Toyota not close to releasing results of unintended acceleration recalls

Toyota said today that it has no plans to release the results of its investigation into complaints of unintended acceleration until the government finishes its own study. Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said that the Japanese automaker is “not anyhwere near close” to drawing a conclusion form its investigation of more than 2,000 complaints about unintended acceleration.

Several government agencies, including NASA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, are still conducting their own investigation into complaints of unintended acceleration.

“It’s important to allow others … to complete their investigations without our findings providing any sort of influence,” Michels said.

It was recently reported that some of the recall issues the company faced may have been due to driver error, according to studies done by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Michels said that Toyota has found no evidence of malfunctioning electronic throttle systems. Nearly all of the crashes in the instances resulted from “pedal misapplication,” meaning the driver mistakenly pressed the accelerator instead of the brake, he said.

“We”re not implying that everything is driver error, absolutely not,” he said. “But in instances where they reported having their foot on the brake pedal, there is very clear evidence that this is pedal misapplication.”

Stay tuned for more info.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: MSNBC, NYT