Edmunds pledges $1 million prize for unintended acceleration research
Edmunds CEO Jeremy Anwyl claims his company has heard "compelling testimony" from customers, and much of what's been documented (including a 2006 forum on Toyota Sienna unintended acceleration) hasn't been addressed by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration investigations. The online vehicle information resource site says it's coming up with rules for a competition that will earn a lucky person (or more likely a group) $1 million for determining the true cause of Toyota's unintended acceleration woes. Anwyl compares the challenge to the 'open source' software challenge, adding "let's see if this kind of 'crowd sourcing' can work in the pressing area of automotive safety."
We're thinking there are quite a few technical schools out there that may want to offer extra credit for the win. Who wouldn't want to attend the institution that solved the unintended acceleration mystery? The cool million in prize money could buy a lot of band uniforms, too. We'll bring you more details on the contest as they become available.
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[Source: Edmunds]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Kyle 10:12AM (3/03/2010)
Toyota's poor quality control, zing!
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guerro 10:16AM (3/03/2010)
User error, Bazinga!
TigerMil 12:23PM (3/03/2010)
The real issue is going to be finding a car with a repeatable unintended acceleration.
Kind of like finding a virgin 21-year old in Washington, DC.
tekdemon 8:02PM (3/03/2010)
If most of the cases really turn out to be an Audi-repeat how is anybody going to be able to prove that to Edmunds unless they go and personally ride with like thousands of people or something?
skablaw 10:21AM (3/03/2010)
This is so ridiculous. Toyota should immediately start calling everyone at Edmunds' offices every two minutes demanding their $1 million for researching the unintended acceleration that they've already issued recalls for. What if someone pledged $1 million dollars for research into how much money various auto manufacturers have spent taking Edmunds employees out for dinner, or paying for hotel rooms on site at press events or test drives? I bet if you put up $1 million to investigate ANYONE, there's SOMEONE who can cook up a believable story to get their money and slander the subject.
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paul34 11:19AM (3/03/2010)
They're a private company. They can offer that kind of money for many things if they want... doesn't matter if it offends you. It's their money. I don't see anything illegal or unethical going on here.
Derek 11:50AM (3/03/2010)
Catch is the price is for "determining the true cause of Toyota's unintended acceleration"
Comon, sticky pedals, floor mat entrapment? Who really believed that. For starters, neither of those problems will cause unintended acceleration - they will cause the car to continue accelerating, but there is no way for either issue to cause the throttle to go further open then the driver pressed it, and a great many people are experiencing just that.
Now, if you are referring to the mysterious controller reflash that accompanies the "sticky pedal" recall, then you might have a point. But that would require Toyota to admit that the problem is software-based, which they have denied thus far.
skablaw 1:09PM (3/03/2010)
Maybe the Bush administration actually infected these cars with some kind of computer virus to make them go haywire back in the early 2000s to distract us from 9/11, but a coding error delayed the activation of the program so we're only now seeing the effects come to fruition. Isn't there a barrel of alien urine you're about to be outbid for over on eBay?
Toyota may not care about you and your family being thrown through the window of a Camry at 80mph, but they do care about selling cars. If some other cause was at the root of these problems, they would be fixing it because they know full well the consequences of lying about it now and dealing with another round of circus trials and bad press.
gerrrg 10:22AM (3/03/2010)
Crowd-sourcing works for lowering the cost of design and the so called ideation process, but solving a problem like this? I hope it doesn't end up bringing out the lunatic conspiracists from the fringes who hope to gain media popularity through false pretense.
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skablaw 1:11PM (3/03/2010)
Too late, gerrg. Just read the other posts from our fellow Autoblog readers here. The nut-jobs are out in force.
Polly Prissy Pants 10:30AM (3/03/2010)
A prize that will never be awarded.
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Epyx 10:42AM (3/03/2010)
Exactly - easy marketing. Edmunds is probably going to be mentioned on every news outlet reporting on this.
leftlaneabuse 10:47AM (3/03/2010)
Exactly. This is nothing more than Edmunds feeding off the carcass the media has taken down. Doubt they'll be getting invitations to exotic places where you are put up in 5 star hotels all on Toyota's tab to test their cars.
leftlaneabuse 10:48AM (3/03/2010)
Exactly. Damn, beat me to it.
bakka 10:31AM (3/03/2010)
The driver hit the accelerator instead of the brake???!!!
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SpecV 10:39AM (3/03/2010)
Is it intentional accelerating?
Kumar 10:41AM (3/03/2010)
Your check is in the mail - Edmunds ;)
dukeisduke 10:57AM (3/03/2010)
The winnah!
Seriously, there may be something that can be found, but if it's a software glitch in the ECU, it's probably going to be one of those once-in-a-million times kind of things that's hard to capture.
Wayno-san 10:41AM (3/03/2010)
It's no mystery; Toyota knows... guess they should get the million US$.
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Tourian 10:42AM (3/03/2010)
Interesting, but I don't see any good coming from it. Anybody who claims to have solved it will just have Toyota coming after them to discredit them, and sue them for slander or libel, whichever it is. And unless you have full access to the source code in Toyota ECUs I don't know how you could do it unless you rigged up a test like Gilbert did for ABC news, to which people have different opinions of wether his results are legit or not.
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