The company agreed in 2014 to replace the inverters under an extended warranty coverage if they did fail, but chose not to replace all of the inverters with a newer design that was released at some point in 2014.

Siegel dismissed the software fix as a strategy that saved Toyota billions of dollars, telling the jury, “If you drop your iPhone and crack the screen, you are not going to plug it in and get a software fix.”

The company originally asserted that the software fix was intended to both prevent the failure of the inverters and assure the safety of the vehicle occupants
if the inverters did fail by allowing the car to enter into a “limp home” mode that would travel at somewhere around 15 mph.
But Hogan and some vehicle owners asserted that the inverters failed without entering limp home.