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- C. E. White
March 23, 2010, 10:55 pm
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Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
Neil Roland
Automotive News -- March 23, 2010 - 4:42 pm ET
WASHINGTON -- Testing by Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers has never
detected electronic causes of sudden acceleration because it has looked for
the wrong evidence and because this evidence is difficult to detect, three
British consultants with doctorates in engineering said today.
The consultants, who expect to meet tomorrow with U.S. investigators, said
Toyota's pedal assembly and electronic throttle-control system have a number
of parts that aren't shielded against electromagnetic interference, or EMI.
"Thirty years' empirical evidence overwhelmingly points to (sudden
acceleration) being caused by electronic system faults undetectable by
inspection or testing," said Keith Armstrong, a engineering consultant from
the United Kingdom who appeared with two other engineers at a Washington
news conference organized here by consumer advocates.
Armstrong, who said he was interviewed last month by U.S. National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration investigators, said the problem with
electronic interference is industrywide. "EMI is endemic in electronics," he
said. EMI is electrical disturbances in the circuits.
Real-life EMI
Tests by Toyota and other automakers don't cover most real-life EMI, nor do
they simulate typical faults to verify that backup measures work, Armstrong
said.
Read more:
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100323/OEM/100329954/1143#ixzz0j3hYs6VV
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
One word of caution - these experts are woking for the Center for Auto
Safety, a trial lawyer funded group run by Clarence Ditlow and Jane
Claybrook. They still want Audi to recal 1985 Audi 5000's.
Ed
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100323/OEM/100329954/1143#ixzz0j3hYs6VV
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
On Tue, 23 Mar 2010 23:00:16 -0400, C. E. White wrote:
I saw one the other day. I don't think the owner will sell it to them
because it was in mint condition.
They can recall all the rest, I'm sure most of them have been in junkyards
for a while...
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
C. E. White wrote:
Ironically, Audi ran magazine ads in the 1980s that discussed adapting
Audis to America. In one ad they said the corrosion protection had to
be improved to handle the salt we poured on the roads in the winter,
and in another ad they said RF interference was a lot worse here than
in Europe.
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
wrote:
I couldn't find an official toyota talk forum but I found this
one....it has all the info about the 2010 Toyota Motor Corp. Recall &
Prius brake pedal fix. I found it to be very informative, it has more
commentary than just the official toyota recall site....
http://www.ToyotaBrakeRecall.org check it out
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
C. E. White wrote:
I thought the auto industry had long been paranoid about this because
when they were virtually mandated to install computers to meet
emissions standards, it was a big leap for in technology and maybe the
first time something so vulnerable to interference yet so critical to
safety had been installed on such a large scale. And aren't almost
all the sensor inputs for fairly low frequency signals that can be
easily treated to filter out higher frequencies, such as those used by
cell phones and speed radar? Also don't car computers have a timer
that interrupts the main program every few milliseconds to check its
proper operation and restart the computer if a problem is detected?
Here's a 30-year-old article from Popular Science about the first
digital car computers (skip to page 54) that includes a photo of a
test chamber used for zapping cars with interference:
http://tinyurl.com/yat7s79
http://books.google.com/books?id=ZAEAAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&lr=&rview=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
I run high power two way radio equipment in my Toyota and have NEVER in
almost seven years had one glitch of any kind. Nor has any of my cell
phone equipment ever caused any glitches. EMI can easily be suppressed
and I believe Toyota has done an extremely good job of suppressing it.
--
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
I find it difficult to imagine how stray EMI could interfere with the
throttle over a period of time and distance sufficiently long enough to
cause a vehicle to accelerate to a high speed.
I also find it difficult to imagine how EMI could override many systems all
at once, such that the car would be impossible to control or shut down.
--
Tegger
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
Just like the Vioxx trial.
I remember what the jury foreman said after the Vioxx trial, that the jury
understood the defense's arguments no better than, "Mwa, mwa, mwa", like
how the adults sound in a Charlie Brown cartoon. And then they voted to
convict anyway. Very scary.
--
Tegger
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
Obveeus wrote:
That would be a better example of what?
Sounds like you like speculating without the benefit of any scientific
research or facts. There has been little scientific research that shows
the implants are harmless. And that was why Dow eventually lost
lawsuits. They lied - claiming they had done the research that showed it
was safe when they hadn't.
-jim
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
Lawsuits propelling a company into bankruptcy even though there was nothing
wrong with the product?
You apparently are uninformed. Numerous studies arouhnd the world have show
Silicone breast implants were not responsible for the problems claimed.
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
Obveeus wrote:
Well that is hardly the case. There is still significant risks and
precautions involved with breast implants. A trip to the FDA web site
and see what they say about the risk:
[Quote]
Some of the risks of breast implants include:
* reoperations (additional surgeries), with or without removal of
the device
* capsular contracture (hardening of the area around the implant)
* breast pain
* changes in nipple and breast sensation
* rupture with deflation for saline-filled implants
* rupture with or without symptoms for silicone gel-filled implants
* migration of silicone gel for silicone gel-filled breast implants.
For a more complete description of the possible risks and complications
of breast implants, see Breast Implant Consumer Handbook: Local
Complications and Reoperations3.
You can also find a list of complications for each approved breast
implant in the patient labeling; see Labeling for Approved Breast
Implants.
[End quote]
Maybe although it is still quite controversial. And maybe if the studies
had been done before litigation instead of as a consequence of
litigation everyone would have been better off. But whether the problems
claimed could be proven to be directly caused by breast implants wasn't
the central issue at trial. The issue that convinced the jury was that
Dow was not truthful about revealing risks they knew about and what they
knew and didn't know about the safety of the product.
-jim
Re: Consultants say interference in vehicle electronics is possible
I suspect software errors rather than interference. The auto industry
is actually fairly good in designing resistance to interference, but in
my opinion not very good on software design.
I used to work in aerospace industry and had some courses in designing
mission critical software. It is very hard to check out software in a
really large program, and design of real-time software is quite
difficult. I suspect a lot of their software validation is statistical
and that is not the best way.
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