An investigation by NASA has cleared Toyota‘s electronics systems of causing the unintended acceleration phenomenon that was widely reported in 2010.

The Department of Transportation, who oversaw the investigation, released a statement claiming “NASA engineers found no electronic flaws in Toyota vehicles capable of producing the large throttle openings required to create dangerous high-speed unintended acceleration incidents.”

Although the report effectively vindicates Toyota’s claims that they were not at fault, the damage to the brand has been done, and is undoubtedly severe. Toyota recalled 8 million vehicles due to the scandal and paid nearly $50 million in regulatory fines.

[Source: The Wall Street Journal]

Ford’s European headquarters in Cologne, Germany has been raided by German officials as part of an investigation into a kickback scandal by the German prosecutors office.

While Ford itself is supposedly not the target of the investigation, employees at Ford have been implicated in the scandal, and Ford, as well as the German government are working to target these individuals.

Employees allegedly favored companies looking for contracts in exchange for “material advantages”.

[Source: Auto Observer]

Toyota has officially spoken out against allegations that it planted a story in the Wall Street Journal that absolved the company of an responsibility in their unintended acceleration scandal.

The mess began after The Wall Street Journal published a story citing “people familiar with” the investigation who claimed that the evidence pointed to driver error rather than mechanical or electronic failure on the part of Toyota cars.

Just-Auto, a UK based website, then delivered reports from unnamed NHTSA sources saying that the original story was planed by Toyota. Toyota denies any involvement in this incident, but says that independent research appears to exonerate them of any wrong doing. Us mere mortals will have to wait until the official report and its release in Late 2010 if we want to make heads or tails of this without clouding our minds with bias.

[Source: Just Auto]