Toyota City, Japan, July 1, 2020―Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) announced today that it has developed a new Acceleration Suppression System, in addition to its existing system, to help further deter serious accidents and reduce damage caused by misapplication of the accelerator pedal. On July 1, Toyota launched this system as “Plus Support” for new cars and added the function in the “Pedal Misapplication Acceleration Control System II” retrofit device for use with existing cars.
In 2012, Toyota introduced Intelligent Clearance Sonar (ICS) for new vehicles and since 2018, had launched a retrofit “Pedal Misapplication Acceleration Control System” for existing vehicles.
These existing systems help prevent accidents caused by accelerator pedal misapplication when sensors detect obstacles such as a wall or glass. According to data confirmed by Toyota, ICS helps prevent roughly 70 percent of all potential accidents that could occur due to accelerator pedal misapplication. However, new technologies needed to be developed to reduce the remaining number of accidents, including accidents in situations where obstacles are absent.
At the development phase this time, Toyota first looked at actual accidents where the cause was determined to be accelerator pedal misapplication, particularly analyzing situations where the accelerator pedal was pressed fully. The characteristics of these situations were then compared with big data collected from Toyota’s connected vehicles. By eliminating instances where it was determined that drivers were genuinely required to rapidly accelerate intentionally, such as when turning right or accelerating from a temporary stop, Toyota was able to identify and compute instances of accelerator pedal misapplication. In turn, this allowed for a function setting to reduce the number of accidents caused by accelerator pedal misapplication by controlling acceleration even in the absence of obstacles.
Further information regarding Plus Support and Pedal Misapplication Acceleration Control System II that offer the Acceleration Suppression Function is as follows.