A Big Game
In the coming era of electric cars, everybody will surely start to build his own car in his garage with simple parts and a power source battery purchased at a nearby supermarket, since the battery can be charged from a power outlet at home.
Yet, as long as economy depends on cars, the Kingdom of God will not come on the earth. We had better go back to the era of agriculture-based economy to start over.
SECTION I: Mr. Akio Toyoda Live on Larry King Show
Everybody concerned in Japan was watching CNN Larry King Show where the Toyota President made appearance live on a cable TV channel.
Mr. Larry King asked, "What car do you have and drive?"
Mr. Akio Toyoda answered, "I drive various cars. I drive 200 different cars per year. I love cars very much."
However, the issue is the electronic throttle control, a sort of fly-by-wire.
Mr. Toyoda said he is not an engineer, but he should have been.
Based on my own experience in working in an electronic engineering field, I do not like the idea of the electronic throttle control.
What an electronic circuit designer should mind before completion of his design work is how much his design can withstand malfunction caused by various factors.
The principle is that an engineer should take every measure known as effective to possible troubles known so far.
But, if he tries to take a new measure to a new type of possible trouble which has not been known, he must justify the need, integrity, and costs of taking the new measure. The burden to prove the need for a new measure to company's management is sometimes huge enough to squash an ambition of an engineer.
And, in a company such as Toyota so much dedicated to cost reduction, it will be very hard for an engineer who has found a new possible problem to persuade management to implement a new costly measure for a case that is expected to happen once in 1,000,000 to 100,000 occasions of any sort.
The electronic throttle control circuits can malfunction when an abnormal voltage change occurs, an electric noise occurs, a too high temperature due to heat occurs, a too strong radio wave comes in, etc.
So, Toyota should mount at least three electronic control units (ECUs) for safety. But, they have equipped their car with only two ECUs for prioritizing deceleration over acceleration in case of collision of the two requests. This cannot be even judged to be sufficient according to U.S. Military Specifications and Standards, in my guess, which must support a full majority-rule system.
However, car driving itself is a very rough action in a rough situation. Usually, malfunction in electronic circuits and software processing which happens in several milliseconds can be also corrected or superseded favorably in several milliseconds.
In short, an ECU can malfunction once in every 100 micro-seconds while processing hundreds of software routines without causing an apparent trouble outwardly, which no one can prove or deny since it is an event in the micro-second or milli-second sphere driven by a small amount of voltage and current which can fluctuate at any moment in a rough state.
Toyota should offer a non-ECU version for every model it sells.
And, Toyota should pay heartful money in whatever term to every family whose member is killed in an accident involving a TOYOTA car, so as to avoid the Japan bashing.
Finally, Mr. Toyoda had better stop driving 200 different (expensive) cars per year but go to farming land to work under the sun like a man who can laugh like a hero at a president of a car maker.
SECTION II TOYODA'S TOYOTA
A great grandfather of Mr. Akio Toyoda is Sakichi Toyoda (1867-1930).
It is very symbolic that the great inventor of textile weaving loom in Japan was born one year before the end of the samurai era and one year after the start of the Great Depression.
Sakichi Toyoda visited Europe and America in 1910 to be highly amazed at developed technology in the Western world. But, he was also convinced that his invention was also of a world class.
In 1921, his company advanced to Shanghai, China, and exported plant facilities to India in 1929.
However, Sakichi Toyoda was born as a son of a poor carpenter. After graduating from an elementary school, Sakichi Toyoda became a poor carpenter himself. But, he wanted to save poor people in his village, so that he started to learn by himself subscribing newspapers published in Tokyo. Then, he found that it was not only his village but whole Japan that was poor. He decided to make Japan prosperous, as he came to love Japan, through his own invention which was actually a new loom.
His son, Kiichi Toyoda, namely a grandfather of Mr. Akio Toyoda, became the second president of Toyota Motor Corporation in 1941.
His grandson, Mr. Shoichiro Toyoda became the sixth president of Toyota Motor Corporation in 1981.
His great grandson, namely Mr. Akio Toyoda, became the 11th president of Toyota Motor Corporation in 2009.
Today, Toyota Group, with its headquarters in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, has a workforce of total 320,000 employees on a consolidated basis.
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The last place where you can meet Jesus Christ must be a car.
It is so, since it is impossible to imagine what car Jesus Christ will choose to drive.
It is also strange that a coach was not widely used in Japan before its Westernization in late 19th century, though horses were common in villages since ancient days.
A car consists of virtually every element of the modern civilization, namely iron, plastics, chemicals, mechanics, electronics, etc. You had better place the Bible in your car to make it complete.
Luk 2:25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
Luk 2:26 And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ.