Toyota Sudden Acceleration: The Story Unfolds |

The Safety Record: "EMI expert Keith Armstrong has staked a position that EMI and/or a series of other factors could cause undetectable short-circuits and faults capable of triggering an SUA event. Armstrong also enumerated the possibilities of malfunctions caused by lead-free soldering that leads to a well-known phenomenon called “tin whiskers.” The elimination of lead for environmental purposes means that solder is now mostly tin:

“All sorts of new possibilities arise for short-circuits and open-circuits, and intermittent shorts and opens, mainly on printed circuit boards (PCBs) and mainly associated with small-footprint integrated circuits (ICs), especially ball-grid arrays (BGAs). These will grow out of soldered joints and can contact other conductors, causing short-circuits between PCB copper traces and the pins of connectors.”

The tin can also exude microscopically thin “whiskers” which can carry enough current to short-out electronics, Armstrong says."