NHTSA Complaint #11497982 — 2019 TOYOTA SIENNA

I was traveling on the Capital Beltway (495) during morning rush-hour in my 2019 Toyota Sienna Minivan. Normal Road Conditions: Stop & Go traffic in the right-most lane around 9:30am on December 14, 2022. All of a sudden and without warning, when attempting to accelerate and keep up with traffic after the vehicle was stopped, I found that I was unable to move forward. (There was no indication that my vehicle was suffering from mechanical failure prior to this incident and no visible alert or alarm was triggered) At that point, I powered down the vehicle after turning on the hazard indicator lights. After re-engaging the ignition, I then tried to move forward, and found the vehicle to be unresponsive. A tractor trailer was directly in back of me and was inching closer as to keep up with the rush-hour traffic. I was immovable at that moment and waived the truck around. After finding a break in traffic, I attempted to move out of the right-most lane, but with the transmission not responding to the Drive function, found that my only course of action was to to engage Reverse and move to the Right shoulder of the highway. I then notified triple A and my vehicle was towed to a local garage for evaluation. Upon initial evaluation is was determined that it was either related to where the shift cable goes in to the transmission, or complete transmission failure. It is highly unusual for a Toyota transmission to fail at 71.000 miles (odometer reading at the time of the incident). I currently have two other Toyota vehicles with odometer reading in excess of 140,000 miles. I am concerned for the safety of my family and myself, as this is the primary vehicle used for transport. A 3 year old car with less than 100,000 miles should not suffer from transmission failure. This is a major safety concern. What if this happened and I was not in stop and go traffic or already in the slow lane, on a major highway?