Toyota finds no flaw with safety electronic system

Gilbert said he planned to visit Exponent’s test facilities next week and expected to complete a review of the information it had presented in the next few weeks.

“I am pleased that further examination of these safety and acceleration issues is taking place, and I look forward to participating in this process,” he said in an email to Reuters.

Toyota is facing dozens of lawsuits stemming from its recalls and both sides in that litigation have been working to line up expert witnesses.

Gilbert has received some funding from the Safety Research and Strategies, a safety advocacy that has in turn taken funding from trial lawyers with cases pending against Toyota.

For its part, Toyota has hired Exponent and has provided financial assistance to Stanford’s auto safety center.

Toyota and Exponent said they were continuing to test other explanations for unintended acceleration that would go beyond the problems it has identified.

Separately on Monday, a Flint, Michigan area judge ordered Toyota’s top two U.S. executives -- Yoshimi Inaba and Jim Lentz -- to appear for questioning for lawyers for the family of a woman who was killed in a Camry crash in 2008.

Guadalope Alberto died when her 2005 Camry surged out of control. Her family is suing Toyota. Lawyers for Toyota had argued that lower-level executives should be allowed to answer questions from Alberto’s lawyer, but the judge ordered Lentz and Inaba to appear, said Hike Heiskell, a lawyer for the Alberto family.

Also on Monday, Rep. Edolphus Towns, a New York Democrat who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asked Toyota to turn over a letter Toyota employees in Japan sent to management in 2006 detailing safety concerns. Towns made the request in a letter sent on Monday.

The October 2006 letter, addressed to then-president Katsuaki Watanabe from a splinter union called the All Toyota Labour Union in the wake of a recall scandal in Japan, had warned that a failure to address quality concerns could ultimately threaten the company’s survival.

Among the causes of the quality slippage, the group blamed the fall in the number of experienced staff in favour of contract workers, the longer working hours and the aggressive pursuit of cost reductions.

The letter appeared on the 20-member union’s website.

Toyota had no immediate comment.