> When the news first broke a few years ago, given Toyota's reputation for quality and process, I thought this was an American industry lead witch-hunt of a Japanese competitor. But if this testimony is correct, what Toyota engineers have done is unforgivable.
These two possibilities aren't mutually exclusive.
Software engineering practices aside, was it ever demonstrated that unintended acceleration could actually arise from the behavior of this software?
Yes, another part of Barr's testimony was a series of proof-of-concept demonstrations on the ECU to demonstrate the ability to kill tasks, leaving the hardware those tasks were controlling in unintended states.
>was it ever demonstrated that unintended acceleration could actually arise from the behavior of this software?
That's entirely the wrong question to ask. The correct question is "has the system design been proven to make it impossible for unintended acceleration to occur?"
These two possibilities aren't mutually exclusive.
Software engineering practices aside, was it ever demonstrated that unintended acceleration could actually arise from the behavior of this software?