A Perfect Storm?

I doubt it would be plastic or material failure. With all the investigation and testing by Toyota people, plus other sources, I have heard nothing about failure of materials. In several incidents resulting in crashes, Toyota people discovered that the throttle was not fully "opened" before the crash, and the brakes had not been engaged. Sort of like "pilot error". It seems strange that of all the millions of involved Toyota models out there, only a few incidents have happened. There was some speculation about "code" errors in the electronic chips being made off-shore, and many of the crashes have involved elderly drivers. For what it's worth, I have owned/driven Toyotas for many years, and we currently have two models. I don't know anyone who drives a Toyota who has had any of these problems.

I can only conclude that Toyota made good cars. That good that they are number 1 in the world with the least problems. For many years already.

If you check the lists of service touring clubs. Toyota is top ranking with all of them, leaving the "cheap Mercedes, BMW and.... far behind. If they say it is the plastic, I think it has something to do with it, tolerances on design, different material or mass.

I heard also that the floor mat, sliding the pedal down, caused problems.

But now NASA will solve it. they are good at it. Otherwise the Russians can do the Toyota Shuttling meanwhile?

Based on what "I have heard and read" I hold no opinion. I am an engineer and I know that I lack most of the information needed to have an opinion.

We, the 'public' simply do not have the factual information needed to support ANY supposition or hypothesis as to the root cause of the Toyota 'unintended acceleration' issue. We should remember Audi suffered a very similar epoch of 'unintended acceleration' some 20 years ago impacting their premium autos, effectively killing them. No factual cause was ever found. Driver error (putting foot on the accelerator instead of/while braking) was the agreed most likely cause. Location and 'feel feedback' to the operator is very subjective, but absolutely essential to error free discrimination of the two actuators by the operator. The 'feel' to the drivers foot MUST be significantly different so mistaking one for the other is all but impossible. That feel feedback' may ultimately be found the culprit--perhaps the Toyota Engineers did too good a job in smoothing the control feedback and making them both 'feel right.'

Having owned, maintained, and driven one of the most complex 'drive by wire' discrete computer autos ever (90-95 MBZ sl-600), I KNOW there are 'bugs' in every computer system incorporated in the modern autos. There are literally DOZENS of interlinked 'computers' and 'software' systems hidden in every function device/feature. All have 'bugs'. The real question is: Are the inevitable 'bugs' dangerous? Will they lead to accidents or injury to people? I have learned to live with --windshield washers stopping mid sweep if turning left and spinning/slipping a wheel in the turn--it 'scrambles both the antislip/antiskid traction control and the 'wipe speed adjusts with car speed' windshield wiper computer. Have to shut down and 'reboot' .

By the way, a current new popular large 'commuter jet' made in Canada has a 'bug' in the flight management computer system, sometimes requiring a complete shutdown of EVERYTHING on the plane (electrically DEAD requirement) then a restart (reboot) of the electronics. Be glad it does not seem to happen in flight, only when starting up everything first time in the morning--sometimes, so-far, we think, maybe.

I have seen a lot of plastic parts paired with metal parts and the plastic part round out or break making the metal parts useless