What surprised me in this story is that the problem has been narrowed down to one supplier of the accelerator assembly. The cars with the assembly made by another parts supplier aren't affected.

If it's true that the problem is strictly components from one of two suppliers, then the problem is build quality, not engineering. Obviously, the components passed all of Toyota's quality control tests. Guess they will be implementing another test soon.

Because of the way this thing is being handled, I'm not 100% sure that only the one supplier truly has the problem. If the other supplier was perfect, why can't they just put the parts from the second supplier in to keep the factories running? In answer to my own question, probably that supplier doesn't have any more capacity to build more of these assemblies.

What's embarrassing is the supplier factory in question is in Mississauga Ont.