

different distinctions of when you have hit the accelerator and it 

gets stuck as opposed to when you don’t even touch it and the car 

goes out of control. These are huge differences which we are not 

even touching on, is my understanding. 

So I gather what you are saying is what hasn’t been tested might 

be a third culprit, and that is going to be the electronic system. Is 

that what you are saying? 

Mr. KANE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. But at this point you would not go on record and 

say that would be the only cause? 

Mr. KANE. No, sir. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Gilbert, have you ever heard of Leonard 

Evans? 

Mr. GILBERT. No, sir. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I hadn’t either, to be honest with you. But he was 

on Linda Wertheimer’s recent NPR program, and this is what he 

said. And I always believed this, and I think Click and Clack agree, 

the weakest brakes are stronger than the strongest engine. All 

right? 

So what happened to the Smiths, which wasn’t their fault and 

totally out of control, it shouldn’t happen to anyone. But if you applied the brakes with all the humanly possible pressure that you 

have, should it have stopped the car? Should it have brought the 

car to slowing it down or stopping 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 what ever? 

Mr. GILBERT. First off, let’s ask the question, let’s say that the 

vehicle was at speed, 60 miles per hour. It took a certain amount 

of horsepower to get there, would you agree? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Sure. 

Mr. GILBERT. Most of us don’t drive our car at wide open throttle. 

Most of the time when you are driving down the interstate you are 

looking at a partial throttle opening at best. If you were at speed 

and the throttle snapped full open, you 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. 

So, at that point, and I believe that there has been some studies 

done about braking distances, even if your brakes were sufficient 

to bring that car under control, it is 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 that is all a brake system does. It takes that energy that 

you stored in that car and it changes it into heat as you apply the 

brakes. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. So that may explain what happened, but not necessarily that the brake computer malfunctioned at the same time 

that your accelerator computer. Because you have two different 

computers in that model, don’t you? 


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Mr. GILBERT. Would you explain that, please? 

Mr. GONZALEZ. My understanding is that you have two separate 

computers in that model car. Now, I may be wrong, and I don’t 

know that they had brake override or whatever. 

Mr. GILBERT. Your brake system is still hydraulic. Excuse me. 

Your brake system is still hydraulic. Your brake system is still hydraulic. The electronics that we put in place on the brake systems 

are there primarily for analog brake purposes. They are for safety, 

so that you can steer without losing control of the vehicle. So it is 

possible that you could lose your anti-brake capability, but still 

have full brake application because of the simple hydraulics of the 

system. That is the way it works. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. The brakes should work. I am over my time, Mr. 

Chairman. Thank you for being so generous. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Terry for questions, please. 

Mr. TERRY. No questions. 

Mr. STUPAK. No questions for Mr. Terry. 

Mr. Ross, is he still here or did he leave? 

Well, that concludes then all of the questions of everybody on 

this panel. I want to thank the witnesses, the Smiths, Mr. Kane, 

Dr. Gilbert. You are welcome to stay for the rest of the hearing if 

you would like. 

Mr. Burgess wants to ask one more question. I know better, because Mr. Burgess never asks one question. We will try it, Mike. 

Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Gilbert, if I could just ask you to address this, 

what happened when that car was put into reverse? Why did that 

not seize up the transmission and drop it on the road? 

Mr. GILBERT. Some transmissions are designed—and, you know, 

you are asking me to speculate here a little bit, because—— 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, 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 that stops it from 

going into reverse? 

Mr. GILBERT. Hydraulically speaking, and you need to speak to 

someone who works more on transmissions, I have not been into 

transmissions for quite some time, there are a number of conditions where you don’t want to go into reverse. So it is possible that 

hydraulically or electronically it was not capable of going into reverse at speed like that. 

Mr. BURGESS. Then what about the on-off switch, the button in 

that car? 

Mr. GILBERT. I can’t address that. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. That now will conclude the questions for this panel. 

Thank you again for being here. 

It has been a long hearing so far. We have two more panels. Let’s 

go in recess until 2:15. We will be back here in 7 minutes. Let’s 

give everyone a chance to stretch their legs. We are in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. STUPAK. The committee will now come back to order. We will 

resume. I ask members and members of the media to take their position, please, so we can continue. 

On our second panel we have Mr. James E. Lentz, President and 

Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Incorporated. 


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Mr. Lentz, it is the policy of this subcommittee to take all testimony under oath. Please be advised that you have the right under 

the rules of the House to be advised by counsel during your testimony. Do you wish to be represented by counsel? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, I do. 

Mr. STUPAK. Would you please identify him? 

Mr. LENTZ. Ken Hester from King and Spaulding. As well, Mr. 

Chairman, if you would like to hear from an expert that has done 

testing on Dr. Gilbert’s as well as Exponent, there was another attorney present today, Vince Galvin of Bowman and Brooke. He is 

here with me as well. 

Mr. STUPAK. Any time during questions or testimony if you want 

to consult with them, you can, but we would look to you for the answers to the questions. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, sir. 

Mr. STUPAK. As I said, it is our policy to take our testimony 

under oath. I would ask you to please rise and raise your right 

hand and take the oath. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. STUPAK. Let the record reflect that the witness has replied 

in at firm. He is now under oath. 

Mr. Lentz, I would ask for an opening statement. You may begin, 

please. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES E. LENTZ, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

OPERATING OFFICER, TOYOTA MOTOR SALES, USA, INC. 

Mr. LENTZ. First I am here with my tour de famille. Dealers are 

here, associates are here, as well as the plant associates, and I 

thank them for coming. 

Chairman Waxman, Subcommittee Chairman Stupak, Ranking 

Member Barton and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here today. My name is Jim Lentz. I am the President 

and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA. In my testimony, I will address Toyota’s recent recalls and the decisive actions that we are taking to restore trust in the tens of millions of 

Americans who purchase and drive our vehicles. 

For two generations, we have provided 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 have not lived up to our high standards our 

customers and the public have come to expect from Toyota. Put 

simply, it has 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 all auto companies have recalls and all major auto companies have experienced complaints about unintended acceleration, 

Toyota’s recalls have caused concern among our customers. I would 

like to assure the committee and the American people that nothing 

is more important to Toyota than the safety and the reliability of 

the vehicles that our customers drive. 


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We are committed to not only fixing the vehicles on the road and 

ensuring that they are 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. 

Our 1,500 dealers are making tremendous efforts to complete our 

recalls as quickly and as conveniently as possible for our customers. Some dealers are staying open 24 hours a day, 7 days a 

week, and they are repairing vehicles at the rate of about 50,000 

a day. Thus far, we have repaired nearly 800,000 vehicles. We have 

rigorously tested our solutions and we are confident that these repairs to Toyota vehicles will make them among the safest on the 

road today. 

Our engineers have identified two specific mechanical causes of 

unintended acceleration covered by recalls and we currently address these through our open recalls. One involves floor mats, that 

when lose or improperly fitted can entrap the accelerator pedal. 

The other concern is accelerator pedals that over time can grow 

sticky with wear and humidity. The solutions that we have developed are both effective and durable. 

We are confident that no problems exist in our electronic throttle 

systems in our vehicles. We have designed our electronic throttle 

system with multiple fail-safe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure. We have done extensive testing on this system, and we have never found a malfunction 

that has 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 

is designed. Toyota will make the results of this comprehensive 

evaluation available to the public and the Congress as soon as it 

is completed. 

So, why did it take so long to get this to this point? With respect 

to pedal entrapment, Toyota conducted investigations of consumer 

complaints which focused 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 the 

United States. We acknowledge these mistakes. We apologize for 

them. And we have 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 

2010 Prius and Lexus hybrids and certain 2010 Tacoma trucks illustrate this approach. 

We are also going further. Our President Akia 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. We are expanding our network of technical offices in the U.S. so we can gather information 

faster and respond more aggressively to incident reports. And we 


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will install advanced 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, we are announcing that we will install this system 

on an expanded range of vehicles, including Tacoma, Venza and Sequoia models, that are capable of accepting this new software. We 

have previously announced this system would be involved in 

Camry, Avalon, Lexus ES and IS models. 

These actions underscore that Toyota is going above and beyond 

what is 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 Stupak, and ranking members, as well as members of the committee, these are only 

some of the steps that we are taking to earn back the confidence 

of Congress and the American people. Our 200,000 team members, 

dealership employees and suppliers in the U.S. are the backbone 

of that effort. I am confident that we will succeed in restoring customer trust in our quality, safety and reliability of our vehicles. 

Thank you very much. I am ready for your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lentz follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Lentz. 

Chairman Waxman for questions, please. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Lentz, thank you for your testimony, your cooperation with 

this committee’s investigation. These 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 and the car seems to be out of control. 

For the future, you are suggesting that you are going to put in 

a system where the brake will override the gas pedal? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 2011 model year vehicles. 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 as standard equipment 

the brake override system. 

Mr. WAXMAN. That will be helpful. But let me ask you about the 

cars that are already on the road. People have these vehicles. You 

are not planning to do any retrofit of the brake over the gas pedal 

in those cars, are you? 

Mr. LENTZ. There are seven of those vehicles that are currently 

on the road that we are retrofitting. There are seven models. 

Camry, Avalon—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. You are going to retrofit all the vehicles? 

Mr. LENTZ. Those that are technically possible we are retrofitting 

Mr. STUPAK. Is your microphone still working, Mr. Lentz? 

Mr. LENTZ. The green light is on. 

Mr. STUPAK. Just get a little closer, if you can. 

Mr. WAXMAN. How many vehicles will then be on the road with 

the possible problem if the problem is due to something other than 

the mats or the sticky pedal? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know the exact number of vehicles on the road 

that will have the BOS system. It is the majority, but I can’t tell 

you exactly what that percentage is. I don’t know. 

Mr. WAXMAN. The majority of the vehicles on the road, that are 

already on the road, will be retrofitted? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, vehicles on the road will be retrofitted. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Now, I mentioned in my opening statement, and 

it has been well publicized, that I have been critical of your assurances to the American people, and I think we have a film that we 

can show you. Let’s see if we can get that in. 

[film shown.] 

Mr. WAXMAN. We are 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? 

Mr. LENTZ. Let me make sure that it is very clear on my statement. Unintended acceleration, as I view it and define it, is any 

time that a driver removes their input from the accelerator and the 

vehicle continues at some speed. And there are many different 

causes for that. There are mechanical causes, whether it is a software issue in a transmission, whether it could be an idle-up from 

an air conditioner, whether it could be a faulty cruise control, 

whether it could be a pedal, in this case an entrapped pedal. 


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Mr. WAXMAN. What concerns me, Mr. Lentz, is that there seems 

to be a difference between your statement that was given on television and the statements other Toyota officials have given to our 

committee staff. Even your own counsel in a letter to us said that 

the sticky pedals become lodged in a partially depressed position, 

which typically does not translate into a sudden high speed acceleration event. 

Also, it appears that you are 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 70 percent of the complaints of sudden unintended acceleration that come into Toyota’s customer call line were 

from drivers of vehicles who were not included in either of these 

recalls. 

How do you respond to that? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, if I could, the week, it seems 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 150 journalists. And if I could read to you just a response that I made to a question? 

Mr. WAXMAN. It is different from the one on television? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And is it more consistent with what we are being 

told privately by your counsel and by your own technical people? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know exactly what it is. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Let me ask you the question directly? 

Mr. LENTZ. Please. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you leave believe that the recall on the carpet 

changes and the recall on the sticky pedal will solve the problem 

of sudden unintended acceleration? 

Mr. LENTZ. Not totally. 

Mr. WAXMAN. What do you need to do? 

Mr. LENTZ. We 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. 

Mr. WAXMAN. And why haven’t you looked at the possibility of 

the electronics and the computer system being a possible fault, as 

we heard from the first witnesses, the witnesses on our first panel? 

Mr. LENTZ. We have looked into the electronics. And based on 

the testing we have done in Japan and now Exponent, that you 

saw the initial response from their testing, we continue to test the 

ETCS in Japan, as well as now what Exponent is doing, and we 

have not found a malfunction. It doesn’t mean that we stop. 

Mr. WAXMAN. But Exponent’s evaluation has been very, very 

criticized as not being well done, not scientifically, the sample was 

too small, and an unreliable report. Do you have something more 

from Japan that you haven’t given us? 

Mr. LENTZ. I am relying on the information that 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 the 

ECU. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, Mr. Lentz, my time is up. Let me just tell 

you that I am not confident that you are looking for something that 

you don’t think exists, because if you are not looking for it you 


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won’t find it. And we had these two witnesses earlier who spent 3 

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 Exponent 

does not justify ruling that possibility out. 

Mr. LENTZ. It is not intended to do that. That is just the beginning of their investigation. They have many, many more steps to 

complete, and we will provide you with the final when they get it 

done. That is just the beginning. 

Mr. WAXMAN. That report is the beginning, but that beginning 

only started this month. 

Mr. LENTZ. It started—— 

Mr. WAXMAN. In February of 2010. You are only starting to look 

at it, and you had an analysis done that was quite inadequate. We 

need to be sure that you are doing a full and adequate analysis of 

something you have denied, but which other witnesses have shown 

us is very possible as an explanation for the sudden acceleration. 

Mr. Chairman, my time has expired. I know other members will 

want to pursue this with Mr. Lentz. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Burgess for questions. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, Mr. Lentz, just to continue on that same line 

that the chairman was just following, yes, you have a responsibility 

to do these things, but there is also a Federal agency who is 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? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know specifically of the results of the tests, 

other than there have been many, many cases in the past that 

have been opened, investigations, that have been closed and they 

have not found anything. I can’t tell you specifically what their 

testing paradigm was. 

Mr. BURGESS. Of course, we have had so much data in front of 

us today. There is one graph here that shows the complaints of unintended uncommanded acceleration that really start in 2002, 

which my understanding is that that is the year that the electronic 

throttle control actually came into being on your cars, is that correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. I believe 2001 might have been the first year on LS, 

but it is very close. 

Mr. BURGESS. You heard Mr. Gilbert testify here, and actually it 

was in response to Mr. Buyer’s question, that he cut no wires when 

he did his simulation. Have your guys been able to reproduce his 

results without cutting wires? 

Mr. LENTZ. Exponent in their initial study, I was up at Exponent 

a few weeks ago and they showed how they tested a vehicle for a 

vehicle short and other situations that involved the electronics 

from the pedal to the throttle ECM. 

Mr. BURGESS. Were they able to reproduce what Mr. Gilbert 

showed? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. In every case they went into an error code. As 

you, we received Mr. Gilbert’s information very, very late. 


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Mr. BURGESS. Let me ask you this. Are you going to hire him 

now? It took him 3 hours to find the problem. If he is correct, we 

have to make that leap of faith. 

Mr. LENTZ. But quite frankly, we encourage people to try to find 

this. It is not in our interest if a problem exists to not find it and 

not figure it out. So if it exists, we encourage the Mr. Gilberts of 

the world to look at it. It just seems a little too good to be true that 

somebody could figure this out in 31⁄2 hours, when an industry has 

been looking for this for 10 years. 

Mr. BURGESS. It may not be fair to ask you to testify to this, but 

you heard Mr. Gilbert’s testimony. Do you or someone in your organization think it is possible that what he has described would be 

responsible for what happened, and if it did, would 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 5 volts on top of 

it to create uncommanded acceleration? Is there anyone in your organization who is able to talk to us about that? 

Mr. LENTZ. Vince is here, he is one of our attorneys and he has 

been working with Exponent. And at some point we would love to 

get Exponent and Mr. Gilbert maybe together. But if you would 

like, Vince can give you a very quick explanation of what they 

found. I am not an engineer, so I would probably mess this up. 

Mr. BURGESS. Since we are taking testimony under oath, I don’t 

know what is permissible here. 

Let me just ask you a question on the fix, because I know your 

dealers in my area, Toyota of Lewisville, they have been Johnnyon-the-spot with this. They have been getting people in, it takes 

them 20 minutes to fix it. But if they are fixing the wrong problem 

and they really need to be developing whatever you call the advanced override for the brake system, then you wonder if we are 

going to have to call people in for yet another fix to the problem. 

Now, what actually fixes the accelerator pedal? What have you 

developed that will fix that problem on the recall? 

Mr. LENTZ. There are two different issues. In the case of a sticky 

accelerator pedal, they are actually putting in a precision cut steel 

plate. 

Mr. BURGESS. We call that a shim, right? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. BURGESS. How many different sizes of precision cut plates 

are you producing? 

Mr. LENTZ. I believe it is either seven or nine. 

Mr. BURGESS. Seven or nine. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. BURGESS. Presumably this material that is hydroscopic and 

absorbing water and becoming incompatible with proper function, 

presumably that is a precision manufactured component, is it not? 

Mr. LENTZ. I would assume so. I don’t know anything about the 

manufacturing. 

Mr. BURGESS. The fact that you have to have seven or nine different size shims? 

Mr. LENTZ. I believe it has to do with the amount of wear that 

is actually on that shim. So when the technician takes the pedal 


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off, they actually measure how large the gap is, and that determines the size of the shim that they put in, the steel plate. 

Mr. BURGESS. But it does strain credulity that a precision-designed chronometer, this shim that we are talking about, it just 

doesn’t seem reasonable that there would have to be so many different sizes in order to fix the problem if the problem was the pedal 

absorbing atmospheric moisture. 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, the size difference is in very small millimeters. 

To the naked aye, you can tell the difference between the biggest 

and the smallest, but as you go down the row, they are very, very 

close in total size. 

But what it really does is it ensures that excess friction won’t 

build up in the pedal. And what happens in the past is with wear 

it gets shiny and once humidity is added to that, it actually builds 

up too much friction, and that is when the pedal starts to bind or 

possibly stick. 

Mr. BURGESS. Now this fix on this recall, the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration, they have signed off on this and feel 

that this fixes the problem? Have they looked at it themselves? 

Mr. LENTZ. They don’t sign off. We show them our solution and 

they don’t disagree. So we are confident it is the right fix. 

Mr. BURGESS. What about the fix of putting the advanced brake 

override system in? 

Mr. LENTZ. Advanced brake overrides in production vehicles has 

already started on vehicles like ES and Camry. 

Mr. BURGESS. But for those of us that have older model Toyotas 

that wanted to have that degree of safety built in for our families, 

how do we go about getting that done? 

Mr. LENTZ. It is a reflash on those seven vehicles, and it varies 

by vehicle by model year. 

Mr. BURGESS. By reflash, you mean you reset the computer? 

Mr. LENTZ. It is a reflash of the computer to be able to add that. 

Mr. BURGESS. Technically, how difficult is that to do? 

Mr. LENTZ. It takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. 

Mr. BURGESS. And how much does it cost? 

Mr. LENTZ. We are providing that. 

Mr. BURGESS. It just seems reason that that is something that 

really should happen in addition to all these other things, just to 

be on the safe side. 

Mr. LENTZ. It is for added consumer confidence. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. 

On this rebooting of this computer there, why are only some of 

the vehicles going to be rebooted and not the other ones? 

Mr. LENTZ. It depends on the feasibility of the unit. Some of the 

computers have different types of chips in them. Some are not rewritable. Basically they are hard coded. 

Mr. STUPAK. So can’t you rewrite the programs so that all of your 

vehicles are covered? What do you say to these owners who are not 

going to have this safety feature added to it? They are just going 

to continue to drive down the road and hope they don’t have a sudden unintended acceleration? 


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Mr. LENTZ. Well, again, the possibility of that happening is very, 

very slim, but understanding if it happens to you, it is a very, very 

important incident. 

Mr. STUPAK. Sure. Very, very slim. Let’s take a look at that. 

From slim let’s go to shim. 

You talked a lot about the shim there with Mr. Burgess, but the 

documents we asked for, and I put this in our letter on February 

22nd on the second page, I was going to ask you this question. We 

wrote to you on February 2nd to request any analysis of Toyota 

that shows sticky pedals can cause some unintended acceleration. 

You didn’t produce any analysis. In fact, your counsel actually said, 

‘‘Typically, a sticky pedal does not translate into a sudden high 

speed acceleration event.’’ So, this shim isn’t going to solve this 

sudden unintended acceleration. 

Mr. LENTZ. It will prevent unintended acceleration. High speed, 

most likely not, because in the few incidents where we had a pedal 

stick, it is a very low throttle opening. 

Mr. STUPAK. As Chairman Waxman pointed out, of the complaints you have in your own database, approximately 70 percent 

of the sudden unintended acceleration events in your own database 

involves vehicles that are not subject to the floor mat or the sticky 

pedal recall. So 70 percent of the problem isn’t being addressed by 

the recall, correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, a couple of issues. The most important part 

about it is those in many cases are customer generated—I don’t 

want to call them complaints, but feedback to us that they are having an issue. What is most important is we are able to investigate 

those as quickly as possible so we can understand what is going on. 

And in the past, we have not done a very good job of doing that. 

Mr. STUPAK. You haven’t done a very good job doing that. We 

had Mr. Kane on the last panel, they had over 2,000 complaints, 

and when they went through it, he figured maybe half of them, 

1,130-some, cannot be explained other than what the driver said, 

which is this sudden unintended acceleration. You disagree with 

that? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, I am not sure if his database is sudden or unintended. I don’t want to get into what ‘‘is’’ is here. But there is a 

big difference between unintended and sudden unintended. 

My understanding is the database through NHTSA 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 data 

that they are using. 

Mr. STUPAK. But some of the complaints are like recently, I put 

it into park, I popped over the curb and hit a tree. One gentleman 

went off a cliff and his wife died. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. And that wasn’t a high speed. But that was a sudden unintended acceleration. It doesn’t always have to be at high 

speed. 

Mr. LENTZ. Correct. 

Mr. STUPAK. That is why I think all of them have to be taken 

seriously. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, there is no question. 


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Mr. STUPAK. So for 70 percent of those complaints in your database, we don’t have an answer yet. 

Mr. LENTZ. There are answers with other mechanical breakdowns, from transmissions, from other engine surges. There is 

pedal misapplication that is the possibility as well. And we are not 

here blaming customers, but it does take place. 

Mr. STUPAK. But it sort of sounds that way. I don’t mean to be 

nitpicking here, but when Mr. Waxman asked you a question about 

unintended acceleration, you said ‘‘as I would define it.’’ That is 

what you said to the chairman. And it seems like when we get this 

sudden unintended acceleration, it is the way Toyota wants to define it, not the customer. 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, but I think we are defining it as a customer is 

defining it, and that is a much broader spectrum of any type of 

surge or movement in the vehicle that the customer doesn’t expect 

to take place. And that can happen from a number of different 

sources. To me, I would rather have the broad spectrum to look at 

than a more narrow spectrum of high speed. 

Mr. STUPAK. Let’s talk about the customer here, because this 

started in the 2001–2002 model year. You went from the mechanical to the computer electronically-driven throttle system. And by 

2004, NHTSA has presented Toyota with a document showing you 

a 400 percent increase in complaints. That was in 2004. 

We learned, and you testified or mentioned in one of your interviews, that you had a recall in Europe, in what, April or May, of 

this sudden acceleration. Didn’t you do some things in Europe, in 

England, in Ireland? Did you have a recall there? 

Mr. LENTZ. That is on the sticky pedal? 

Mr. STUPAK. Right. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. So in Europe, excuse me, in England and Ireland, 

is that just sticky pedal? 

Mr. LENTZ. That was a sticky pedal in Europe. 

Mr. STUPAK. That is in response to sudden unintended acceleration? 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, it is in response to unintended, the possibility 

of unintended acceleration, which is a safety issue. To me—— 

Mr. STUPAK. When you did the recall in Europe and did your fix 

in Europe, in England, did you notify NHTSA of this? 

Mr. LENTZ. We knew about it. I knew about it in November—— 

Mr. STUPAK. But did you notify NHTSA? 

Mr. LENTZ. We notified NHTSA as soon as we knew about the 

situation in the U.S. We didn’t—— 

Mr. STUPAK. Wait a minute. 

Mr. LENTZ. November of 2009. 

Mr. STUPAK. OK. It took you until November of 2009 when you 

have had a 400 percent increase in complaints since 2004 to realize 

there might be a problem in the United States after a recall in Europe? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, I am speaking specifically about sticky pedals. 

Those don’t go back to 2002. The sticky pedal event began in the 

United States—there was one instance I believe in 2006 or 7. But 

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erated our investigation and we notified NHTSA immediately that 

we had seen that. 

Mr. STUPAK. And you still—do you have any analysis, any evidence, that sticky pedals can cause a sudden unintended acceleration? 

Mr. LENTZ. It depends on the definition of ‘‘sudden.’’ If it means 

that you can be depressing a pedal, take your foot off the pedal and 

the car continues at speed, it does cause that. 

Mr. STUPAK. Quoting your counsel, typically it does not translate 

into a sudden high speed acceleration event, sticky pedals. So 

sticky pedals isn’t doing anything about sudden high speed? 

Mr. LENTZ. Not for high speed. 

Mr. STUPAK. And you agree with me there is 70 percent of the 

customers in the database we still don’t have an answer for their 

unintended acceleration, if I can use that word? 

Mr. LENTZ. There are many factors that lead to it. 

Mr. STUPAK. But 70 percent of them we don’t have an answer 

for, is that fair to say? 

Mr. LENTZ. That is probably fair to say. 

Mr. STUPAK. If I can just ask you one more question. This is Saturday’s Washington Post, February 20th. It is on the righthand 

side. ‘‘Suspicion lingers over acceleration in Camrys.’’ OK. The reason why I bring it up is because they cite three fatals of 2005 

Camrys. 

It says, on each of these three fatal episodes, the car involved 

was a 2005 Toyota Camry, a model that the company has indicated 

is free of acceleration defects. It has not been recalled for either the 

sticky pedal or the floor mat interference, is that true? 

Mr. LENTZ. I believe so. 

Mr. STUPAK. Any suggestions on why the Camry has this acceleration problem? 

Mr. LENTZ. When the model year changed in 2004, there was an 

acceleration issue that had to do with the transmission, that there 

was a surge between 38 and 42 miles per hour, and that surge 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. 

Mr. STUPAK. Have you gone back and fixed the software in the 

2005 Camrys then? Because these fatals I am talking about is the 

one that went across the parking lot and went over a 70-foot cliff 

where his wife died. 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, I don’t know that. 

Mr. STUPAK. Have you put out a recall on the 2005 Camry to fix 

this? A recall? 

Mr. LENTZ. On the pedal? 

Mr. STUPAK. On this torque issue. 

Mr. LENTZ. The torque converter was 2004. 

Mr. STUPAK. These are 2005 Camrys. 

Mr. LENTZ. I understand. 

Mr. STUPAK. We still have Toyota vehicles that have acceleration 

and we don’t know what the problem is? 

Mr. LENTZ. There is the possibility through either mechanical or 

human or some other type of error that could cause that. 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Mr. Barton, questions? 

Mr. BARTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for those questions. I thought they were excellent. 

Mr. Lentz, what is your background? You said you are not an engineer. What are you? 

Mr. LENTZ. Sales and marketing. I have a degree in marketing, 

in economics, and an MBA in finance. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. So you do agree from a marketing standpoint 

that what is going on now is fairly detrimental to your company. 

Two of your principal dealerships in Texas yesterday met with me, 

one in Houston and one in Arlington, and their sales are down 

about 30 percent. I would assume from a marketing standpoint 

that is not a good thing. 

Mr. LENTZ. No, sir, it is not. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. You are the CEO of Toyota in the United 

States. How much authority do you have to solve this problem? 

Can you pretty well call the shots, or do you have to ask for authority from headquarters in Tokyo? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, I am the Chief Operating Officer for the U.S. 

From a marketing standpoint, I call the shots. 

Mr. BARTON. A marketing standpoint. 

Mr. LENTZ. If you are talking about from a defect standpoint or 

a determination of a recall standpoint, those decisions have been 

made in Japan in the past. 

Mr. BARTON. OK. And I am not saying that is a bad thing. 

Mr. LENTZ. But it is changing. 

Mr. BARTON. I just want to know how far you can go if you make 

a promise today that you can deliver on it. 

Mr. LENTZ. But that is changing. 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 input into defect decisions that in the past were always made in Japan. There will be 

a North American on the committee that makes defect recommendations now, and there will be a process if we don’t agree 

with the decision of that committee that we can have a process to 

override. Today, that is not existent. 

Mr. BARTON. In the prior panel, I don’t know if you were in the 

room or not, but we had a couple I believe from Tennessee, the 

Smith couple, and the wife, her car experienced an out-of-control 

acceleration for a number of minutes. She was literally in this car 

long enough she put it in neutral, she put her foot on the brake, 

she tried to turn the ignition off, she put it in reverse, she called 

her husband on her cell phone. That was not a sticky pedal because 

of a floor mat. Something happened to that car that is 

unexplainable so far. 

Now, we normally when something bad happens in a product, if 

there is a plane crash, we go to the scene and investigate the 

plane. If there is a bridge collapse, we go to the collapse of the 

bridge and we look for structural defect, or design defect if there 

is a building collapse. 

In this case, we have a car that had out of control acceleration 

and apparently all that was done was it went to a dealership and 


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they did a routine computer program review. Why has Toyota not 

obtained that vehicle and taken it to your laboratory and done everything possible to discover what caused the malfunction? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know specifically in her case, other than I did 

hear her comment that she had mentioned that a field technical 

specialist looked at her car. 

Mr. BARTON. A field technical specialist. 

Mr. LENTZ. Right. That is somebody that works for Toyota. 

Mr. BARTON. So you sent one person you are paying $50,000 a 

year, and they spent an hour and they hooked up their little program and they said we don’t see a problem, and they filled out a 

form we don’t see a problem. You have got a multi-billion dollar 

company that is experiencing a multi-billion hit in the marketplace. Why in the world won’t you get that vehicle and do everything possible to determine—it really doesn’t matter that you have 

got 5 million vehicles that are performing flawlessly if you have got 

10 that have failed. Her problem is not a floor mat problem. It is 

not a floor mat problem. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know. I can’t—— 

Mr. BARTON. Well, I know. I take her at her word. In fact, she 

is going down the highway at 100 miles an hour, she has got 

enough sense to pull the damn floor mat from underneath the 

pedal if that is what is causing it. You know that and I know that. 

You can’t say it because of all the lawsuits. So why don’t you all 

get the cars that have had the problem, and if you need NHTSA 

there to verify what you are doing, get them. But if I am President 

of Toyota, I am going to get the cars that we know had a problem 

and I am going to do everything I can to find out what caused that 

problem, and then I am going to fix it if it is fixable. 

With Gulf States Toyota and Vandergriff Toyota, those are good 

people. They want to sell your cars and they are doing this fix, and 

in my opinion it is a sham. Not because they are not fixing that. 

They are making it feel better. They are shortening the pedal about 

an inch and a half and putting this shim that Mr. Burgess has 

talked about so that it feels differently. But unless it is a floor mat 

issue, which in some cases it may be, you are not solving the problem that Mrs. Smith had. She didn’t have a floor mat problem. 

So, again, why don’t you get that car, it is still in existence, and 

check it out? Tear it apart. Do whatever. And do it with witnesses 

that are credible, because my guess is you have got some really, 

really smart engineers. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BARTON. Hopefully they will shoot straight with you, and 

whatever the issue is, it is—you know, I am an engineer. Engineers 

are trained. We identify the problem, develop an optimal solution, 

implement the solution. You probably can solve this problem, if you 

really try to. 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, in terms of going out and seeing what the situation is, we today have two engineering centers here within the 

U.S. with about 80 engineers. We are adding three more of those. 

Because our goal is on any unintended acceleration, is to be able 

to contact the customer—— 

Mr. BARTON. You are not answering. Why won’t you get that car 

and check it out? 


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Mr. LENTZ. That is what I am saying. The goal is with these 

added centers and added engineers, is within 24 hours we want to 

be at that vehicle and we will inform NHTSA of the situation if 

they would like to join us. NHTSA has joined us in some of these 

cases in the past. So we can get that car and see exactly what is 

going on. 

Mr. BARTON. But you haven’t gotten the Smiths’ car? 

Mr. LENTZ. The Smith car, I have written down to find out what 

happened with that. I have to tell you—— 

Mr. BARTON. Again, my time has expired. If I am CEO and I 

have the authority, as soon as I walk out of this hearing, I pick 

up the phone and I say get that car. If I have to pay $100,000, get 

that car, put the best engineers on it, let’s tear the damn thing 

apart and let’s find out what is happening to it. Because you can 

do all this other stuff, but if you don’t go where the problem is, you 

know, you are probably never going to figure out what is going on. 

Mr. LENTZ. I can tell you, listening to Mrs. Smith, I am 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. 

Mr. BARTON. Well, my time has expired. We are happy—I have 

a GM assembly plant in my district, so I have got a good relationship with General Motors. I have a Toyota sub-assembly vendor 

plant in my district that makes component parts for Toyota. So I 

am not on any—I want the truth and I want, whether my constituency wants to buy a GM product or a Toyota product or any other 

product in the automotive sector, to feel that those products are 

safe, period. And I have confidence in your engineering department. You can solve it if your legal department will let you solve 

it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Dingell for questions. Mr. Dingell waived his 

opening statement and also waived questioning the last witness, so 

I will give him some leeway with this panel. 

Mr. Dingell for questions. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your courtesy. 

Mr. Lentz, please tell me the date that Toyota first heard of incidents of sudden acceleration in its vehicles sold in the U.S. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit that to the record. 

Now, Mr. Lentz, please tell me the date on which Toyota commenced the first recall to address this problem in the United 

States? 

Mr. LENTZ. If I don’t know the answer to the first one, I don’t 

know the answer to the second one. 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit that for the record. I had heard that 

the first notice of it in the U.S. was in November, and that your 

first notice of it in Europe was in May of the same year. Is that 

correct? Yes or no? 

Mr. LENTZ. I am sorry. I thought when you talked about sudden 

acceleration—— 

Mr. DINGELL. I am talking about sudden acceleration. 


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Mr. LENTZ. But in November, sudden acceleration has been 

around in the industry for 15 or 20 years. 

Mr. DINGELL. I just want an answer, not a speech. 

Now, since 2001, how many complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in vehicles sold in the United States has Toyota Motor 

Sales USA received? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know that number. 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit that for the record. 

How many of those complaints has Toyota Motor Sales USA forwarded to NHTSA? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know that number. 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit that 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? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. 

Mr. DINGELL. Who was responsible for that? 

Mr. LENTZ. Japan is responsible. 

Mr. DINGELL. That was Japan’s responsibility. 

Now, Mr. Lentz, yes or no, is it true that the Toyota recall process for vehicles manufactured and/or sold in the United States requires the decisions concerning these recalls to be made in Japan 

or with Japanese oversight? Yes or no. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. 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 

NHTSA Administrator Ron Medford in December 2009? Yes or no. 

Mr. LENTZ. I think you have to be more specific about is that the 

floor mat recall issue or is that the sticky pedal issue? 

Mr. DINGELL. Well, apply it to both. 

Mr. LENTZ. OK. In the case of the sticking pedal issue, I know 

Mr. Medford went to Japan. I can’t tell you specifically if that is 

the reason. Obviously, NHTSA was clear with us that we were 

going to have to do something with those vehicles. 

Mr. DINGELL. And you had not previously to that time done anything? 

Mr. LENTZ. In the case of the sticky pedal situation, I first knew 

about that in November of 2009. We had reports of three vehicles—— 

Mr. DINGELL. And he went there in December of 2009. 

Mr. LENTZ. Correct. 

Mr. DINGELL. Had you done anything about a recall prior to that 

time? 

Mr. LENTZ. No, sir. It was still under investigation. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Lentz, yes or no, did Acting Administrator Medford’s December 2009 visit to Japan and discussions 

with Toyota executives have any influence on the decision to recall 

vehicle models linked to the sudden unintended acceleration problem? 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, if you are speaking of the sticking pedal, I 

don’t know. Specifically I was not in the meeting, but I would think 

it probably did. 


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Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Lentz, in correspondence addressed to 

this committee, certain elected officials have communicated their 

concern that the United States Government’s financial stake in 

Chrysler and General Motors represents a conflict of interest that 

may be influencing its regulation of Toyota. If that is true, I am 

outraged. 

Do you believe that that statement is true, or not? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t believe that is true. I think the government 

is acting fairly. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you. 

Now, Mr. Lentz, yes or no, are the reporting requirements for 

early warning of possible vehicle safety defects different in Japan 

than in the United States? 

Mr. LENTZ. I am not familiar with the process in Japan. 

Mr. DINGELL. Would you submit that for the record, please? 

Mr. Lentz, are the Japanese requirements in regard to this matter more or less stringent than American standards? 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, my responsibility is the United States. I don’t 

know the standards for Japan. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Lentz, if the Japanese requirements are 

less stringent, does that affect how Toyota evaluates potential defects in its vehicles and influence what information the company 

provides to U.S. Regulators? Yes or no. 

Mr. LENTZ. I would think not. The decision to make a recall in 

the United States is based on our experience in the United States. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Lentz, yes or no, has Toyota definitively 

ruled out nonmechanical failures as the source of sudden unintended acceleration in vehicles recalled in late 2009 and early 

2010? 

Mr. LENTZ. We never rule out anything that could cause sudden 

unintended acceleration? 

Mr. DINGELL. So you have not ruled that out? 

Mr. LENTZ. We are vigilant and we continue to look for potential 

causes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now Mr. Lentz, put another way, has Toyota definitively determined that electromagnetic interference with or 

other failures in electronic throttle controls are the cause of sudden 

unintended acceleration in the vehicles recalled in 2009 and early 

2010, yes or no? 

Mr. LENTZ. We are studying, through the Exponent study you 

have now which was preliminary, there was a lot more investigation to go on. So it’s been looked at as well as there is going to be 

an advisory board on quality and safety for the United States. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you. Now Mr. Lentz, I understand from 

your testimony that Toyota has called upon Exponent to conduct 

tests on certain Toyota vehicles to determine possible causes of unintended acceleration. That is true, is it not? 

Mr. LENTZ. Exponent is checking our ETCS, yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now Mr. Lentz, did the report conclude that electromagnetic interference was a potential cause of sudden unintended acceleration, yes or no? 

Mr. LENTZ. It has not tested electromagnetic as of yet. What 

you’ve seen is—— 

Mr. DINGELL. So they have not tested it so they don’t know. 


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Mr. LENTZ. It has not been tested yet. It is going to be tested, 

and we will provide you with the final testing when it’s available. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you. How many models of Toyota vehicles 

did Exponent test? 

Mr. LENTZ. I do not know that. 

Mr. DINGELL. How many did they not test? 

Mr. LENTZ. When I was there, I saw five different models being 

tested. 

Mr. DINGELL. Would you please submit the response to those 

questions for the record, please. Now Mr. Lentz, yes or no, do you 

feel that this is an adequate sample of vehicles for the purposes of 

Exponent’s tests? 

Mr. LENTZ. If you look at—— 

Mr. DINGELL. You said yourself, five vehicles there. 

Mr. LENTZ. If you look at the ETCS 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 similar. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Lentz, I am just a poor Polish lawyer from Detroit. Would you please tell me yes or no so that I can understand 

it. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know how to answer that in a yes or no. I 

think they are testing multiple vehicles. They are testing the system, not particularly how does it work on a Camry versus an FJ 

Cruiser. 

Mr. DINGELL. Thank you, Mr. Lentz. Now, yes or no, are the 

event data recorders EDRs installed in all Toyota vehicles sold in 

the United States? 

Mr. LENTZ. As of today, no. 

Mr. DINGELL. As of today? 

Mr. LENTZ. As of today they are not. EDRs are not in 100 percent 

of our vehicles. 

Mr. DINGELL. Yes or no, would these EDRs contain information 

such as recordings of vehicle component failures that would be useful to investigators in determining the cause of an accident? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know exactly what they provide. I can tell you 

they provide information five seconds prior and one second after an 

accident. I can tell you that by the end of—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Would you please, Mr. Lentz, submit to me for the 

record the answer to that question. Now, can data from—again, yes 

or no, from EDRs installed in Toyota vehicles be easily read by 

non-Toyota personnel, such as NHTSA investigators? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, with the proper scan tool of which we are going 

to produce and get 100 of them in the United States by April. 

Mr. DINGELL. So they have not been previously made available 

to NHTSA? 

Mr. LENTZ. There is only one prototype in the United States 

today, but we will take available—— 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. What percentage of your vehicles imported into the United States or are manufactured here have 

EDRs? 

Mr. LENTZ. 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—— 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit that for the record. Mr. Lentz, in 

general, prior to Toyota recalls this year and last, by whom and 


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where could such data from Toyota EDRs be read in the United 

States? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know the answer to that because there was 

only—— 

Mr. DINGELL. If you would please, Mr. Lentz, submit that for the 

record. 

Mr. LENTZ. There is only one prototype tool available in the 

United States today. 

Mr. DINGELL. So whoever wanted to look at that had to go look 

at that prototype, right? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. And I don’t know how accurate that prototype 

tool is. 

Mr. DINGELL. So you don’t know how accurate it was? 

Mr. LENTZ. It’s a single prototype tool, the standard for EDRs 

comes in December of 2012. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Lentz, yes or no, did NHTSA require 

Toyota in 2006 to conduct the tests on electronic throttle components for a 2006 Camry? 

Mr. LENTZ. Could you repeat the question? 

Mr. DINGELL. Did NHTSA require Toyota in 2006 to conduct a 

test on an electronic throttle component for a 2006 Camry? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. DINGELL. Please submit the answer for the record. Now Mr. 

Lentz, if so, did Toyota or a designated third party conduct the 

tests? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. DINGELL. If it was conducted by a third party, will you 

please tell the committee its name and submit an answer to those 

two questions for the purposes of the record, please. 

Mr. LENTZ. Congressman, I don’t know the answer but we can 

get that information for you. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now Mr. Lentz, are reports on this kind of inquiry 

generated by Toyota by third parties or by its own internal investigations submitted to NHTSA? 

Mr. LENTZ. I’m not sure I understand the question. 

Mr. DINGELL. Well, you have these studies being made in-house 

or by others and the question is, are the reports on those studies 

submitted to NHTSA or not? 

Mr. LENTZ. The study that’s being done by Exponent will be 

given to the public, to Congress as well as NHTSA. 

Mr. DINGELL. Has it been done so prior to this time? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know which specific study you may be speaking of. 

Mr. DINGELL. Well, I will let you choose. Have any of them been 

given to NHTSA or have they not? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know, given—you know, given my responsibility which is on the sales end of the company, I can’t—— 

Mr. DINGELL. You have been very gracious and kind with your 

time. But what I am trying to figure out is, are you responsible for 

these matters? You don’t seem to have the information that I have 

been questioning for. And I am curious, you told us that you were 

responsible for sales. Are you responsible for manufacturing? Are 

you responsible for safety? Are you responsible for decisions of this 

sort? Are these decisions made elsewhere in Japan? 


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Mr. LENTZ. I am not responsible for manufacturing. I am not responsible for defect or quality decisions. Defect decisions, recalls 

specifically, are, in fact, made in Japan. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, you have been most generous with 

the time. And Mr. Lentz, I thank you for your courtesy. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Rush for questions, please. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lentz, I see some 

attendees who are sitting in the front row with some buttons on 

which say ‘‘I am Toyota America.’’ Are these some of your employees? 

Mr. LENTZ. These are some of the employees from our assembly 

plants that do a great job for us. 

Mr. RUSH. Right. Well, I want to commend you on your diversity. 

I think that you have a very diverse workforce, and I want to welcome all of your workers here. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you, sir. They are hardworking Americans. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you. We have heard some compelling and disturbing testimony from the Smiths this morning. The committee 

learned over the course of its investigations that Mr. and Mrs. 

Smith are not alone in their experience with sudden unintended acceleration and also with their frustrations of dealing with Toyota. 

In fact, Toyota has received thousands of complaints from its customers about frightening sudden unintended acceleration incidents, 

and many of these incidents, unlike the Smiths, resulted in serious 

injuries or even fatalities. And I would expect your company would 

respond to these complaints with a sense of urgency and complete 

a serious investigation of these problems. But that’s not exactly 

what Toyota did in the Smiths’ case. 

One of the most striking things that the committee heard during 

this investigation and also from testimony is how dismissive Toyota 

has been on this customer’s report of sudden unintended acceleration. Mr. Lentz, just to tell you, I have received just a few moments 

ago this text written to one of my staff members from my district 

in Chicago. I’m going to try to pull it up. 

It says here—it’s from one of the executives at a local newspaper, 

the Chicago Defender. And it says, ‘‘Stephanie’’—this is one of my 

staff members—‘‘if Representative Rush wants to put a face to this 

Toyota mess, my sister-in-law died December 28 in a car accident 

near Dallas, Texas. She and three others were riding in a Toyota 

Avalon when it left the road, hit a tree, flipped in the air and landed upside down in a pond. Everyone died. The police said there was 

no evidence of any braking, giving rise to the idea that it was an 

accelerator problem. My sister-in-law, Sharon Love Ransom, was a 

senior executive with IBM. This is another indication. You have indicated to this committee this morning or this afternoon that you 

will retrieve the Smiths’ car. Would it be asking you too much to 

look into this matter, and if possible, treating the car involved in 

this accident? 

Mr. LENTZ. If it’s the accident that I’m thinking of—and we can 

have our staff check—both Toyota engineers and NHTSA did, in 

fact, inspect that vehicle. 

Mr. RUSH. And do you know what they determined? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know what was determined. 

Mr. RUSH. Would you check further into this? 


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Mr. LENTZ. Yes, we will check into it if it’s been the car. 

Mr. RUSH. Has there been any issues with the Avalon brand? 

Mr. LENTZ. There have been cases of both sticking pedals as well 

as floor mat entrapments, yes. 

Mr. RUSH. Mr. Lentz, do you have any reason to believe that out 

of the thousands upon thousands of complaints that Toyota or 

Lexus owners are inventing these terrifying stories about their 

driving experiences? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. But from an engineering standpoint, it’s critical 

that we get information so that we can go and investigate today. 

In many cases, information that’s submitted on NHTSA’s Web site, 

unless there is 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 that we can cross-reference that against 

our databases, and we can investigate these much sooner and not 

have to wait for an investigation to be opened to be able to do that. 

Mr. RUSH. From a marketing perspective, don’t you feel as 

though Toyota and yourself—don’t you feel as though you owe your 

customers who some have gone through some serious injuries, a lot 

of hurt and pain, don’t you feel as though that you owe them a sincere apology for your company, your vehicles, your product causing 

them sincere pain? Can’t you just apologize to them? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 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 have to have a death to understand the 

terror that she had from that accident. I mean, that’s a terrible 

thing to have to put one of our customers through. And it doesn’t 

even have to be an accident. I mean, we have apologized to our consumers just for the concern that we have given them with their 

current recalled vehicles. We are sincerely sorry for that concern 

and anxiety we put people through. I mean, myself, my wife drives 

a Toyota Prius. It’s a recalled vehicle. My son drives a Prius. It’s 

a recalled vehicle. My mother-in-law is in an ES 2006. My father 

has a Sequoia. They’re recalled vehicles. I want to make sure that 

my loved ones are safe as well. 

Mr. RUSH. But switching back over to the engineering. But you 

still have been pretty evasive here about the cause, the actual 

cause of all this pain and suffering. There are a lot of inconsistencies there and a lot of dualities that you are operating from. I 

am not sure if the apology—what is it based on? Is it sincere? Is 

this really a problem from an engineer’s perspective that you assume responsibility for? 

Mr. LENTZ. Any time there is one death in one of our vehicles, 

that—that pains us to have it take place, regardless of how it happens. But 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 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 24 hours. 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 his 30th birthday, and that was 20-some years ago, and there is not a day that 


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goes by that I don’t think of that. So I know what these families 

go through. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Rush. Mr. Markey, questions, 

please. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lentz, it seems to 

me that Toyota got the first dilemma back in 2000 when the British ordered a Lexus recall due to acceleration problems. Toyota got 

a second alarm back in 2003 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 2000 and 2003, 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. Lentz, 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 2000 and a Celica in Canada 

in 2003 because of floor mats were entrapping the accelerator pedal 

and the exact same problem that has caused fatalities in this country. Why didn’t Toyota take immediate action to prevent the much 

later accidents when Toyota clearly knew the problem existed as 

far back as 2000? 

Mr. LENTZ. Specifically on those two incidences, I can’t tell you 

the specifics of those because I do not know. But I can tell you that 

a weakness in our system has been that 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, Canada or Europe back to 

Japan. 

Mr. MARKEY. So what you are saying is that ultimately the decisions are made in Japan and that notwithstanding 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, are given orders to correct the problem identified in 

other countries, is not in your hands, is that what you are saying? 

Mr. LENTZ. Correct. But that is changing. There is going to be 

a number of different groups set up. There is an overall quality 

group that Akio Toyoda is going to chair. 

Mr. MARKEY. Well, you know, that’s an important change. It obviously is 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. It’s just plain unacceptable 

to the consumers here in America. Let me move forward quickly if 

I can. You have told The Today Show that the sticky accelerator 

pedal and the mat problems were the only problems and that you 


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fixed them. You have said today that you are only just beginning 

to test whether or not the electronics are the problem and that you 

have 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 you? 

Mr. LENTZ. There are many, many causes. In terms of the recalled vehicle—— 

Mr. MARKEY. But you don’t know if you’ve solved the problem. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t think anyone any manufacturer knows 100 

percent exactly what is causing—— 

Mr. MARKEY. No. What I’m saying is that since you are only beginning the investigation, you don’t know if you’ve solved the problem, is that correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. ETCS has been looked at in the past in Japan as 

they developed the products. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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? 

Mr. LENTZ. Let me clarify my statement. In terms of solving the 

issues of those recalls, we’ve solved the problem. And if—in 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 this pedal issue is 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. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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 you? 

Mr. LENTZ. We have not seen failures in the ETCS, and we 

have—this isn’t the first time ETCS has been looked at. It is the 

first time that we have gone to Exponent to look at it. And when 

we put in our quality North America advisory board, they will have 

total independent control of another study of their choosing, and 

that’s going to take place—that committee is going to be in place 

by the end of March. So there is going to be another study soon 

right after this. 

Mr. MARKEY. And is the same thing true for the problem with 

the electronic throttle control system in your vehicles? Do you know 

what’s wrong there? 

Mr. LENTZ. That’s what I’m talking about. The electronic—the 

ETC is the electronic control system. 

Mr. MARKEY. You don’t know what’s wrong there either? 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, we have not seen failures. It has been looked 

at in Japan in the past. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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, why do you have to 

find a way to override? 

Mr. LENTZ. I think you always have to keep your eyes and ears 

open in the event that there is something. 


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Mr. MARKEY. But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say 

there is no problem but you are trying to find a way to override 

something that is not a problem. It leaves people with the impression that there must be a problem. 

Mr. LENTZ. That’s why you have to continually test and test and 

test in the event that something develops. It could be a change in 

EMI. It could be a number of different things that we have to continually test and verify. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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, as they’re 

driving around, carries that kind of cautionary warning with them 

as they’re driving, pending the completion of all of your studies. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Markey. Next for questions go to 

Ms. DeGette. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lentz, I don’t 

know if you saw our opening statements or the previous panel’s 

testimony, but I probably hold the record among the committee 

members because I have three Camrys. So I am very, very concerned that we get this right, just like you are for your family. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I want to ask you a couple of questions. The first 

one is, you just told Mr. Markey that this is not the first time that 

you folks have looked at the ETCS, and you folks provided a number of documents in response to our February 2, 2010, request. As 

far as you know, has Toyota provided all of the documents relating 

to previous tests of the ETCS? 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, I can’t you if it’s a test or it’s just the development cycle of the ETCS. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I mean, we know that you have provided thousands of pages of documents relating to the development. What we 

want to know is, are there additional documents relating to the 

testing of the ETCS that you just testified that you folks—that it’s 

not the first time that you have looked at it. And I want to know, 

are have we received all of the documents relating to previous testing of the ETCS? Because that’s what we care about here. 

Mr. LENTZ. I understand. I have to check. I don’t know specifically. 

Ms. DEGETTE. If there are additional documents, will you provide 

us those to this committee? 

Mr. LENTZ. Of course. Of course. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. Now the only document that Toyota 

has produced to us that we’ve seen that claims to address the phenomenon of sudden unintended acceleration is this February 2010 

report that we’ve been talking about that was conducted by Exponent. My first question is, that report was commissioned in December of 2009 just 2 months ago by Toyota’s defense attorney Bowman & Brooke, correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, I believe so. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And how much money was paid—I know Mr. 

Buyer would want to know the answer to this question. How much 

money was paid to Exponent to produce that report for your defense attorneys? 


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Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know. Do you guys know? 

Ms. DEGETTE. Would you mind supplementing your response 

with that information? Was it over $1,800 as far as you know? 

Mr. LENTZ. I am sure it probably was. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I am sure it is too. 

Mr. LENTZ. And my understanding is, we have given them an unlimited budget to test as much as they can to find out about that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Unlimited. And I am glad that you have. But just 

as you wouldn’t question the efficacy of 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 

experts either, would you? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, and that’s why we have an advisory board—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Yes or no is a good answer for me. 

Mr. LENTZ. I can understand why you would feel that way, 

but—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. No. But you don’t think that your people would be 

tainted any more than the last witnesses were by being paid some 

kind of a money, correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. No, no. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. BUYER. I would. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Let me ask you this: The Exponent report was 

considered to be an interim report, correct? So they’re still conducting tests, is that right? 

Mr. LENTZ. Correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Will you provide the committee with the final test 

results when they are obtained? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. We are going to make that public. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And when do you expect that to happen? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now, it’s my understanding that Toyota’s counsel, 

Mr. Hester, who is sitting right behind you, told committee staff 

today that Toyota had, in fact, replicated Dr. Gilbert’s tests and 

that Toyota was able to produce the same conditions without triggering an error code, is that correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. Exponent—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. And did Exponent do that test? 

Mr. LENTZ. Exponent did that test. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And when did Exponent do that test? 

Mr. LENTZ. In the wee hours of the night last night. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Last night. So this is new information for us. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And I am assuming Toyota will be willing to share 

the results of that testing also with this committee. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, we will. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Now in your opening statement, you have said 

that Toyota had done extensive testing in electronics and has found 

no issues. Do you wish to change or clarify this remark in light of 

the findings disclosed to the committee today? 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, I am relying on 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 


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not seen test results. I am relying on their information to me that 

they have tested it extensively. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. In light of these new revelations revealed by 

your attorney, Mr. Hester, that Exponent was able to replicate the 

same conditions as Dr. Gilbert last night, does that change your 

testimony today? 

Mr. LENTZ. I’m not sure I understand. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Late last night, according to your testimony—— 

Mr. LENTZ. Oh, OK. Now I understand. We will provide that. I 

will tell you—again, I don’t know exactly how Mr. Gilbert has done 

this. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Are you disagreeing with Exponent who apparently was able to replicate the same tests? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. What I am saying is I am not sure if 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 unique to Toyota. It may be unique to his 

test paradigm. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Now I 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. and Mrs. Smith and we 

have a lot more anecdotal information—I have got this couple in 

Colorado that I have been talking about and on and on and on— 

I am going to assume that Toyota is going to take this seriously, 

that they’re not going to deny that these acceleration issues could 

be happening because of the ETCS and that they’re going to expeditiously investigate this and are going to provide the results to 

this committee. Would that be a fair statement of your intentions? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Ms. DeGette. Mr. Doyle for questions, 

please. 

Mr. DOYLE. Thank you. And Mr. Lentz, thank you for all the 

questions that you’ve answered. So you heard the testimony of the 

first panel, and Dr. Gilbert sounds like a pretty reasonable guy. 

And you just found that your testing company Exponent was able 

to duplicate what he did. Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense—and 

I think that Joe Barton said the same thing—that you guys talk 

to Dr. Gilbert when the hearing is over, probably offer him a little 

more than $1,800 and ask him to come down to Toyota or with Exponent and the three of you sit together and see if there is something—what’s the downside to testing this gentleman’s theory 

here? 

Mr. LENTZ. There is no downside. That is why I don’t want to 

downplay what he has done. Again, I am not sure about his testing 

paradigm, but 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 yes, there is no problem with him getting 

together with Exponent. 

Mr. DOYLE. It is in your best interest to find—I mean, no one has 

more to lose than you and your employees and your dealers to not 


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fix this problem. I mean, you should have every incentive—and I 

believe you do want to fix the problem. Your company has a very 

good reputation and it’s been put into question. You know, perception is reality. We know that in our business. If the public thinks 

that your car isn’t safe, you need to go out of your way to prove 

that it is. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DOYLE. So I just think that before you leave Washington, you 

ought to get this guy’s phone number, and he should be sitting 

down with your people and you ought to test his paradigm and see 

whether it has any merit. 

Mr. LENTZ. And what’s important is, when I was at Exponent, 

I drove a vehicle as they did the test to short-circuit the accelerator 

pedal. So I had the sense and 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 why I just have to really understand as 

has Exponent what Mr. Gilbert did because my understanding is, 

we were splicing wires together. 

Mr. DOYLE. Well, if I were you, I would want to know what he 

did too. There is 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 that drive your cars for you not to go the extra mile and test 

any theory that seems to have any merit to it. 

Mr. LENTZ. I agree 100 percent. And that’s also why going forward anytime we have a reported incident of UA, we’re going to 

send a swat team out there—the goal is within 24 hours—so we 

can learn as much as we can. That’s also why it would be helpful 

if we could get full vin numbers from NHTSA. 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. It would be very helpful to the entire industry, not just 

for us. 

Mr. DOYLE. OK. Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time, I am 

going to yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you Mr. Doyle. Mrs. Christensen for questions. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take 

this opportunity to welcome the dealers and the workers in the audience. I didn’t realize they were here when I made my opening 

statement. But I did say at the time that we wanted Toyota to fix 

this quickly, not only for the customers but for the workers and the 

families that depend on them having a job. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Lentz, how long have you been in your 

position? 

Mr. LENTZ. Since July of 2006. As an EVP then president and 

then president COO but basically the same responsibility. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I read an article—I don’t remember what 

paper—about a week and a half ago, maybe, that was really talking about the history that Toyota has in not responding to complaints. But it started out by saying that in the late 80s, Toyota 

would actually go to a customer’s home and—say your car has a 

problem, they would pick it up and they would take it and fix it. 


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By the late ’90s, and 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 the Toyota of the ’80s to bring us to the Toyota of 

2010? 

Mr. LENTZ. One comment before that is, there are dealers that 

still make house calls. My father who lives in Colorado, his salesman lives about 3 or 4 miles away and every time he needs service, 

the salesperson drops his demo off, picks up my dad’s car and takes 

it in for service. So that does still happen. We’re not totally out of 

the ’80s 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 who loved our product. 

Our loyalty rates were growing higher and higher, 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 have 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 the most important thing is, 

we lost sight of our customers. And I’ll give you an example even 

in the floor mat issue. 

In the very beginning, back in 2007, we recalled vehicles because 

of the all-weather mat. The mat was too thick, and there was risk 

it would bind up underneath the accelerator pedal. And it would 

happen if the mat wasn’t properly put down. So from an engineering standpoint is if the mat’s 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 mats. 

They put their rubber mat on top of their carpet mat, not just in 

our cars but in others. We didn’t understand something as simple 

as that. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. And just to get one other question. I am really disturbed by what sounded like a real snap diagnosis—I’m a 

physician—in the case of the mats. When 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 before we really make 

a diagnosis and we start to treat. And you know that doesn’t sound 

like it happened here. In your business and in my profession, lives 

depend on the decisions that we make, and it’s really important to 

really examine all of the possible things, do a rule-out for every 

other possibility. Can you assure me—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? 

Mr. LENTZ. 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 is going to speak to one of the committees. He is responsible for a global quality committee. It’s a brandnew committee that’s going to look at just at quality and safety. 

And there are representatives from each of the large regions 


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around the world that are on that. There is an independent advisory board that will report to that, to look over his shoulder. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. What was the independent advisory board? 

We talk about people paying and stuff. How do you get this independent? 

Mr. LENTZ. You go out and hire safety and quality experts from 

outside of the company to oversee what’s happening, to make sure 

that we’re doing the right thing, and that’s the North American region of that, and these committees are going to be announced by 

the end of March. They are going to be responsible for an independent, totally independent safety testing of the throttle control 

system. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. My time is up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. Ms. Sutton for questions, please. 

Ms. SUTTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Lentz, I would 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 a problem so we can fix it, something 

to that effect. Is that accurate? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Ms. SUTTON. When you say ‘‘we,’’ who do you mean? We welcome? 

Mr. LENTZ. Toyota. 

Ms. SUTTON. Toyota International? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. Again, TMS USA is a distributor for Toyota in 

the United States. My group does not design or engineer products. 

Ms. SUTTON. And I would like to talk about that a little bit. 

Mr. LENTZ. Sure. 

Ms. SUTTON. Because you are the president of Toyota Motor 

Sales in the U.S., as was pointed out by Ranking Member Barton. 

Does Toyota Motor Sales make safety determinations? Does your 

department make safety determinations? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. What we do is we get feedback from a number 

of different sources. We get feedback from customers that call in 

or contact us online. We look through the Internet. We look at 

NHTSA 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 in reports and they go to 

Japan to the quality side. So to say that I’m not involved in quality, I am from an antenna standpoint. 

Ms. SUTTON. OK. 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 have testified here today in 

relation to Mr. Markey’s questions about the alarms that were 

going off in other parts of the world, and we just sort of had—we 

have 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 am a little bit perplexed by the idea. Does 

Washington staff, safety staff that deals with NHTSA report to you 

as the head of sales? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. No. 

Ms. SUTTON. OK. Who does that safety staff that reports to 

NHTSA report to within your company? 


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Mr. LENTZ. It reports to TMA Washington, D.C., office. 

Ms. SUTTON. OK. 

Mr. LENTZ. So there is—Mr. Inaba, who is testifying tomorrow is 

the chairman of Toyota Motor Sales USA, but he is the president 

of TMA. So that reports in through him, New York and Washington, D.C. 

Ms. SUTTON. So he is the person who is responsible for safety decisions in the USA? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. 

Ms. SUTTON. It’s still in Japan? 

Mr. LENTZ. Still in Japan. 

Ms. SUTTON. Why would Toyota send the head of sales to discuss 

safety issues here today? 

Mr. LENTZ. I was invited to attend. 

Ms. SUTTON. OK. All right. So it was a decision made by the 

committee, is that what you’re—you were invited by who to attend? 

Mr. LENTZ. By this committee. 

Ms. SUTTON. By the committee. OK. 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 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 who put their 

trust and faith and families in those Toyota vehicles. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. Yes. 

Ms. SUTTON. And of course, the workers, the workers who rely 

on Toyota to make a living and take care of their families. I guess 

that’s why I asked you the question about the ‘‘we’’ because we’ve 

also heard a lot of confusing testimony about the electronic throttle 

control system. Six years ago, NHTSA compiled data showing that 

Toyota Camrys with electronic throttle controls had over 400 percent more vehicle speed complaints than those with manual controls. So it’s rather difficult to—do you think that that’s an acceptable sort of number to suggest that there isn’t something to it? I 

mean, it’s 400 percent more. 

Mr. LENTZ. There is no question it’s a big number. But I think, 

again, we have to understand what those complaints are surrounding. I don’t know if all of those are sudden acceleration 

incidences. 

Ms. SUTTON. Right. Well, why don’t we know all of that? 400 percent. We might not know everything but when you say, ‘‘I don’t 

know if all are,’’ that’s a big statement too. We must know more 

than that statement reflects. 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, I can’t tell you—again, if you are speaking off 

of the NHTSA database, unless those are 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 where they can supply us with 

that kind of information so we can see what’s happening. 

Ms. SUTTON. Well, Mr. Lentz, the American people and the 

American market has been very, very good to Toyota. A lot of 

money has been made by the company in decades past. And so 

when we read, ‘‘I’d like to assure the committee and the American 


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people that nothing matters more to Toyota than the safety and reliability of the vehicles our customers drive. We are committed not 

only to fixing vehicles on the road and ensuring 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, 

you know, it begs the question about why people would be concerned of where the facts match up with the testimony. And I yield 

back. 

Mr. LENTZ. I understand. That’s why the process is changing 

where there is going to be a person from the United States that 

sits on the defect committee in Japan to be able to make those decisions, and if they don’t agree with that decision, there is going to 

be a possibility for us to then appeal that decision. And it’s not just 

in the United States but from around the globe, we’ll be on that. 

Ms. SUTTON. OK, Mr. Lentz. But I have to tell you, it comes very 

late. We appreciate that things get fixed and that is the goal that 

things get fixed and no more, you know, loss of life is suffered. But 

again, one has to ask, would it have happened but for some of the 

mistakes coming to light? And I am glad for the change. I hope it’s 

enough. I yield back. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Ms. Sutton. Ms. Schakowsky for questions, please. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Lentz, are you asking us to believe that 

no one at Toyota USA knew about recalls in Canada? I mean, it’s 

just strains credulity to—— 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, specifically on the 2003 Celica, I don’t know 

the specifics on that. 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. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Except that you gave before as a reason that 

these things are not shared. And 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—— 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, I can’t speak specifically to that exact incidence. I don’t know the details of what it was recalled for. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. In 2008, a woman named Guadalupe Alberto 

was killed when her 2005 Camry suddenly accelerated, jumped a 

curb and struck a tree. Her car didn’t even have floor mats at the 

time. So why wasn’t this incident further investigated then? It 

says—I mean, we know as recently as November—or you say in 

November of 2009, Toyota—or at least up until then—was still 

claiming that floor mats were the only problem. 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, I don’t know the specifics of that particular accident. I can look into it for you. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That would be fine. 

Mr. LENTZ. But the floor mat issue came around earlier than 

that. The issue in November was really as we got into this issue 

of the sticky pedal that we learned about. 


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Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Right. But here was a 2008 accident, and she 

didn’t have a floor mat. But anyway, you know, we’re all in the customer service business ourselves. We have constituent service, personnel in our offices. We take it very, very seriously. I heard you 

say that you apologized to customers for the problems with Toyotas. Did you apologize to customers who were treated like they 

were crazy when they made these complaints? Did you apologize to 

the Smiths? 

Mr. LENTZ. I have not spoken to the Smiths, but I am going to. 

Again, it was embarrassing to hear what happened to them. I don’t 

know the specifics of the situation, but it’s—just to hear that, especially on the Lexus side of the business, that’s a very unusual way 

for business to be done. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. It’s a very unusual way. Let me quote to you 

from a letter that was sent to a customer. A 2005 Toyota 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 inspected 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 are making that change, but anyway, in 

order for this accident to have happened as reported, two totally 

separate systems, the brakes and the throttle, would have to fail 

at exactly the same time. This is virtually impossible. And that 

phrase, that sentence, ‘‘This is virtually impossible’’ seems to have 

been repeated over and over to your customers. You are in charge 

of sales. Is this any way to deal with customers, just to tell them— 

absolutely impossible? 

Mr. LENTZ. No, it’s not. And I have talked to our group that I 

am going to be involved in every event of unintended acceleration 

so that I know what happens. So you know, just overall customer 

complaints that come in, I get probably 20 or 25 complaints a week. 

Each and every one of those complaints I have to receive a buck 

slip back to know exactly what the issue was, what the solution 

was and whether the customer is satisfied or not. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. You also review—I review letters that go out 

to my constituents. Do you review—does someone in authority review letters that are sent out so that the credibility of the customer 

is not only questioned but just negated? 

Mr. LENTZ. I personally do not. I will find out. What—is that a 

recent letter? 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Well, I am looking at three answers that use 

the same phrase about ‘‘virtually impossible.’’ So I don’t know the 

date. 

Mr. LENTZ. OK. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I am sure our staff has those and they can 

check the date on the letters. My time is up, but I hope you will 

also make sure that recalls that happen in other places become 

part of the calculation of how you respond. Thank you. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Braley for questions. 

Mr. BRALEY. Mr. Lentz, I want to begin by commending you for 

sharing your personal story of loss with the committee here today. 

That takes great courage. I would encourage you to share the story 


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with the decision makers in Japan who are making the key decisions on product defects, product recalls, product retrofits and failure analysis because I think they need to hear that story from you. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you. 

Mr. BRALEY. I also want to commend you for commending the 

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 2 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 and have never found a malfunction 

that caused unintended acceleration. I am having a hard time 

squaring that with Toyota’s 2002 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. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know that for certain because I can’t tell you 

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. 

Mr. BRALEY. But reprogramming the computer would not be a 

mechanical fix, would it? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. 

Mr. BRALEY. And the other reality of that notice is that these 

2002 to 2006 Camrys which were the subject of that technical service bulletin, you are not addressing the problem of the brake override retrofit with those models, are you? 

Mr. LENTZ. Camry, I would have to look and see what year it 

goes back to, but we are going back in the case of Camry. 

Mr. BRALEY. All right. Now, one of the things you also mentioned 

in your statement was that in December you asked Exponent, a 

world-class engineering scientific and consulting firm, to conduct a 

comprehensive independent analysis of your electronic throttle control system with an unlimited budget. So let’s talk just a little bit 

about that. Your counsel who is with you today is with a very well 

known firm that defends not just Toyota, but other auto manufacturers in product liability and crash-worthiness cases all over the 

country. You agree with that, correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. BRALEY. 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. 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, our legal staff put together the request. I can 

tell you that that report in its entirety is going to be made public. 

Mr. BRALEY. And we look forward to it, sir. 

Mr. LENTZ. So if there are issues in it, it’s going to come out. 


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Mr. BRALEY. Let’s talk about the company you retain, Exponent. 

Because they are a successor corporation to a company called Failure Analysis Associates, which has done extensive work for not just 

Toyota but all of the big auto manufacturers and the motorcycle 

manufacturers on not only failure analysis, but also providing expert witness testimony. You are familiar with that? 

Mr. LENTZ. I’m not sure about the expert witness, but I know 

they have worked for other automotives in things like vehicle stability control and other things that have been developed that have 

been great for the industry. 

Mr. BRALEY. 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 1998. And in that deposition, he testified that Failure Analysis Associate, then known as Accenture, received between $30 million and $40 million a year for the work 

they did for the auto industry. Were you aware of that? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. 

Mr. BRALEY. Isn’t it true that Toyota has paid them over $1 million in the past for the work that they’ve done? 

Mr. LENTZ. Exponent? 

Mr. BRALEY. Yes. 

Mr. LENTZ. I do not know. 

Mr. BRALEY. But would you be willing to provide us with documentation of what Toyota has paid to Accenture not just in relation 

with this study that’s being done or in relationship with Mr. Gilbert’s follow-up analysis, but over the period of time that these recalls that are being considered or have been issued have been performed, can you do that? 

Mr. LENTZ. I am sorry, could you repeat the question? 

Mr. BRALEY. Mr. Chairman, I would make a formal request that 

we get as much information as we can from Toyota International, 

Toyota North America, documenting the financial relationship between their company and Accenture or its predecessor, Failure 

Analysis Associates, not just in relationship with the study that 

was done that has been the subject of this testing? 

Mr. LENTZ. That is fine. We will do that. 

Mr. BRALEY. Now, one of the things you talked about was the 

fact that you were present during some testing that was done at 

Accenture. 

Mr. LENTZ. Exponent. 

Mr. BRALEY. Exponent, yes. Is that something that you were part 

of when there was filming that was done to document the testing? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. No. I just wanted to go see how they test. I have 

never been in a vehicle that has gone into fail-safe mode, so I wanted to understand what it feels like from the consumer’s standpoint, 

what fail-safe feels like as you are driving down the road. 

Mr. BRALEY. 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? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. 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 NHTSA. 


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Mr. BRALEY. Did Toyota make a direct relationship for the performance of those services with Exponent, or was that something 

handled by Bowman and Brooke? 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know. 

Mr. BRALEY. Because when you indicate in your statement that 

you requested them to do a comprehensive, independent analysis 

with an unlimited budget. I am 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. Are you aware of that? 

Mr. LENTZ. I am not aware of it, but I am sure it must exist. 

Mr. BRALEY. Then I would also request that, Mr. Chairman, and 

I would yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. That concludes questions by members of the subcommittee. We will now go to questions by members of the full 

committee. 

Mr. Buyer. 

Mr. BUYER. Yes. As far as I know, Accenture has not been hired 

by you to do any engineering or testing, have they? 

Mr. LENTZ. Exponent. 

Mr. BUYER. Right. Accenture is like an accounting financial firm, 

right? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. Right. 

Mr. BUYER. You are being asked questions from a Democratic 

colleague about Accenture and I just want to make sure for the 

record it is clear. 

With regard to the firm that you hired, Exponent, as far as I am 

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, is that correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. BUYER. So this is not a fly-by-night firm. This is someone 

who is one of the best in the United States when it comes to problem-solving. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. We wanted to find the best. Again, there will be 

another review of the CTCS done by this independent study group. 

They may choose to go with them. They may choose someone else. 

Mr. BUYER. Now with regard to some testimony that you—I 

wrote this down because it was bothersome to me. You 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 ‘‘it is 

not a real world scenario.’’ 

So, can you explain that a little bit further? In other words, he 

did testify that he used manipulation. He told me that he did not 

cut three wires. But when you say that there was a methodology 

that is not a real world scenario, help me understand. 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, I think he said tapped in, which is how he gets 

into the harness. Our understanding is, and again, this happened 

just 12 hours ago, so I don’t want to attack him without knowing 

exactly what his process was, but my understanding is he took the 

plug off the back of the accelerator pedal. There are six wires on 

the back of that; two that go to the sensor, two that go to the 

power, and two that go to the ground. And he tapped into the two 


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that go to the sensor, and basically through some device tied those 

two together and then tied 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 Exponent has tested 

what happens if you lose ground, what happens if the sensors 

break down, but in a very different way. So I would just like to understand his methodology and make sure that it is not the testing 

paradigm that is causing this. 

Mr. BUYER. So when ABC showed this, in order to have these results, your testimony would be that Dr. Gilbert had to induce fault 

by manipulation to create and generate an artificial voltage for the 

result for which he was seeking? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, and go around the sensor. 

Mr. BUYER. So that normally isn’t going to happen as I am driving one of your products down the road, would that be correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. I believe so. Again, I am not an engineer. That is 

what I need to study through Exponent, because they did the same 

study. 

Mr. BUYER. All right. Earlier I made the comment about I think 

the American public, we have seen what happens when NBC Dateline staged a staged crash between two trucks to claim that General Motors’ fuel tank design caused fire on a crash test on television, and we were all pretty upset about it. So now what we have 

is a repeat scenario with regard to ABC, also using a manipulation, 

not using a real world scenario. So that type of thing can be left 

to the credibility of the viewer and the American public. 

Now I am going to shift. The reason I am 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. So Exponent looks at Columbia and tries to gather as much information as they possibly can. 

Data and what is left. 

Mr. LENTZ. Right. 

Mr. BUYER. When there is an airline that crashes, NTSB 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 are looking at, 

what bothers me is why wouldn’t you, when an automobile that has 

been identified as this sudden unintended acceleration, why isn’t 

that product pulled aside and ripped apart so you can understand 

what is exactly going on? Those are the thousand ones that if I 

were in your seat that I would be going after and applying the 

greatest minds of the world to understand. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. In many cases one of the field technical specialists or one of the quality specialists, they do go out. And if there 

is a component failure, they would take that component off and 

send it to the quality side to see what is going on. But in the case 

of the electronic throttle, if they don’t get a code reading out that 

shows the failure and they can’t recreate it, it is very, very difficult 

to be able to do that. 

Now, they may take the throttle body off if it is cracked or if it 

is somehow defective. They will take a pedal off if it is defective. 

If an ECU is defective, they will take that off. But in many cases, 

that is what is so frustrating about unintended acceleration. It is 


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very, very difficult to duplicate, and unless they can duplicate it 

they have no way of knowing exactly what has taken place. 

Mr. BUYER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Gonzalez for questions. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Lentz, in my limited view of things, I always think in terms 

of how is the consumer protected, how is the best interest promoted. I have concluded that, one, it is 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. I am a great believer in the civil justice system. The problem 

is that is always after the fact, way after the fact. 

So I am looking at the manufacturer’s moral behavior and I am 

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, we may need legislation, and 

that is a process that we are engaging in at this time. It is going 

to get hot and heavy and you are 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 to whether it is Toyota, whether it is 

GM or Ford. I don’t care who it is, an individual or a corporation. 

The interviewer then said, are you apologizing for Toyota? So we 

have that issue. 

Now, we have members of Congress who may be a little aggressive in fulfilling their duties. You have letters going out that are 

saying it does sometimes appear, however, that the negative news 

is being encouraged by plaintiffs’ trial lawyers, union activists and 

those interested in cutting into Toyota’s market share. 

That is the environment. It is not healthy. It is 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 am hoping that this process will be fair. 

But in the meantime, if there is a rush to judgment, this is the 

danger, not just to Toyota, but to everybody that will be similarly 

situated sometime in their lives, whether it is an individual, a company or a corporation, is that months from now we may discover 

that it wasn’t electronic, and that all of the action taken was timely 

and diligent. But it really won’t matter. 

We have an old saying, 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 are going to buy. By the time we 

figure out what the truth may be, that decision has been made. 

And I am going to tell you that I believe what is going on today 

will affect that decision. That is why we all have to be so careful 

in how we do this and that we are fair to all parties, whether it 

is 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. 

Mr. LENTZ. What I can tell them, and I am not going to go 

through the detail of—all of my family drive products. I would not 


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have my loved ones driving products, recalled or not, if I didn’t feel 

they were safe. So that is number one. 

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. 

Everybody has defects. Everybody is going to have recalls. But 

how quickly we react to protect that consumer, how much the consumer sees us standing behind their product, that is what is most 

important. 

I can tell you another 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 the true contact with the customer, and they are doing a tremendous job in taking care of these 

situations. I mean, almost 800,000 customers already taken care of 

in about 20 days is an amazing number. And you will hear from 

the dealers that the customers are understanding. Sure, there are 

one or two customers in each dealership that are pretty upset at 

what is going on. But for the most part, our loyal customers, they 

know for the last 50 years that we have stood behind our product, 

we have done the right thing for them. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Let me ask this, because I think you touched on 

it. I have 35 seconds. But quickly, you drive Toyotas, your family 

drives Toyotas, everybody you care about drives Toyotas. Are you 

going to quit driving Toyotas? 

Mr. LENTZ. No, sir. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. You heard that Members of Congress on this 

committee drive Toyotas. I am not going to ask them whether they 

are going to quit driving their Toyotas. My suspicion is that they 

will not. So I think maybe that is the message that comes from his 

hearing today. We are going to be aggressive, we are going to be 

vigilant, diligent, we are going to get to the bottom of this. The 

question is to what degree can we protect the American consumer, 

and I believe that we are going to measure up to that duty and responsibility that we owe them. 

I just again thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you. It starts with us. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. 

Mr. McNerney has joined us, a member of the full committee. 

Questions, please, 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. Thank you. I appreciate you allowing me to address the hearing. Mr. Lentz, thank you for appearing today and 

taking some tough questions. 

Addressing the safety issues we are discussing today is vitally 

important, but I would 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 am referring to the decision recently to shut down operations at NUMMI plant in Fremont, California, which will cost us about 35,000 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 would like to include in the 

record, Mr. Chairman. 


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Mr. STUPAK. Without objection. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McNerney follows:] 


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Mr. MCNERNEY. Mr. Lentz, Toyota is currently experiencing 

major public relations problems and the public concern about safety 

failures is going to hurt your bottom line. California is one of your 

biggest markets and it is obvious that keeping NUMMI open will 

help rebuild your image. Wouldn’t that be beneficial to Toyota? 

Mr. LENTZ. Our image is beneficial, but specifically NUMMI, I 

think we have to be clear that Toyota is not shutting down 

NUMMI. NUMMI is shutting down NUMMI. It is a separate corporation that was 50 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 this in play. 

That is the truth of the matter. 

When they pulled out and they pulled out 30 percent of their volume, that plant was difficult to become commercially viable. It is 

a long way from our supply lines. We supply a—— 

Mr. MCNERNEY. It is not a long way from your customer lines. 

Mr. Lentz, I understand that the Pontiac Vibe was only about 20 

percent of production at NUMMI in 2008, with Toyota vehicles 

making up the rest of that production. Surely Toyota could modify 

its operations to account for a 20 percent drop in production. It 

seems to me that you are putting NUMMI out of business because 

of antipathy toward West Coast workers, not out of necessity. 

Unfortunately, Toyota hasn’t demonstrated that it has made any 

meaningful effort to explore possibilities that would keep NUMMI 

open, and I was asking you, do you expect Californians to believe 

that in the brief time between GM’s announcement and your decision to close, were you able to definitively determine that it was 

impossible to maintain operations at NUMMI? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. It is not financially viable to do. It is a long way 

from our logistics lines. The volume, 20 percent is a pretty big 

number. I mean, California sells about 13 to 14 percent of the Nation’s sales. That is a plant that has capacity for almost 400,000 

vehicles that is building around 300, at the most. 

You have got to remember that when this industry collapsed 

after Lehman, we had a 40 percent collapse from the peak of the 

marketplace in 2000–2001 to where we ended last year. There was 

tremendous overcapacity all across the United States. 

And it is not something you take lightly, closing a plant. You 

look at the workers behind me. When that market collapsed, and 

we had 100,000 unassigned vehicles sitting at our ports that we 

didn’t have dealers to be able to accept because the inventories 

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 take closing a plant or NUMMI doesn’t take closing 

a plant lightly. We believe in our workers. They have done a tremendous job in getting us through all this. 

So, NUMMI is—unfortunately, we are going to stop ordering 

product at the end of March. And we will do what we can to try 

to help the workers through transition, and hopefully, I don’t know 

if another assembly can go in there or they can redevelop the property and create jobs through the redevelopment and whatever goes 

in there. 


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Mr. MCNERNEY. I am thinking of your benefit as well as ours. 

I will leave you with this parting thought. You are having a public 

relations nightmare right now, and it may benefit you a slight 

amount to close a plant like that, but you are going to face a public 

backlash on the West Coast. Now, on the other hand, if you work 

with us to keep that open, it is going to be a real plus for your public relations issues. I just ask you to keep that in mind as you move 

forward. 

Mr. LENTZ. Just understand as well, we are going to do whatever 

we can to help through that transition. We are not legally obligated, but we are going to throw money into it to help through this. 

I just wish that our partner of 25 years would step up and do the 

same. 

Mr. MCNERNEY. That is all. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. McNerney. 

Let me just ask you a few questions to clarify the record a little 

bit, if I can. There has been a lot of testimony here and a lot of 

questions. Just make sure I am correct here. 

The only independent analysis that you have had, when you 

spoke on the Today Show you said you have an independent analysis on your problems with the sudden acceleration, has been Exponent, correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, to my knowledge. 

Mr. STUPAK. And you were referring to that report of Exponent? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. Now, NTSA has also done studies in the past, 

but I don’t know how robust they are. So I don’t want to—— 

Mr. STUPAK. But you don’t have any knowledge of any independent studies they did? 

Mr. LENTZ. No, not to my knowledge. 

Mr. STUPAK. All right. And there has been no independent electronic throttle control system studies. 

Mr. LENTZ. Not at Toyota. There may be industrywide. I don’t 

know. 

Mr. STUPAK. But after this situation. 

Mr. LENTZ. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. STUPAK. With Dr. Gilbert here, he has come up with this, 

and apparently your—Exponent’s engineer has been able to duplicate it. Is it fair to say then when they duplicated it, they got the 

same result as Dr. Gilbert that the fail-safe system did not receive 

the signal to enact. So, in other words, the fail-safe system, whether it is an override—however it happened, the diagnostic codes did 

not kick in to put in the fail-safe system to get that braking going. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. I believe what he has done is designed a way 

to go around the override system. So whether it can happen or 

not—— 

Mr. STUPAK. Sure. We don’t know the source of it, but it is a 

bookend, as they said, to start the research. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. And that could be a value to Toyota in trying to restore service? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 

Mr. STUPAK. You mentioned the SWAT team you are going to 

have at the end of March. 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes. 


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Mr. STUPAK. Within 24 hours they will have information and be 

on site. Let me ask you this. Mr. Dingell asked and a couple of 

questions have been about this event data recorder. The event data 

recorder, as you said, tells you what happens 5 seconds before an 

accident and 1 second after. 

Specific requests have been made on the Auburn, New York, 

crash, which was a 2010 Camry. That ERB has been seized. Do you 

know where it is? Why isn’t the information made available to 

NHTSA or anyone else? No one seems to know the result. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know. If I can get information on that 

crash—— 

Mr. STUPAK. How about the South Lake, Texas, one. That was 

that 2008 Toyota Avalon Mr. Rush brought up. It happened on December 26th. The same thing. It says conducted a site visit on 1/ 

12 where they pulled the black box out, if you will. Where are your 

results on that? 

Mr. LENTZ. And they pulled the pedal off. I don’t know. Because 

I know NHTSA was also down there with our engineers, but I don’t 

know specifically what the result was. 

Mr. STUPAK. Or how about Mr. Jeff Papinski. He was from Minnesota. He had a 2007 Lexus ES350 and had problems with it and 

requested repeatedly from Toyota to give him the information off 

the black box, and he has always been denied. 

If we are going to have this SWAT team and we are going to be 

more transparent and bring forward this information, why not on 

these fatal crashes, especially the ones I mentioned, why not disclose what happened on that black box? 

Mr. LENTZ. I think right now the issue is there is one tool in the 

entire United States, and I believe it is still in the prototype stages. 

So the final production tools we won’t start seeing here until April. 

Mr. STUPAK. But standards for the black box were developed in 

2006 by NHTSA that everybody has to have starting in 2012 and 

2013, correct? 

Mr. LENTZ. Yes, it is in 2012. 

Mr. STUPAK. So if we have standards in 2006, you are still trying 

to develop a prototype? 

Mr. LENTZ. That is my understanding. 

Mr. STUPAK. So information off this black box then, if I wanted 

to get the information, if there is no mechanism in the United 

States, it has to go to Japan to get the information? 

Mr. LENTZ. Correct. Correct. It is a unique mechanism for our 

black box. 

Mr. STUPAK. And this defect committee, the U.S. may have a representative on it but the decisions are still going to be made in 

Japan? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, the process of making a defect decision 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 seated on that from other parts of the 

regions around the world. The United States for certain. I don’t 

know, I am assuming Europe will probably be there as well. So 

they will be part of—they will be tied in to all the information 


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available, into the decision process, and we will have the ability to 

appeal that if we don’t believe in it. 

Mr. STUPAK. You will have input, but the decision will still be 

made in Japan? 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, the input will be made, but we will have the 

ability to appeal that decision that we do not have today. 

Mr. STUPAK. Let me ask on the black box there, where is that 

data stored? 

Mr. LENTZ. Pardon? 

Mr. STUPAK. Where is that data stored? If I get a black box out 

of the South Lake, Texas, accident, where would that data be 

stored? Would that have to go to Japan to get downloaded? 

Mr. LENTZ. No. I mean, if we have the scan tool, once these tools 

are available—— 

Mr. STUPAK. Right now, because you don’t have the scan tools. 

Mr. LENTZ. I don’t know if Japan has tools or not. If we are in 

prototype stage, I am assuming that it is a global prototype stage. 

I don’t know that for certain. But I do know in April we are slated 

to receive about 100 of these. 

Mr. STUPAK. All right. That will be in April. OK. If you receive 

personally, you say you receive 20 to 25 complaints a week. Are 

any of them on unintended accelerations? 

Mr. LENTZ. I have got to tell you, in the last 3 years, I have seen 

them on surges, but I don’t recall any one that was on an unintended incidence. 

Mr. STUPAK. Could you provide us an example of some of those 

surges that you personally handled? 

Mr. LENTZ. Sure. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Burgess, did you have any questions? 

Mr. BURGESS. I think it has already been addressed, but I just 

would like for you, Mr. Lentz, or Toyota to provide the committee 

your analysis or Exponent’s analysis of when they do the testing, 

the retesting on the Gilbert thing. 

I would just echo about the black box. South Lake is right outside of my district. It was a very tragic accident right after Christmas where a car went through an intersection and ended upside 

down in a pond and all the occupants died. There is some question 

as to whether or not there might have been 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 

very instructive for your group and, of course, instructive for us as 

well. 

So, as this information on these look-backs, if you go out and get 

the car from Tennessee and your engineers come up with a decision 

on this, I actually think it would be very useful that this committee 

would have that information as early as possible after you get that. 

Mr. LENTZ. Surely. 

Mr. BURGESS. Heaven help us if there is another uncommanded 

acceleration. But get that car. The first thing that has to happen 

is somebody has to look at that car and figure out what is going 

on. 

Mr. LENTZ. I appreciate it. 


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Mr. STUPAK. We are about to wrap up. I see Mr. Engel is here. 

Did you have a question, Mr. Engel, of this witness? You are a 

member of the full committee. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think a lot of the questions have already been asked. But when I was asked by the media 

yesterday what question was I going to ask, I said that I would ask 

what did you know and when did you know it and what do you still 

know that we don’t know. 

I have listened to the hearing, and, Mr. Lentz, all I can say is 

that I hope you can appreciate 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 

am still not sure that the question has been reasonably answered 

in terms of, you know, you talk about these six vehicles that you 

tested. But why would not your first inclination be to test the vehicles that accelerated? 

When I heard Mrs. Smith earlier on, on the first panel, and she 

talked about how it just went 100 miles an hour and she couldn’t 

do anything to stop it, wouldn’t it have just been logical to take 

that car and others like that and just rip it apart? I know Mr. Barton asked you it earlier, but I am not sure I am satisfied with your 

answer. 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, I don’t know the specifics, but it sounded as 

if she said that there was a technical person that was down there 

and did look at the car. So I can’t tell you—if they didn’t see anything, that is probably why they didn’t tear it apart. If they would 

have seen a component failure, I am sure that component failure 

would have come off that car and we would have received it. Again, 

it may have happened. I don’t know. I don’t know the specifics on 

her accident. 

Mr. ENGEL. But it wasn’t only her car. There were others that 

gave similar stories, and for how long was Toyota saying it is mats, 

floor mats, or rugs or sticky pedals, when it just would seem clear 

by her story, I am sure there are others like her, that it wasn’t that 

at all. 

Mr. LENTZ. It may not be. There are so many different causes. 

They are very broad, they are very rare, and in some cases they 

are just very, very difficult to duplicate. That is the frustrating 

part about researching what happens on some of these instances, 

especially if there is something that is 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 it to the dealership all 

the moisture had dried from the pedal and the pedal wouldn’t stick, 

and you have got a consumer saying I am telling you, I know this 

thing has been sticking but by the time they get to the store it 

can’t be replicated. And that took a while to understand exactly 

what was going on. 

Mr. ENGEL. But in every case? Would that happen in every case? 

Surely once there were many different instances, there seemed to 

be a pattern, that you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to say, 

hey, wait a minute, maybe something is wrong. There is not only 

the acceleration, but we have heard about the steering and brakes 

and other things. 


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It just seems that if you look at everything, it certainly seems to 

me that there was an attempt to keep it under the rug and keep 

it under the table and let’s not tell anybody anything and maybe 

it will go away. And, of course, with all the testimony, NHTSA is 

to blame as well. But I just don’t think that Toyota handled it 

properly. 

So let me just—go ahead. 

Mr. LENTZ. Well, in the case of brakes, if you are talking about 

the Prius brake, we jumped on that very quickly and have taken 

care of that. And in the case of Corolla steering, it is being investigated right now. 

So, yes, we have complaints on it. NHTSA has complaints. And 

we are digging into that right now to find out what is the issue and 

let’s make sure the customers are happy with their products and 

safe with their products. 

Mr. ENGEL. So let me ask you this last question. When I was 

asked yesterday what would I ask you, 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 is 

going to come out in the days and weeks? I know Mr. Toyoda is 

testifying in another committee tomorrow. What bombshells are 

going to come out that we don’t yet know? 

Mr. LENTZ. God, I hope there aren’t any more. I have had enough 

bombshells for one year. Let’s get back to the good old days of 

2009, and I didn’t think I would ever say that. 

Right now, we have to fix the process so these things don’t happen again. I don’t know what is behind the curtain. No one knows 

in the auto industry as manufacturers what defects you could have 

down the road, what challenges you have. So it is important that 

we have built-in quality and built-in safety so we don’t have these 

issues. And that is why our processes are changing, to make sure 

that we get back to where we once were. 

This was a company for 50 years in the U.S. that whenever you 

said Toyota or you said Camry, it was quality, dependability, reliability and safety. And we have stubbed our toe and we have to get 

back to where that once was, and we are going to do that. 

Mr. ENGEL. Well, I would hope so. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding the hearing. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Gingrey. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Lentz, 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? I guess the answers would 

be yes and no. But seriously, I did want to ask you, do you think 

of this as a software or hardware problem? 

Mr. LENTZ. In the case of the ETC? 

Mr. GINGREY. Yes. 

Mr. LENTZ. Again, based on our analysis of what we have seen, 

based on going to accident sites and checking these cars out, I don’t 

think it is either right now. But Exponent has not tested the software yet, so that is yet to come. So if there is a software issue, if 

there is an issue about how independently these two processes are 

working, because that is the key to make sure that this thing 

works, we will know that. 


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Mr. GINGREY. But it could be either and you are going to get to 

the bottom of that? 

Mr. LENTZ. We have to get to the bottom of it. And it may be 

that the bottom of it is they find nothing and we have another 

independent group that goes in and researches again. 

Mr. GINGREY. Mr. Lentz, thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, that is all I have got, and I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. That concludes all questions of this panel. Mr. 

Lentz, thank you. We invite you to stay for the next panel. We 

have Secretary LaHood. We have five votes coming up. I am going 

to try to get the Secretary’s testimony in and we can then go vote 

and have a little recess. Thank you. 

Mr. LENTZ. Thank you very much. 

Mr. STUPAK. I am going to ask the media to move out of the way, 

please. Secretary LaHood is here. We would like to hear his testimony and get it done before we have to go vote. 

Mr. Lentz, I see you are moving out. If you would keep on, we 

are trying to get the Secretary in. I know you are getting crushed 

there, but we are trying to move things along. 

I would like to call our third witness for today, the Honorable 

Raymond H. LaHood, Secretary of the United States Department 

of Transportation. 

Mr. LaHood, welcome. Thanks for being here. 

It is the policy of this subcommittee to take all testimony under 

oath. Please be advised you have a right under the rules of the 

House to be advised by counsel during your testimony. Do you wish 

to be represented by counsel? 

Secretary LAHOOD. No. I am ready to be sworn. 

[Witness sworn.] 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We look forward to your 

opening statement, and then after that we are probably going to 

have to run and do some votes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. RAYMOND H. LAHOOD, SECRETARY 

OF TRANSPORTATION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be appear before you today to discuss the important issue 

of Toyota’s recent safety recalls. 

Ever since I was sworn in as the Secretary of Transportation 13 

months ago, I have said that safety is the Department’s number 

one priority. I would 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 3407 crashed in Buffalo, we learned 

right away what many of the problems were, and we did not wait 

a year for the NTSB to conclude its investigation before we acted. 

We began working with the aviation industry immediately to enhance airline safety and pilot training, holding 12 safety summits 

around the country. This spring the FAA will issue a new rule to 


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combat pilot fatigue, and it has already been begun to overhaul 

pilot certification qualifications. 

One of the hallmarks of my time as Transportation Secretary has 

been our work on distracted driving. For all of you with cell phones 

and BlackBerries and other electronic devices, I am on a rampage 

about people talking and texting while driving a bus, a car, a plane 

or a train. It is a menace to society and we recently exercised our 

authority 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 am in this post, safety. 

Now, for Toyota. The Toyota recall situation is very serious and 

we are treating it seriously. The three recalls involving Toyota are 

among the largest in automobile history, affecting more than 6 million people in this country. 

I would 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, accelerator pedal 

entrapment by floor mats, which can lead to uncontrolled acceleration at very high speeds. It is important to take your floor mats out 

of the driver’s side of your vehicle until your car has been repaired 

for this problem by a Toyota dealer. 

Second, accelerator pedals sticking or returning slowly after 

being depressed. If the pedal is harder to depress or slower to return after releasing it, this could be the precursor to what is known 

as a sticky pedal. If your pedal 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 2010 and the Lexus 

HS250, 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 the most effective defect investigation 

programs in the world. Known as NHTSA, its job is to investigate 

complaints and to look for defects. It receives more than 30,000 

complaints from consumers every year and reviews every one of 

them quickly and carefully. 

Over just the past 3 years, NHTSA’s defect and compliance investigations have resulted in 524 recalls involving 23.5 million 

cars. Of the 100 investigations NHTSA opens in an average year, 

there are currently 44 open defect investigations, five in which involve Toyota. 

Every step of the way, NHTSA officials have pushed Toyota to 

take corrective action so that consumers could be safe. Unhappy 

with Toyota responsiveness to our safety concerns, the Acting Administrator of NHTSA, Ron Medford, and two associates flew to 

Japan in December of 2009 to clarify for Toyota management what 

the company’s legal obligations are to find and remedy safety defects in vehicles sold here. 

In January, our new Administrator of NHTSA, David Strickland, 

and Ron Medford, now our Deputy Administrator, told the President of Toyota North America in no uncertain terms that we expect 


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prompt action following the disclosure of the sticky pedal. Toyota 

publicly announced that recall 2 days later. 

I have also talked personally to the President of Toyota. With potential fatal defects on the road, NHTSA has pressed hard to expedite these safety fixes. If NHTSA had opened a formal investigation 

and Toyota had resisted a recall, this would have consumed an 

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 

fixing for a year or more. 

Last week I announced that we are investigating whether Toyota 

acted quickly enough in reporting these safety defects to NHTSA 

as well as whether they took all appropriate action to protect consumers. We have asked Toyota to turn over a wide range of documents which will show us when and how they learned about these 

safety problems. NHTSA will continue to make sure Toyota is 

doing all it has promised to make its vehicles 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, NHTSA is doing 

a thorough review of that subject to ensure safety. If NHTSA finds 

a problem, we will make sure it is resolved. 

Recently I spoke by phone with Mr. Toyoda. He assured me that 

Toyota takes U.S. 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 is a reason we push auto makers to 

do the right thing. I listened to the 911 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 and the Lexus they 

were driving crashed at more than 120 miles an hour. That is a 

horrible tragedy and one I hope that no other family has to endure. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I know that you all have to go vote, and I 

am 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 23rd, 2009. I will take a back seat to nobody on safety. 

I have done a lot. We have done a lot. So I will try and answer 

every question as specifically 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 will be happy to get all the information possible for the 

record. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. LaHood follows:] 


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Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. You are right, we do 

have votes. We have five votes. We are going to be in recess until 

5:30. I would appreciate it if you would stay. We would look forward to your answering questions then. If you want to walk to the 

floor with us, you are more than welcome to do so. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. STUPAK. The committee will be back in order. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you again for your patience. Thanks for 

being here. You can tell by all the interest in the committee members who are not even members of the subcommittee that have 

stayed throughout this hearing to ask questions. A lot of interest 

here on this Toyota matter and what has happened and Toyota’s 

role. I know you have only been there for about a year. 

One of the things that struck me—and let me just ask and say 

this politely—but it seems like all decisions on Toyota, especially 

dealing with safety issues, the decisions are made in Japan. You 

mentioned in your testimony you sent Mr. Strickland and others to 

Japan to talk to Toyota representatives, or I should say the head 

of Toyota, which just further emphasizes the point everything is 

made in Japan. 

The problem is here in America. Why couldn’t we have dealt here 

with it in the United States? Or is everything compartmentalized 

that strict with this organization or company that the decisions 

have to be made in Japan? 

I find that a little odd, that is all. Do you care to respond to that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I plan to meet with Mr. Toyoda, who will be 

in the United States this week. He has agreed to meet with me. 

One of the things I am going to express to him is 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 good, experienced, qualified professional 

people in North America make recommendations, they need to listen to them. 

Mr. STUPAK. Did your investigation show—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Our people met with the North American 

people, but we decided to go directly to Japan. 

Mr. STUPAK. Why? Because they could not make a decision here 

in the United States? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Because we felt that maybe the people in 

Japan were a little bit safety deaf. We wanted to give them an opportunity to hear directly from us that this—— 

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 and America. I want you to know that DOT is taking it seriously. 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. 

Mr. STUPAK. I called you after those articles appeared, and we 

never had a chance to talk. But you have been proactive in trying 

to get in front of this. 

One of the concerns that I have and has come out is that 70 percent of this sudden unintended acceleration, we still don’t have an 

answer for. In fact, I think, according to all the documents from 

NHTSA and also from Toyota, their database, that only 16 percent 

of these sudden accelerations are really addressed with the floor 


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mat and the sticky accelerator, if you will. The electronics seems 

to have to have some part of it on this remaining 70 percent. 

Secretary LAHOOD. As I 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 have had to look at. We will look at what the Toyota 

folks have done with the people that they have hired. We are going 

to get into this. We are going to get into the weeds on the electronics. We feel an obligation to do that, because we get 30,000 

complaints a year, and we take every one seriously. We don’t just 

set them off to the side. We look at every one. And when we see 

a few start to stack up, then we really get into it. We are going 

to get into the weeds on the electronics. I commit to you we are 

going to do that. 

Mr. STUPAK. How about this event data recorder that records information 5 seconds before an accident, 1 after? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have a review of that going on right now. 

Mr. STUPAK. But it says your NHTSA investigators have been at 

some of these accidents sites like the Southlake, Texas, one on January 12, 2010. They were there. The one that happened up in Auburn, New York, that one was also NHTSA folks were there. In 

fact, it says investigators from NHTSA took the black box on November 27. What did your investigators do with the black box if 

you don’t have any way to read it? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Our challenge is to investigate these, to look 

into them, and to render some judgment about it. 

Mr. STUPAK. Would your investigators have taken the black box? 

Secretary LAHOOD. You know, Mr. Chairman, I don’t know the 

specifics on that incident, but I will check it out. 

Mr. STUPAK. I got that from your outline that NHTSA provided 

us, all the actions you took. 

Secretary LAHOOD. OK. 

Mr. STUPAK. Do you have any knowledge of them taking that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I don’t. 

Mr. STUPAK. Dr. Gilbert, who testified earlier today, indicated 

that he was able to bypass the system and the diagnostic code 

would not come up. It was a bookend, as we call it, one of the 

things that could happen on the sudden acceleration. He said he 

notified NHTSA of the test results, what he found, and tried to contact NHTSA. All he got back was a form, an e-mail form saying 

thank you for contacting us. Can you assure us that NHTSA is 

going to follow up with Dr. Gilbert? 

Secretary LAHOOD. You have my 100 percent commitment that 

we will get in the weeds on that. We will talk to anybody that 

wants to talk to us. We will look at studies that have been conducted already, whether it is SIU or studies that have been done 

through the Toyota program. We will figure this out. I know that 

all of you think this is a serious issue and so we think it is a serious issue. 

Mr. STUPAK. Well, we know how serious you think it is because 

you had them stop building cars here in the United States, certain 

models. Are they still building those cars? Are they still on a 

pause? What is the status on Toyota? 

Secretary LAHOOD. On what, again? 


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Mr. STUPAK. On building some of the cars, some of their models 

in the United States. They stopped after your intervention. Have 

they started reproducing those cars again? 

Secretary LAHOOD. That I don’t know. I will have to get back to 

you on that. 

Mr. STUPAK. Does NHTSA need the responsibility—I should say, 

does NHTSA need to accept some of the responsibility? We heard 

from the Smiths today about how they felt that NHTSA just came 

out and tried to convince them that it was the floor mats. Is there 

some responsibility NHTSA shares in this whole situation? 

Secretary LAHOOD. 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 LaHood since January 23, 2009. We 

had 12 safety summits 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 3 hours. 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 overflew Minneapolis by 150 miles. 

We are 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. We open investigations when we think it needs 

to be done. 

Mr. STUPAK. No one doubts your aggressive enforcement action. 

The problem we have up here, if we have all these complaints on 

sudden surges in this vehicle, Toyota vehicles, and we have got 70 

percent unresolved, how do we resolve that 70 percent that is still 

unaccounted for, unexplained, and we have millions of these vehicles on the road? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, 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 NHTSA, initiated by us. 

Mr. STUPAK. Which can’t continue the investigation as NHTSA 

has, when in 2004 when you did your report, your ODI, as they call 

it, March 23, 2004, you closed it on July 22, 2004. During that period of time there were five fatal accidents involving surges, and 

basically the NHTSA investigators said it doesn’t count because we 

are only looking for momentary surge. Those surges or that accelerator stayed on too long. So we just disregarded it. It almost 

looked at it with blinders on. When we do this investigation, get 

that 70 percent, we can’t do that. 

For the love of me, I was an investigator. You do an investigation, you get five fatal accidents come in and you can’t explain, and 

people think the car went really fast and there might have been 

a surge in acceleration, and you don’t take into consideration your 

report, that is just poor work. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, that won’t happen on my watch. 

Mr. STUPAK. Very good. 

Mr. Burgess. 

Mr. BURGESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary, welcome to our committee. My staffer is going to bring 

you something to look at. 


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While she’s doing that, I have been trying to get an unredacted 

report of the NHTSA report on the Mark Saylor accident. I realize 

that the appropriate person to ask is the head of NHTSA, but we 

don’t get to ask the head of NHTSA in this committee. I have got 

you. So I’m going to ask you. Can my office have made available 

to it an unredacted NHTSA accident report on the Mark Saylor accident? 

Secretary LAHOOD. If it’s legally possible for us to do it, absolutely. 

Mr. BURGESS. You can see my problem when I try to read the 

report. Paragraph five is blacked out. Now perhaps that is something that is not pertinent to me in general circulation or open 

source. I’m willing to come down to your place and review it 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 see an unredacted report. 

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. 

Secretary LAHOOD. 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’t say, and we will try and do that very quickly 

here. 

Mr. BURGESS. As you know, once the information is denied to 

you, the fantasy can become more extreme than the reality. It 

would be helpful to me to know what has been redacted from that. 

On the issue of—and I appreciate that you have only been there 

for 1 year. I appreciate your comments about safety being a top priority. 

She brought to you a graph showing uncommanded accelerations 

in the Camry vehicle. I believe this is a NHTSA-produced document. Clearly, without getting into great detail, this was a change 

about 2001 or 2002 where the number of incidents were very low 

and then suddenly it goes high and stays high. My understanding 

from Mr. Lentz’s testimony is that coincided with the time that the 

electronic throttle control became marketed upon those automobiles. 

I would just ask the question, should there have not been some 

curiosity at some point as to why this is happening now at a level 

previously unprecedented? What has changed in the manufacturing? The electronic throttle control is one thing. Were there 

other things that changed in the manufacturing? If safety is going 

to be job one, it can’t take us that long to investigate these things, 

and it certainly can’t take a very dramatic and tragic accident to 

spark the investigation. 

So the only point I would make from that, again, a NHTSA-produced document. I realize that personnel does change from time to 

time. But we have to keep that—obviously, that has to be foremost 

in our minds. 

Now from the NHTSA documents that we have, it looks like they 

have received 113 vehicle owner questionnaires alleging sudden 

and unintended acceleration related to the throttle. The Office of 


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Defect Investigations believes that only 14 of those questionnaires 

were relevant to the throttle control. So how does that office narrow that number down? How are cases included or excluded where 

only about 10 percent of the cases that were brought to NHTSA attention were actually thought to be an uncommanded acceleration? 

Secretary LAHOOD. By looking at the documents, by interviewing 

people, by talking to people, and then by making a judgment about 

whether it’s something that has validity or standing. 

Mr. BURGESS. 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 ten that were deemed not to be—not to represent true 

uncommanded accelerations? Perhaps they deserve a closer look or 

closer scrutiny. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I take your point on that. I go back to 

what I said to Chairman Stupak, that we are going to really get 

in the weeds on the electronics. I assume that we will take a look 

back at some of those. 

Mr. BURGESS. I guess just very recently, within the last day or 

two, your Inspector General from the Department of Transportation announced an audit initiated on NHTSA’s Office of Defect 

Investigations. The audit is going to build on earlier works concerning implementation of the TREAD Act. The specific understanding is going to focus on recent actions taken by the agency regarding Toyota recalls. Obviously, this is something you felt was 

necessary to do. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, the Inspector General does his own 

thing. He’s an independent operator. He doesn’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. 

Mr. BURGESS. Has he let you know the scope of the investigation, 

what it will include? 

Secretary LAHOOD. He has. 

Mr. BURGESS. Can you share that with us? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think he posted it on his Web site, which 

would be our Web site. I think it’s up. 

Mr. BURGESS. When that report becomes available—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. He will make it available. As soon as it’s 

complete, he puts it up on his Web site. 

Mr. BURGESS. Now everything that we have heard today on the 

issue surrounding the Toyota uncommanded acceleration gives people the impression there’s a lot of problems with this product. If 

you actually list things down, the number of problems per vehicle 

mile—or percent of market share I guess is a more appropriate 

measurement—Toyota is not really high on that list, are they? 

Secretary LAHOOD. In terms of? 

Mr. BURGESS. The number of incidents or percentage of market 

share. I mean, a NHTSA document that is available actually ranks 

Toyota number 17. There are 16 other automobiles that have more 

problems per percent of market share. 

Secretary LAHOOD. If you look at the 30,000 complaints we receive and you look at the investigations we do and then you look 


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at the recalls, the vast majority of them are not with Toyota. They 

are with other brands of automobiles. 

Mr. BURGESS. But we are talking today about an increased level 

of scrutiny 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 higher on the list for these types of 

incidents? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Mr. BURGESS. Have you already initiated that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We are just—as I said, we are just starting 

our review and our look back. 

Mr. BURGESS. Well, Mr. Chairman, when that data becomes 

available, again, we’d appreciate you sharing it. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. We will. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Burgess. 

Chairman Waxman, please, for questions. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much. 

Secretary LaHood, our review shows that you had 2,600 complaints concerning this sudden unintended acceleration but that 

NHTSA only looked at the electronic systems one time, and that 

was in 2004. Is that correct? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you think that the 2004 investigation was sufficient? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think that under our watch we are going 

to get into the weeds and we are going to have a complete review 

on the electronics. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Looking back from here, there was only one review, and that was in 2004. Would you say that was sufficient? I 

know you are planning—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. No, no. The answer is no. 

Mr. WAXMAN. We have looked at the record, and the 2004 investigation was not comprehensive or in depth. It was headed by an 

individual who in an e-mail to Toyota officials said that he was not 

very knowledgeable about electronic throttle systems. It excluded 

the vast majority of complaints involving sudden unintended acceleration, including the most dangerous type, high-speed events in 

which the brakes are unable to stop the vehicle. 

It appears that NHTSA never independently evaluated Toyota’s 

claim about the adequacy of its systems, and there’s no evidence 

that NHTSA did its own testing of electronic throttle control systems. Your staff told us that you had no electrical engineer on staff 

to help you assess the problem, and they never hired an outside 

electrical engineer. 

Now 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. Am I stating that incorrectly? Do you feel the agency has done what it 

should have done prior to your being there? 

Secretary LAHOOD. What I have tried to do is be forward looking, 

Mr. Chairman. I have spent the last year talking about safety. I 

have traveled the country. I have been to 35 States and 80 cities. 

Everywhere I go I talk about safety, whether its car safety, airVerDate Mar 15 2010 08:42 Nov 09, 2012 Jkt 076008 PO 00000 Frm 00158 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008

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plane, train safety. The train crash in California was caused by a 

distracted train driver, and that is why we decided to take on that 

cause. We will continue to do that. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Secretary, I applaud you for your efforts in 

what you have told us about how high a priority safety is, and I’m 

pleased that you’re going to take that position and try to steer the 

department, 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. Some of 

that you can do administratively and some may require legislation. 

We 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, and it’s not the one that you and I want from that 

agency. Let’s both look forward and make the changes to assure 

the American people that that situation is going to be different in 

the future. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would say this. I don’t 

know of another Member of Congress while I was serving or since 

I have left that has been more concerned about these issues than 

you have. We really appreciate your support on this. We may be 

coming to you and asking for some legislative remedies, and I know 

you will be there for us. That may be happening sooner rather than 

later. And if you have legislative remedies, we want to work with 

you on this. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Rush is the Chair of the subcommittee with 

the legislative jurisdiction. We are going to work with him and 

with you to do what we need to do in terms of the law to give you 

the powers and give that agency the powers to do what needs to 

be done. I know you’re determined to accomplish that goal. So I 

look forward to working with you on that. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you, Mr. Waxman. 

Mr. Dingell for questions, please. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

I’d like to welcome my old friend Mr. LaHood back. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Secretary, yes or no, to your knowledge has 

Toyota complied with the statutory and regulatory obligations, 

whether mandated under the TREAD Act or otherwise, in conducting its 2009 and 2010 recalls related to sudden unintended acceleration? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I’d rather get back to you on the record, if I 

could, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. If you will submit a proper response at 

a time later. 

Mr. Secretary, if Toyota has not complied with the statutory regulatory obligations related to these recalls, will you please submit 

for the record a description of how and what punitive action the 

Department of Transportation has taken as a result of this noncompliance. 


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Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now, Mr. Secretary, since 2001, how many reports 

of sudden unintended acceleration has the Department of Transportation received from Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc.? Would you 

please submit a list and a description of each and every one of 

these reports for the record? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Do you know whether you have received all of 

these or not? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I will submit that for the record. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. Mr. Secretary, again, yes or no, are the 

Secretary of Transportation and NHTSA administrator empowered 

under statute to visit foreign automakers in their home country? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Secretary, yes or no, have the Secretary of 

Transportation and NHTSA administrators done so in the past? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Secretary, would you describe such visits to 

the headquarters of foreign automakers as routine or commonplace? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Commonplace. 

Mr. DINGELL. Commonplace? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I mean, we try and make visits. Our NHTSA 

folks try and do it on a regular basis, yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Is are there anything extraordinary here about you 

having the administrator or the acting administrator go over there 

while this investigation is going on? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. That was a special trip. That was not 

a routine trip. That was a special trip. 

Mr. DINGELL. Special trip. Why was this a special trip that you 

and the administrator made? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We wanted to get their attention and tell 

them we are taking these safety issues seriously and they need to 

take them seriously. And immediately upon return of our NHTSA 

acting administrator, they really stepped up and I think took our 

word on this. 

Mr. DINGELL. Why did you have to do this, Mr. Secretary? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I think they were a little safety deaf. 

Mr. DINGELL. Were they complying? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think that they were a little safety deaf. 

Mr. DINGELL. Pardon? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think they were 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. 

Mr. DINGELL. So you’re telling me that you felt it necessary to 

do this because of the safety of the American driving public, is that 

right? 

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct. 

Mr. DINGELL. Have you had to do that before? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Not with Toyota. 

Mr. DINGELL. With anybody else? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Not that I know of. 

Mr. DINGELL. So this is essentially unique. 


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Secretary LAHOOD. I will make sure I get that accurate for the 

record, but I’m not aware of it. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Now, Mr. Secretary, are the reporting requirements for early warning of possible vehicle safety defects different 

in Japan than in the United States? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I will get back to you on the record for that. 

Mr. DINGELL. On the record. Very well. 

Mr. Secretary, are the Japanese requirements in this regard 

more or less stringent than American requirements? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I will let you know. 

Mr. DINGELL. All right. I assume that will be for the record. 

Secretary LAHOOD. On the record, yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Secretary, if the Japanese requirements are 

less stringent, is it your experience that this affects the manner in 

which Toyota evaluates potential defects in its vehicles and influences what information a company provides to U.S. regulators? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I will put that on the record, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Very well. 

Now, Mr. Secretary, you—I don’t know whether you heard the 

testimony of Mr. Lentz. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I did. 

Mr. DINGELL. I found myself concerned. He said the decisions on 

these questions had to be made in Tokyo, and he couldn’t do these 

decisions. Was that the reason you had to go to Tokyo to talk to 

the Japanese or, rather, talk to Toyota about the safety questions? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DINGELL. Because that was where the decisions were made. 

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct. 

Mr. DINGELL. Now is this a problem to you that you don’t deal 

with Toyota the way you have to deal with other automobile makers? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I told Chairman Stupak earlier that I think 

their business model for making decisions needs some adjustment. 

Mr. DINGELL. Well, but the adjustment has to be because of your 

problems in dealing with them. Instead of getting the decision 

made here in the United States, you have got to trot over there to 

Tokyo to have the decision made. That doesn’t seem to me that 

we’re enforcing—we’re able to enforce the laws speedily and efficiently as is necessary for the safety of the American driving public. Is that right? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I also told the chairman that I’m going to be 

meeting with Mr. Toyoda when he is here in America and I hope 

to talk with him about some of these issues. 

Mr. DINGELL. OK. Now the Governors of four States sent a letter 

that I find most distressing. Because if this government is going to 

use ownership in automobiles to confer benefits or disadvantage on 

anybody, I want to know about it. Is there any truth in the assumptions that these Governors are making that in some way or 

another the politics or ownership of General Motors or Chrysler is 

in any way related to the actions that are now being taken by your 

Department against Toyota? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I have 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 


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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 60 percent of GM is baloney, and I told 

three of the four Governors that. 

Mr. DINGELL. You might tell the fourth. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I will. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Secretary, you are familiar with event data recorders? I believe these are useful to NHTSA, are they not? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Mr. DINGELL. Have you looked at all the EDRs in the Toyota vehicles that have been recalled? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have not, but we, again, are going to 

relook at them. 

Mr. DINGELL. Some of them do not carry these kind of recorders. 

Are you able to easily read the recorders of the Toyota vehicles, or 

do you have some difficulty? 

Secretary LAHOOD. What I’d like to do is really look at the statistics on that and get back to you on the record for ones that we 

could read and ones we had difficulty with. 

Mr. DINGELL. Mr. Chairman you have been gracious. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. It’s good to have you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Rush for questions, please. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, it’s good to see you here. Your testimony so far 

has been excellent testimony and even to a certain extent inspiring, 

considering your hands on the problem and your hands-on approach and your dedication and commitment. I’ve known you as a 

Member of this House, and I know that you’re very capable and 

forthright as an individual and you say what you mean and you 

mean what you say. I am also encouraged by the confirmation of 

Mr. David Strickland as the head of NHTSA. 

That said, I do have some concerns and I have some questions 

that I want to ask you. 

First of all, earlier today—I want to get this out of the way—I 

received an e-mail from one of my staff members who received an 

e-mail in turn from one of the executives at the Chicago Defender. 

You are aware of that newspaper, the Chicago Defender. 

This person indicated that his sister-in-law had been killed on 

December 28 in a Toyota Avalon somewhere near Dallas, Texas. 

There were three individuals in the car. All four of them were 

killed. The car flipped over and rested in a pond. The police said 

that this wasn’t a result of a braking issue. So it means that something was wrong electronically. So my question and my request is 

that you look into that. I will get you all the pertinent information 

that I have and—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. We will look at it. We will get the information from you, and we will look at it. 

Mr. RUSH. That said, Toyota consumers have witnessed a significant decline in their resale values. That means that there is a possibility and a probability that Toyota consumers, the owners of 

these vehicles, will experience a sharp increase in their insurance 

premiums for owning these vehicles. Are you concerned about that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I haven’t heard about that, no. 


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Mr. RUSH. If in fact that does become a reality, especially in this 

time of economic hardship, I think we ought to be proactive in trying to offset that in some kind of way. 

Secretary LAHOOD. OK. 

Mr. RUSH. The members of this committee raised several areas 

of concern in regard to NHTSA’s response to certain unintended acceleration, and that was explained by resource constraints within 

the agency. As the chairman said, the subcommittee that I chair 

will begin to hear and begin to become very active on NHTSA reauthorization. NHTSA’s budget for operations and research has been 

stagnant for the last 10 years. Are you aware of that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Mr. RUSH. As cars become more reliant on computers to operate, 

NHTSA has not kept up and doesn’t have sufficient expertise in 

electronics to judge the safety of new electronic automobile technology. On at least five occasions NHTSA Office of Defects Investigations cited resource constraints as a reason for the defect petition filed by an individual who experienced sudden unintended acceleration. The question is, does NHTSA have the resources it 

needs to meet the challenges of its mission? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I hope that you all will be pleased to hear 

that in President Obama’s budget for the Department of Transportation there will be 66 new positions at NHTSA. That is what the 

President is proposing. We have 125 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 125 engineers. And the President has requested in his 

budget request to all of you 66 new positions at NHTSA. So we are 

moving away from stagnation. 

Mr. RUSH. Well, I believe in you as a Secretary and I believe in 

Mr. Strickland. So we will be working hand in hand with you to 

make sure—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. I look forward to that. 

Mr. RUSH. —that we move NHTSA forward and we address these 

problems. 

You have only been there a year, but I’m really mindful and 

something that’s important to me is for departments and employees 

of these departments and the departments themselves having a 

regulatory role with these agencies or these manufacturers and 

these businesses and corporations that they have to oversee. I hope 

that you will be able to build a firewall that is clear, that there can 

be no regulatory roadblock between the agencies that you have to 

oversee. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I look forward to working with you, sir. 

Mr. RUSH. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Secretary, just one thing. Your staff told us you 

have no electrical engineers at NHTSA. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I’m sorry? 

Mr. STUPAK. You have no electrical engineers. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have electrical engineers. 

Mr. STUPAK. At NHTSA. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 


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Mr. STUPAK. That is contrary to what they told this committee 

and committee staff during the investigation. They said they have 

engineers who have taken some classes, but—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have 125 engineers, and we have electrical engineers as a part of the 125. I’m sworn to tell the truth 

here, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STUPAK. I know. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I wouldn’t be lying about engineers. If I’m 

going to lie, it’s not going to be about engineers. 

Mr. STUPAK. Are any of these electrical engineers in the Office 

of Defect Investigations? 

Secretary LAHOOD. They work for NHTSA, and their responsibilities are to use their expertise in this area. 

Mr. STUPAK. So ODI, Office of Defect Investigation, can tap other 

parts of NHTSA. 

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct. We use their expertise for 

this. 

Mr. STUPAK. That is amazing the staff didn’t know you had all 

that expertise a week ago. 

Mr. Markey for questions. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much. 

Welcome back, Ray. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. MARKEY. Thank you for your work at the Department of 

Transportation. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. The impression that I think we’ve all been left with 

here today is that Toyota was aggregating all this information in 

Tokyo, but they weren’t sharing it with their dealers, their employees, the people that ran different countries. And so we are at an 

inflection point here where obviously we have to change this system. We have to give you more power, and we have to just make 

sure this does not occur in the future. So I’d just like to walk 

through a few things and get your response, because I think it will 

help us to flesh out the authorities you will need and 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 2000 

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 2003, the Department turned down a consumer protection petition filed by an individual from Braintree, Massachusetts, alleging sudden acceleration problems involving his ’99 Lexus, saying 

that the Department had no reason to think there were excessive 

problems with the Lexus based on what it knew at the time. It 

wasn’t getting the information from Toyota. So it was not in a situation to see the entire situation. 

Do you think the Department might have reached a different 

conclusion had it known about the 2000 U.K. Lexus recall involving 

the floor mats and trapping accelerator pedals? 


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Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I don’t mean to be venturing a guess, 

Mr. Markey. I would assume that we would have, but that is a 

guess. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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 have 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 or to prevent them from occurring 

at all. Do you think that requiring automakers to more broadly report safety problems that they have encountered in other countries 

could help you do your job? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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 have also learned that Toyota had 

evidently validated that result. Do you think 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? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We are going to do a complete, comprehensive, down-in-the-weeds review of the electronics. We will take information that was presented to your committee today. We will 

look at all the data. We will look at all the information. We will 

not rest until we finally find out if electronics are a part of this 

problem. 

Mr. MARKEY. 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? 

Secretary LAHOOD. No, sir, not really. We do these investigations. We meet with auto companies. If they are not willing to do 

the recall voluntarily, we have the authority to do it. 

Mr. MARKEY. But you need the information. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have to have the information. If we have 

missed the target on the electronics, we will correct that. We’re 

going to do that. We’re going to have a complete review. 

Mr. MARKEY. The early warning database that consists 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 or a recall is announced? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We are for transparency. The more information we can give the public, the better. 

Mr. MARKEY. Do you need authority to do that? Do we have to 

change any—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. I don’t know for sure, Mr. Markey. I will get 

back to you on that. 

Mr. MARKEY. OK. That would be helpful. Because we want to be 

as helpful to you as we can be. We think that you’re clearly, in my 

opinion, a great Secretary of Transportation. 


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Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. MARKEY. So we want to work with you to accomplish the 

goals while you’re in the agency. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I appreciate that. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Ms. DeGette for questions, please. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I will add my welcome, Mr. Secretary, and associate myself with Mr. Markey’s last remarks, maybe not his first— 

not all of his remarks. 

I just have a couple of questions for you. The first one, I think 

I know the answer to this. The New York Times has reported that 

its officials were frustrated with Toyota’s slow response while conducting its investigation into acceleration issues. From your previous testimony today I would assume that you agree with that assessment, that Toyota was often slow to respond to requests from 

your agency, as far as you know. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. We have had issues with them, and that 

is the reason Ron Medford, our then acting-NHTSA administrator, 

went to Japan. Ron came to me and said, look, I don’t think they’re 

listening to us. I need to go to Japan. I said, leave tonight. 

Ms. DEGETTE. When was that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. It was late last year. 

Ms. DEGETTE. From your sense from talking to Ron and others 

in the agency, was this a pattern with Toyota even before—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. 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 is the reason Ron 

felt he had to go there. I’m not going to trash the people in North 

America at Toyota. They are good people. They are professional 

people. And I told Mr. Toyoda when I talked to him, I said, safety 

is number one. You need to take this seriously. And I encouraged 

him to really do that. I think they’ve gotten that message. 

Ms. DEGETTE. I think it’s pretty clear you gave them that message. 

NHTSA conducted six investigations into Toyota safety problems 

since 2003, so this didn’t just start last year. This was ongoing 

since 2003. So my question is, do you know why, since these frustrations were happening at the agency since 2003, that NHTSA 

didn’t use its subpoena power once in all those years of investigation? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we have other authority other than 

subpoena power, and we’ve used it from time to time. We have 

other enforcement mechanisms. 

As I said at the top in my testimony, I’m going to be forward 

looking here. I’ve been in this job a little over a year. If you want 

me to go back and account for what happened in ’04, I will do that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. No, I don’t. But what I do want to ask you—so, 

number one, you don’t know why they didn’t do that before—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. I don’t personally know. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Number two, do you reserve the right to use the 

subpoena power going forward if you don’t get adequate response? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely. Totally. 

Ms. DEGETTE. My second and last question is, following up on 

the questions Mr. Rush and also Mr. Stupak were asking about the 


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NHTSA budget, you said that there are 66 new positions in the administration’s budget—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Correct. 

Ms. DEGETTE. —within NHTSA. But at the same time, NHTSA’s 

fiscal year 2011 budget for the vehicle operations and research side 

of the agency is about even. So we are wondering where you’re 

going to fund those extra positions and will they be able to work 

in this particular part of the agency. 

Secretary LAHOOD. If the Congress approves our budget with additional staff, we will take those resources and put them where 

they are needed. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So you think that you will be able to hire these 

66 new positions within that flat budget. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think if we get 66 new positions and you 

provide the money for it, we will take those people and put them 

where they are needed. If they are needed on looking into electronics, we will do that. If they are needed in other areas, we will 

do that. 

Ms. DEGETTE. So your view is that the 66 new people aren’t necessarily looking into electronics. They are just—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. They are going to be a human resource that 

we are going to use where we need them, where the problems are. 

Ms. DEGETTE. 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 deficiency in the agency. If you put them over there, where 

are you going to take it from in the agency’s current enforcement? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, I don’t know the specifics on that. I’d 

be happy to get back to you. We will keep our fingers crossed that 

you provide us the additional 66. 

Ms. DEGETTE. See, I will just tell you, Mr. Secretary, what we 

are concerned about, not just with NHTSA but a lot of the other 

consumer agencies, is over the last 8 to 10 years these agencies 

have been starved of resources. And we are concerned that if you 

take 66 new positions, which might be authorized but if there’s no 

additional funding for the agency that we are going to stint on 

other places where we are already short on enforcement. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I would assume if we get the authorization, 

we are going to get the money to pay for them. That would be our 

goal. 

Ms. DEGETTE. And that would be in addition to your fiscal 2011 

budget? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Our 2011 would be the 66 additional people, 

plus the money to pay for them. 

Ms. DEGETTE. OK. Because the request we know about is pretty 

much flat. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Our goal will be to—— 

Ms. DEGETTE. Your staff has some advice here. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Let me just see what it says here. It says, increase in salary count. Look, if you authorize 66, I will work with 

our friends on the Appropriations Committee to find the money. 

Ms. DEGETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mrs. Christensen senior for questions, please. 

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. 


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Welcome, Secretary LaHood. It’s always good to have you here. 

Having worked with you for quite a few years and knowing your 

integrity, having witnessed your commitment and passion for safety, I have confidence that what needs to be done at NHTSA will 

get done. 

Some of the questions about what authorities you need have already been asked, so let me just ask this one question. 

After the Firestone Ford Explorer rollover problem I read that 

Congress introduced the Passive TREAD Act, which required 

NHTSA to create an early warning system to gather and analyze 

more information on auto safety to reduce defects sooner. In a 2004 

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 were way above what 

had been anticipated and that the computer system that existed at 

that time did not have the advanced analytical capabilities that 

were envisioned by the law. So it didn’t have the money, but they 

didn’t have the capability of creating or having that early warning 

system to gather and analyze the information. Do you know if that 

problem has been corrected since the Inspector General report of 

2004? 

Secretary LAHOOD. It has been. And I can tell you this. When 

we got into this Toyota thing—I have been going over this and 

going over this. I think we have some outstanding people. They 

work very hard. We get 30,000 complaints a year. We look at what 

other organizations are saying and doing. We talk to car companies. And we take every one 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 a company or an organization. And our people look at every 

one. 

Ms. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. STUPAK. Thank you. 

Ms. Sutton for questions, please. 

Ms. SUTTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here and for your work at the Department. 

A couple of things. The black boxes that we have heard about, 

I’m just trying to get clarification on that. Does NHTSA have access to the data that was contained in black boxes that might have 

been—might be in Tokyo? As I understand it, Toyota has access to 

this information, but can we access it? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I don’t know the answer to that. So it’s difficult for us. They only have one reader to read these devices, and 

it’s very difficult to get the information. 

Ms. SUTTON. So finding ways to get relevant information and enforcing safety concerns here is something that—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. It is. I do think all of this has been a big 

wake-up call for Toyota. I think you will find that when Mr. 

Toyoda comes on Capitol Hill tomorrow, when he makes some visVerDate Mar 15 2010 08:42 Nov 09, 2012 Jkt 076008 PO 00000 Frm 00168 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 E:\HR\OC\A008.XXX A008

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its to some folks—I mean, I think they get it now. They need to 

be more attuned and sensitive to these things. 

Ms. SUTTON. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Also, just because we have the opportunity to make sure the 

record is clear here on certain things, I reviewed the report issued 

by NHTSA on the CARS program. I was happy to see that positive 

jobs impacts of at least 60,000 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—we have talked a lot about resources and what you need to 

do to accomplish the safety functions that fall within NHTSA responsibility. 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 have got it. 

But, just to clarify, it’s my understanding that at NHTSA—I 

mean, which also, of course, has responsibility over fuel economy 

standards, which is why Cash for Clunkers was also part of 

NHTSA’s purview, that the people who deal with fuel economy and 

the people who deal with the safety functions under NHTSA are 

two different sets of people. Is that correct? 

Secretary LAHOOD. It is correct. But I will say this, Congresswoman—and you know this—in the first 4 days of that program, 

which was your stepchild, or however you want to characterize it— 

it was your idea—250,000 cars were sold. It was a wildly popular 

program. And I’m not going to sit here and tell you we weren’t 

overwhelmed. When you sell 250,000 cars and try to get the money 

out the door to dealers, it became a very serious issue for us. We 

were trying to incorporate a lot of resources, including our FAA 

friends out in Oklahoma City, who do a lot of good work but they 

also know how to process paper. We used their expertise. We hired 

people from the outside to come in. But I want people to know 

there never for one instance was safety ever compromised as a result of the CARS program, not for one second. I wouldn’t let that 

happen. 

Ms. SUTTON. Mr. Secretary, the other issue, of course, is that I wouldn’t let that happen, either. The reality is that we put $50 million in administrative costs into the legislation, so that we actually 

gave resources when we gave work—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct. 

Ms. SUTTON [continuing]. To NHTSA. And that is an extraordinarily important point not to be lost because it’s easily swept 

under the rug by those who might want to discredit what was 

clearly, as you point out, wildly popular. 

Secretary LAHOOD. It was a lifeline to the automobile industry. 

No one could have ever sold 7 or 800,000 cars in less than 30 days. 

It was a lifeline to car salesmen, 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 $3 billion. 

Ms. SUTTON. Thank you. Thank you very much, and I appreciate 

that clarification. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. The gentlelady yields back? 

Ms. SUTTON. I yield back. 


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Mr. STUPAK. Ms. Schakowsky for questions, please. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Hi, Ray. Thank you for being here and answering all our questions—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY [continuing]. And being here at this late hour. 

I have 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 are 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 the sale of Toyota is down like 50 

percent right now, which is understandable. 

One of the other things that they feel is that there has been disproportionate focus on this particular situation of Toyota, and they 

pointed out that there have been over the last year some 143 or 

something like that recalls, some related to safety of other automobile manufacturers. So what I wanted to ask you is how would 

you rate Toyota’s performance in dealing with NHTSA safety issues 

compared to other automakers? Do we have a particular problem 

here? 

Secretary LAHOOD. The vast majority of recalls are not on Toyotas. They are on other car manufactures. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. That is what they were saying. 

Secretary LAHOOD. It is. People know what that is. We put it out 

there. We are not trying to hide that. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. They weren’t blaming. 

Secretary LAHOOD. The reason that people are focusing on this 

now is because of the horrific accident that occurred in San Diego 

where these people lost their lives, 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. 

I know there are people on this committee all day that have been 

talking about the electronics. We are going to get in the weeds on 

that. We feel an obligation to do that. If we’ve overlooked it, I guarantee it won’t happen on my watch. We are going to look into it. 

The idea that we are picking on Toyota is just not accurate. Look 

at the statistics. Over the last 3 years, 23 million recalls of automobiles as a result of our investigations. And the vast majority 

were not Toyota. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Right. I think they were actually mostly just 

worried about the publicity that had been around this. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, Congresswoman, if you and I were in 

charge of publicity, there would be a lot different stories written 

about everything. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. This is true. Some of us have the same problems. 

One of the things that Toyota is doing is installing in some of the 

recalled cars, not all of them, a software fix that makes sure that 

the brakes override the accelerator. This seems like a really good 

idea. Is there some way that this could be required as a standard 

safety feature? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I heard Mr. Lentz say they were doing it in 

the majority of his models as he was sitting here today. And we 

have not heard that before. It’s something I think we should look 


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into. If that is a way to override an electrical problem or a sticky 

pedal or a floor mat pedal that someone hasn’t taken care of, any 

way that we can save lives and save injuries and correct something 

that is wrong, I think we should look at it. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. It seems to me that that would make a whole 

lot of sense now in this computer and electronic era to make 

sure—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. 

Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. I have no other questions. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. That concludes questions by members of the subcommittee. 

We still have members from the full committee here. Mr. Shimkus, if you have any questions. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. No questions, just a statement if I may, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, Dr. Gilbert comes out of SIU Carbondale. I got to listen to most of his testimony in the office, and I got to spend some 

time with him this afternoon. So I want to place on the record we 

are very proud of him for the work he has done. And I know my 

good friend and now former colleague, Secretary LaHood, would appreciate the Illinois connection of that. 

I just want to, on the record, praise a good friend and a mentor 

of mine. As you know, I have been a little combative in my 3 years, 

last 3 years especially, and I think some of that style I learned 

from the sitting Secretary. There’s something to be said about telling it straight and forcefully. And that’s always been Ray’s style. 

On the record, I appreciate your friendship and support over the 

years, and I know you’re working in the best interest of the country. So thank you for what you do. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you for those very good words, kind 

words, and we are going to look at his research. We are going to 

look at everything, his testimony today. But we want to look at the 

documents and see what he’s done. Hopefully, it will be helpful to 

us. 

Mr. SHIMKUS. Welcome to the committee. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Gonzalez, questions, please. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. 

The first thing, Mr. Chairman, can I ask unanimous consent that 

we all agree with Mr. Shimkus’ description of himself, that he is 

combative? 

Mr. Secretary, I’ve said it before. I will say it again. We miss 

you. We are happy to have you, as great a job as you’re doing. Too 

bad we don’t have two of you. 

A couple of things. One, I think you said there were 250,000 cars 

sold in the Cash for Clunkers. I think that may have been the first 

few days. There were 750,000 cars sold. I know I had some of my 

dealers complaining that the money wasn’t being paid quickly 

enough. The alternative would be for the cars to remain on their 

lots. When I reminded of that, they were happy to wait a couple 

of days. 

Let me start off with a couple of observations. First of all, in your 

testimony, written testimony—I’m going to read from it. NHTSA 

does not contend that the two recalls will fully resolve all concerns 


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about unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. However, with 

one exception, NHTSA has not been able to establish a vehicle base 

cause for unintended acceleration events in Toyota vehicles not covered by those two recalls. The exception was the recall of the model 

year 2004 Sienna vans in 2009 due to a defective trim panel. 

Some consumers and others believe that Toyota’s electronic 

throttle control, ETC, systems and perhaps such systems in other 

manufacturers’ vehicles are susceptible to electromagnetic interference, EMI, 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, NHTSA is 

conducting a review of the general subject of possible EMI effects 

on ETC systems. 

Now you have assured us that that is ongoing and you’re going 

to be very aggressive about it, which we would all stand here and 

tell you how can we help you with it. The problem was, and we 

have had members make reference to it, was that members of 

NHTSA were 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 

22, so I doubt if you’ve 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 NHTSA have ample expertise to 

test and analyze the electronic systems and to evaluate the sufficiency of tests and the analysis of the automobile and automakers’ 

performance. 

It appears, however that, NHTSA lacks the expertise, hampering 

the ability of the Office of Defects Investigation, ODI, to examine 

possible electronic defects in vehicles. In the briefing on February 

18, officials told the committee staff that the agency has no electrical engineers or software engineers on staff. Now that is not accurate, is that correct? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have two electrical engineers. We have 

125 engineers. We have two electrical engineers, and we are about 

ready to hire another one. 

And the third thing I would say, Mr. Gonzalez, is that when we 

need outside expertise, we use it. We do. We are not bashful about 

doing it. If we don’t feel we have the expertise, we will go out and 

find it. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. I think that is an important point. The reason for 

that we have 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 receptive to the expanded resources that you may require, 

and there’s not going to be anybody on either side of this aisle 

that’s not going to give you whatever you need to get to the bottom 

of this. 

It is good to see you here and receive the assurance that you’re 

aggressively pursuing this. I will end with one question. Is Toyota 

cooperating with your Department? 

Secretary LAHOOD. A hundred percent now. 

Mr. GONZALEZ. Thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. STUPAK. A hundred percent now. They weren’t always cooperating with you? 


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Secretary LAHOOD. 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 Mr. Toyoda. 

Mr. STUPAK. Let me ask you this. You indicated that you could 

always—NHTSA can get outside experts if they need help in an 

area. Do you know the last time ODI, Office of Defect Investigations, ever hired outside experts to help them with a problem? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I do not. But I will put that on the record for 

you. I can find out. 

Mr. STUPAK. We would appreciate it. 

Mr. Burgess, questions? 

Mr. BURGESS. Yes. Mr. Secretary, I’m sure you heard the testimony—the compelling testimony of the Smiths, who were here. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Of course. 

Mr. BURGESS. The uncommanded acceleration in her vehicle. 

They voiced a lot of frustration over getting anyone at Toyota to 

take them seriously. They also voiced some frustration in getting 

the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to listen to 

them and take them seriously. I got the impression that they were 

still waiting for a response from NHTSA. I would appreciate it if 

you would look into that. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We will be in touch with them. 

Mr. BURGESS. I heard Mr. Lentz say that he didn’t know what 

had happened to the vehicle, but he was going to make an effort 

to find it. I would just suggest that maybe NHTSA ought 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 one died in the experiment, but let’s get that data and find out if indeed that what Professor Gilbert produced in the laboratory was what Mrs. Smith encountered when she drove her car. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We know where the car is. We have talked 

to the owner of the car. We hope to be able to explore that. 

Mr. STUPAK. That concludes all the questions of the members. 

Mr. Secretary, thank you. Thank you for your patience today. We 

look forward to follow-up questions that we will be sending you. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses for coming. 

The committee rules provide members have 10 days to submit 

additional questions for the record. 

I ask unanimous consent that four documents—the Exponent letter dated February 23, 2010, be entered in the record; the report 

of Professor Michael Pecht be entered in the record; Mr. Neal 

Hanneman’s report be entered in the record; and Dr. Gilbert’s interim report be entered in the record. Without objection, so ordered. 

[The information appears at the conclusion of the hearing.] 

Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Burgess asked that Governor Perry’s letter to 

the committee be entered in the record. Without objection, so be it. 

[The information was unavailable at the time of printing.] 

Mr. STUPAK. That concludes our hearing. The meeting of the subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 6:55 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:] 


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pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 242 76008A.105
234 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 243 76008A.106
235 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 244 76008A.107
236 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 245 76008A.108
237 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 246 76008A.109
238 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 247 76008A.110
239 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 248 76008A.111
240 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 249 76008A.112
241 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 250 76008A.113
242 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 251 76008A.114
243 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 252 76008A.115
244 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 253 76008A.116
245 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 254 76008A.117
246 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 255 76008A.118
247 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 256 76008A.119
248 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 257 76008A.120
249 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 258 76008A.121
250 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 259 76008A.122
251 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 260 76008A.123
252 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 261 76008A.124
253 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 262 76008A.125
254 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 263 76008A.126
255 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 264 76008A.127
256 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 265 76008A.128
257 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 266 76008A.129
258 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 267 76008A.130
259 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 268 76008A.131
260 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 269 76008A.132
261 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 270 76008A.133
262 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 271 76008A.134
263 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 272 76008A.135
264 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 273 76008A.136
265 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 274 76008A.137
266 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 275 76008A.138
267 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 276 76008A.139
268 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 277 76008A.140
269 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 278 76008A.141
270 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 279 76008A.142
271 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 280 76008A.143
272 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 281 76008A.144
273 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 282 76008A.145
274 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 283 76008A.146
275 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 284 76008A.147
276 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 285 76008A.148
277 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 286 76008A.149
278 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 287 76008A.150
279 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 288 76008A.151
280 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 289 76008A.152
281 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 290 76008A.153
282 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 291 76008A.154
283 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 292 76008A.155
284 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 293 76008A.156
285 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 294 76008A.157
286 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 295 76008A.158
287 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 296 76008A.159
288 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 297 76008A.160
289 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 298 76008A.161
290 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 299 76008A.162
291 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 300 76008A.163
292 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 301 76008A.164
293 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 302 76008A.165
294 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 303 76008A.166
295 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 304 76008A.167
296 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 305 76008A.168
297 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 306 76008A.169
298 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 307 76008A.170
299 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 308 76008A.171
300 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 309 76008A.172
301 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 310 76008A.173
302 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 311 76008A.174
303 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 312 76008A.175
304 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 313 76008A.176
305 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 314 76008A.177
306 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 315 76008A.178
307 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 316 76008A.179
308 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 317 76008A.180
309 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 318 76008A.181
310 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 319 76008A.182
311 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 320 76008A.183
312 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 321 76008A.184
313 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 322 76008A.185
314 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 323 76008A.186
315 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 324 76008A.187
316 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 325 76008A.188
317 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 326 76008A.189
318 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 327 76008A.190
319 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 328 76008A.191
320 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 329 76008A.192
321 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 330 76008A.193
322 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 331 76008A.194
323 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 332 76008A.195
324 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 333 76008A.196
325 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 334 76008A.197
326 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 335 76008A.198
327 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 336 76008A.199
328 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 337 76008A.200
329 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 338 76008A.201
330 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 339 76008A.202
331 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 340 76008A.203
332 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 341 76008A.204
333 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 342 76008A.205
334 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 343 76008A.206
335 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 344 76008A.207
336 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 345 76008A.208
337 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 346 76008A.209
338 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 347 76008A.210
339 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 348 76008A.211
340 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 349 76008A.212
341 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 350 76008A.213
342 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 351 76008A.214
343 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 352 76008A.215
344 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 353 76008A.216
345 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 354 76008A.217
346 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 355 76008A.218
347 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 356 76008A.219
348 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 357 76008A.220
349 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 358 76008A.221
350 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 359 76008A.222
351 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 360 76008A.223
352 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 361 76008A.224
353 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 362 76008A.225
354 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 363 76008A.226
355 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 364 76008A.227
356 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 365 76008A.228
357 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 366 76008A.229
358 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 367 76008A.230
359 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 368 76008A.231
360 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 369 76008A.232
361 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 370 76008A.233
362 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 371 76008A.234
363 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 372 76008A.235
364 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 373 76008A.236
365 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 374 76008A.237
366 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 375 76008A.238
367 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 376 76008A.239
368 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 377 76008A.240
369 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 378 76008A.241
370 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 379 76008A.242
371 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 380 76008A.243
372 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 381 76008A.244
373 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 382 76008A.245
374 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 383 76008A.246
375 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 384 76008A.247
376 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 385 76008A.248
377 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 386 76008A.249
378 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 387 76008A.250
379 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 388 76008A.251
380 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 389 76008A.252
381 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 390 76008A.253
382 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 391 76008A.254
383 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 392 76008A.255
384 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 393 76008A.256
385 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 394 76008A.257
386 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 395 76008A.258
387 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 396 76008A.259
388 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 397 76008A.260
389 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 398 76008A.261
390 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 399 76008A.262
391 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 400 76008A.263
392 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 401 76008A.264
393 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 402 76008A.265
394 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 403 76008A.266
395 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 404 76008A.267
396 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 405 76008A.268
397 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 406 76008A.269
398 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 407 76008A.270
399 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 408 76008A.271
400 


pmangrum on DSK3VPTVN1PROD with HEARINGInsert graphic folio 409 76008A.272