In fact the evidence looks just like this situation with the Cybertruck. So getting back to the confirmation of priors point: it's telling that you view one as a "conspiracy" and the other as The Truth.
The floor mats were blamed, but in at least a couple of these cases, it was found that the occupant claimed to have hit the brakes, but actually hit the accelerator.
There is also a staggering number of “two foot drivers” out there.
Incidentally, my sunfire also had the issue of the pedal getting stuck on the floor mat, and more than once I had to press in the clutch cause the pedal got stuck.
The focus on toyota those years always stood out as a hit job to me (and that was a time when I generally disliked Japanese cars cause I was young and impressionable).
You're saying that it may not have been the cause of an accident. Which may be true, but (1) isn't evidence that there wasn't a clear design flaw and (2) is also true of the Cybertruck, which hasn't had any reported mishaps at all.
Yet to you the Toyota thing was a "hit job" where this isn't? It's 100% symmetric, so why the difference in interpretation? I mean, we know why. But "because Elon" makes for poor logic.
The mats were a hit job because most of the cases were not actually the mats, and one company was getting a hard focus for this issue when it was prevalent in many different brands.
The cybertruck is not a hit job because this is just another in the laughing stock line of quality control and design issues from a company known for it.
I don't see Porsche's, Hellcat's, and BMW's having issues with something that has been a resolved non-issue for decades at this point.
I too "find it within the realm of acceptable that a $30,000 car would have issues that should absolutely not be present on a $100,000 car". If, say, a plastic piece on the dashboard tends to develop an unsightly crack over time, that's more ok for a $30k car than for a $100k car.
But some design issues should be present on no car; not a $30k car, not a $100k car, not a $5k car. "The car sometimes accelerates on its own" is one of these.
And I will preface this by saying that Audi isn't without fault either, but my also $100Kish RS 5 has in two years had two issues: a battery failure (determined to be a battery fault, not a vehicle fault), and improper drainage in one of the doors, leading to an accumulation of water, that had a tech advisory to add an additional drainage hole.
Looks like they've recalled almost 1 million vehicles and have tried multiple times to address the issue.
https://bimmers.com/blog/pcv-valve-heater-recall-explained/
I don't know enough if that meets your requirement of "something that has been a resolved non-issue for decades at this point" but it's something that BMW has apparently been trying and failing to fix for awhile now.
I have higher expectations for my poorly made death machines.