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It's the oldest excuse in the book. Plagued by ‘unexpected acceleration' problems in your usually reliable automobiles? Already issued a comprehensive recall? American media still on your back?
Blame the aliens.
OK, not aliens exactly. Cosmic rays. Toyota has - and we're really, really not making this up - called in NASA's engineering team to investigate whether cosmic rays could have been responsible for the mysterious ‘stuck accelerator' scandal that has plagued the manufacturer in recent months.
Cosmic rays. Rays from space. It sounds, frankly, a bit mental... but it might not be.
Many suspect that Toyota's accelerator glitches have been caused by electronic problems, and one well-documented - albeit rare - cause of electronic problems is when cosmic radiation hits electronic chips. Remember the Qantas plane nearly-crash?
The risk of cosmic ray interference is expected to increase as chips and circuits get smaller.
In a worryingly prescient interview with the BBC a couple of years ago, Intel's senior scientist Eric Hannah predicted the whole thing.
"You could be going down the autobahn at 200 miles an hour and suddenly discover your anti-lock braking system doesn't work because it had a cosmic ray event," Hannah said in 2008. "It's strange, but this is the reality we're moving into as we get smaller and smaller circuits."
Spooky, eh? NASA is due to report on its Toyota findings in late summer. Martian lawyers, prepare your defence case.
Sam Philip
Open Car Bar
What do you think?
Want to comment on this?
alanlo commented on this article
at 12:19 pm on 14 April 2010
Pretty wild!
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Showie commented on this article
at 12:59 pm on 14 April 2010
so, if we put all the electronic circuit boards and processors in a black box.. would that be able to stop the rays, given the box is indestructible and i'd say not a lot would get through it for that reason too...
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Bobs commented on this article
at 01:30 pm on 14 April 2010
Wow, imagine if this turns out to be true.
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scottneal commented on this article
at 01:42 pm on 14 April 2010
Now Michael Schumacher can blame his lack of winning on 'cosmic rays'. Yes. Completely believable.
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speed-king commented on this article
at 02:00 pm on 14 April 2010
the thought of driving a supercar with "drive by wire" on the autobahn at 200 mph and having a stuck accelerator or brake pedal is a terrifying thing. Please tell me its not true.
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