Toyota's Engineering Process and the General Public

Doofus writes "The Washington Post has published in today's paper an article titled 'Why it's so hard for Toyota to find out what's wrong' by Frank Ahrens on the Toyota situation and the difficulties of adequately conveying to Senators and Representatives — most of whom are non-technical — the debugging process. Ahrens interviews Giorgio Rizzoni, an 'expert in failure analysis' at Ohio State, who describes the iterations of testing that NHTSA will likely inflict on the Toyota sample cars they have purchased, and then moves into the realm of software and systems verification: 'He explained that each vehicle contains "layers of computer code that may be added from one model year to next" that control nearly every system, from acceleration to braking to stability. Rizzoni said this software is rigorously tested, but he added: "It is well-known in our community that there is no scientific, firm way of actually completely verifying and validating software."' Ahrens ends the piece with a quote from a 2009 LA Times interview with former UCLA psychology professor Richard Schmidt about how user reports are often unreliable: 'When the driver says they have their foot on the brake, they are just plain wrong. The human motor system is not perfect, and it doesn't always do what it is told.'" Toyota is currently planning an event to challenge evidence presented by professor David W. Gilbert that called into question Toyota's electronic throttle system.

Comments

"An event to challenge Evidence"

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> Toyota is currently planning an event to challenge evidence ...

Macroscopic events generally don't challenge evidence. They challenge the politics of evidence.

One challenges evidence with small, discrete, verifiable events.

Re:"An event to challenge Evidence"

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

While your post is offtopic to the comment you're replying to, I agree it was an interesting read. However, the entire testimony has one fundamental flaw: it assumes that because a situation can be induced in which no error code is set, that that exact same situation can occur in the absence of being induced.

The entire testimony is built on that unproven assumption, without venturing to explain how it could occur in normal operations.

Why?

[Darkness404]

Why exactly is there a congressional case going on about this? It becomes even more worrying when you realize that the US government has a controlling interest in most of Toyota's competitors in the USA. In short, why, in a country where states are going bankrupt, privacy is an illusion, healthcare reform has boiled down to if you are pro or anti Obama, rampant spending and tax increases. In short, why do I care about this? File a class action lawsuit and let the courts settle it. Nothing is worse then a bunch of politicians knowing nothing about engineering, with stock in competitor's companies and large problems they haven't solved wasting their time with this crap.

Good time to buy a Toyota

[DogDude]

Of course Toyota is right. The most likely cause of these "sudden acceleration" problems is humans with their foot on the gas pedal. I've owned plenty of Toyotas, and I wish that my current Toyota was in need of replacing right now, because now is a great time to buy one. Unfortunately, my current Toyota only has 150K miles, meaning that I have a good 5-10 years of life in my vehicle. After that... I'll buy another Toyota.

Software has no business

[n6kuy]

... being in control of braking and acceleration.

Re:Software has no business

[raddan]

Given the proportion of software-caused car accidents to human-caused accidents, I think we can more reasonably state that humans have no business being in control of braking and acceleration.

Little attention was given. Read Consumer Reports.

[Futurepower(R)]

General Motors has been making cars with poor reliability literally since I was a child. Read your library's old copies of Consumer Reports for verification.

Insufficient attention was given to the poor reliability of G.M. cars, in my opinion.

As long as G.M. cars could continue to be sold, making unreliable cars was more profitable. That's similar to making a sloppy computer operating system that is vulnerable to attacks. The sloppiness helps sell new versions.

Re:Can't be verified as safe?

[ediron2]

Erroneus wrote:

(mumble mumble) created a system (mumble) threaten lives (mumble) cannot be tested or verified adequately (mumble) sounds like cause to deny sales

Wow. Just wow. Never has a nick been so apt.

This isn't a Toyota thing. It isn't even exclusive to the auto industry. System complexity was where so many cliches like "Fast, complete, cheap: pick any two" come from.

Sure, we can put missile-guidance software protocols into all sorts of software development; If I remember the metric, every line of code costs 10x as much as in general industry.

Another thought: Airbags took 15 years to get acceptance from their 1970's invention -- the industry quickly realized their safety value, but nobody wanted to pony up $800 (1980 estimated per-car cost) or increase the cost of a car to eat that cost.

And don't even get me started on FAA vs. adequate safety. Or Seldane and the FDA.

tl;dr: Toyota *DOES* test extensively. Shit happens.