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Toyota welcomes recall verdict

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaks at a press conference to release results from the 10-month study.

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration - which is as close to God as bureaucratically possible - has teamed up with NASA - also known to fly close to God - and dumped on accusers who have tried to sue Toyota for sticky accelerator pedals.

After a 10-month investigation requested by Congress, the two authorities has found no evidence of electronic problems in runaway Toyotas.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood yesterday released a statement saying: "The jury is back. The verdict is in. There is no electronic-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyotas. Period".

NASA examined more than 280,000 separate lines of code embedded in the electronics of potentially affected Toyotas. None contained any flaws capable of causing runaway acceleration, says the report.

Toyota in 2010 was the only major carmaker to report falling sales and some blame on the result has been put on the recall crisis. Its 2010 sales fell 0.4 per cent as the total US market grew 11.1 per cent. In January this year, Toyota sales lifted to equal growth of other carmakers but this was achieved by heavy discounting.

US officials have been investigating 89 deaths that may be associated with sudden acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles. Authorities have definitively linked only a few of the fatalities to the problem, including four deaths in a Lexus in California in August 2009 that was blamed on a jammed floor mat.

Though this week's reprieve is a relief for Toyota, the company isn't completely of the hook.

"Our conclusion - that Toyota's problems were mechanical, not electrical - come after one of the most exhaustive, thorough and intensive research efforts ever undertaken," says LaHood.

The "mechanical problems" - that is, sticky accelerator pedals and pedals that got trapped under faulty floor mats - "remain the only known causes for these kind of unsafe unintended acceleration incidents", says the NHTSA.

Now it's up to how the courts and the public view the findings.

Toyota says it "welcomed" the findings and "appreciate the thoroughness of their review".

"We believe this rigorous scientific analysis by some of America's foremost engineers should further reinforce confidence in the safety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles," Toyota says. "We hope this important study will help put to rest unsupported speculation about Toyota's ETCS-i (electronic throttle system), which is well-designed and well-tested to ensure that a real world, un-commanded acceleration of the vehicle cannot occur."

The findings also support Toyota's position that it had identified and fixed the only known safety problems related to two massive recalls in 2009 and 2010. The NHTSA now says driver error may be behind many complaints.