Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to answer the last question first by saying we have 100% confidence in the remedies we've put in place with respect to both the floor mats and the pedal assembly. Again, I'd be happy, either during the committee or later, to take members through what exactly those remedies are, just by way of demonstration.
It's also important to go back in time and look at the NHTSA database, as you and your colleagues have done, but also to compare it to that of Transport Canada. One of the significant differences between the United States and Canada is that the NHTSA database is based on a customer questionnaire. It is not based on a set of verified incidents. It is simply reporting onto their website. By contrast, what you've received from Transport Canada is a significantly different quality of data. Transport looks into those complaints and attempts to verify what has been going on. In many cases those complaints come nowhere near the manufacturer but are handled by Transport Canada investigators.
During the period you talked about, early in the decade, typically the vehicles, particularly in our lineup, that would have been affected had mechanical throttle assemblies. Historically, for the automobile, where you had those throttle cables and mechanical linkages, you tended to get binding and seizing of the system. That is a well-known mechanical defect in the system. In fact, here in Canada, with the salt conditions and other climatic conditions that we have in place, perhaps the problem is potentially worse with those mechanical linkages. The movement to electronic throttle control eliminates those mechanical linkages and takes that problem away.
When I look at the NHTSA database, roughly 40% of all of the recalls in the United States for unintended acceleration—and I'm seeing 12 manufacturers affected by that—involved cable-binding incidents. As I said, when we move to the new technologies, that goes away.
We have looked at our own warranty data. We've given it to a third-party engineering firm to look at Toyota Canada warranty data. Our warranties do not show any problems that have occurred as a result of moving to the electronic throttle control. So we're very confident in that new technology for solving that particular issue.