Toyota Motor Corp. says the gas pedal design in more than 4 million other Toyota and Lexus vehicles makes them vulnerable to being trapped open by floor mats, and on November 25, it announced a costly recall to fix the problem. But drivers are convinced the incident were not caused by a floor mat.

Amid widening concern over unintended acceleration events, including an August 28 crash near San Diego that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and his family, Toyota has repeatedly pointed to “floor mat entrapment” as the problem. But accounts from motorists, interviews with auto safety experts and a Times review of thousands of federal traffic safety incident reports all point to another potential cause: the electronic throttles that have replaced mechanical systems in recent years.

The Times found that complaints of sudden acceleration in many Toyota and Lexus vehicles shot up almost immediately after the automaker adopted the so-called drive-by-wire system over the last decade. That system uses sensors, microprocessors and electric motors — rather than a traditional link such as a steel cable — to connect the driver’s foot to the engine.

For some Toyota models, reports of unintended acceleration increased more than fivefold after drive-by-wire systems were adopted, according to the review of thousands of consumer complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

A Toyota spokesman said the automaker could not explain the trend. But Toyota has consistently held that electronic control systems, including drive-by-wire, are not to blame. However, unlike mechanical systems, electronic throttles — which have the look and feel of traditional gas pedals — are vulnerable to software glitches, manufacturing defects and electronic interference that could cause sudden acceleration, they say.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-toyota-throttle29-2009nov29,0,5254584.story?track=rss