plus 3, Toyota's troubles add notch to list of disputes - Detroit Free Press

Toyota's troubles add notch to list of disputes - Detroit Free Press
Toyota loses some luster in hometown over recalls - San Francisco Chronicle
Toyota says it will announce Prius action plan soon in response to ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune
Dead car brands - MSNBC

Toyota's troubles add notch to list of disputes - Detroit Free Press

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 02:15 PM PST

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Making an example of Toyota?

For an agency that's often dwarfed by the companies it regulates, NHTSA has to rely on suasion as much as its legal powers. Industry officials say the push back by regulators over Toyota's behavior in recent weeks may be an attempt to make an example that the rest of the industry would heed.

"It was not an uncommon occurrence for us to urge a company to do something," said Ricardo Martinez, who served as NHTSA's chief during the Clinton administration. "That is, unfortunately, the typical approach for some companies.

"The thing that is disappointing to me is that Toyota was once one of the more proactive companies."

Compared with the companies it regulates, NHTSA's resources are meager. It has 650 employees and an $850-million annual budget. Besides crash tests, safety research and public campaigns against drunken driving, its Office of Defect Investigations oversaw 608 recalls of faulty vehicles, parts and tires last year, ranging from mopeds to Mack trucks.

With limited resources, NHTSA must rely on manufacturers to police themselves to a large degree; for any given defect, studies have shown the agency gets only 10% of the complaints generated by consumers, with the rest sent to automakers.

Of last year's recalls, just 179, or 29%, were spurred by a NHTSA probe, either based on customer complaints or testing. The rest were launched by manufacturers without government action.

Stalling recalls

Automakers regularly work the agency's probes; they try to limit the scope of investigations, question what the data show and argue for the smallest recalls necessary. There's also a typical revolving door of people moving from the agency to the industry.

But in recent years, automakers have avoided fighting NHTSA head on, often attempting to minimize recalls by jumping on problems quickly rather than letting them build to involve millions of vehicles.

"Manufacturers don't want to do a recall if it's a lot of vehicles or a lot of money," said Joan Claybrook, NHTSA chief during the Carter administration. But if the agency launches a probe into a safety issue, "the company knows they're going to eventually figure it out."

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Toyota loses some luster in hometown over recalls - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 01:46 PM PST

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Rising out of the barren winter rice fields of central Japan, this city of 400,000 people is probably the most Toyota-friendly place on the planet. Renamed after the company 51 years ago, it hosts the corporate headquarters as well as enormous factories and is beholden to the automaker for tens of thousands of jobs and the bulk of its tax income.

Residents say they, like the rest of the world, were surprised by the safety problems that have led to a mass recall of Toyota vehicles. But it was the company's response that was more shocking — the global icon came across as dithering and unprepared.

"Maybe Toyota isn't any different from ordinary companies," said Akari Mizunaga, who works at a local trading company which depends on Toyota for much of its business. She spoke while killing time at a cafe before an English lesson.

As the company grew in the 1930s from its roots as a producer of mechanical looms, it has transformed the formerly rural town into a thriving municipality. Toyota dealerships are strung along the city's main street, and the automaker's curly T logo is everywhere — on cars, signs and buildings.

"You can't really separate the town from the company," said Hideki Nagata, who works independently in auto repair. "And now there is this sense of — are we OK?"

None of the people interviewed in Toyota said they would hesitate to buy one of the company's vehicles in the future, and several said they thought the automaker would now work harder to ensure quality. But there was a palpable disappointment in the way it had handled the recent safety concerns, almost as if let down by a relative.

Akio Toyoda, who took over the company in June, is a grandson of Toyota's founder and was seen as a charismatic choice that would lead it back from deep losses incurred during the global economic slump.

But the company's leader kept a low profile after Toyota announced a recall last month to fix defective gas pedals in a number of its mainline models that could cause sudden acceleration. Together with earlier recalls, that has covered over 7 million cars in the U.S., Europe and China.

Toyoda was briefly cornered for an interview by a Japanese TV crew a week later in Switzerland, then finally gave a press conference on Friday, which was widely panned by Japanese media as belated and unconvincing.

The company name is spelled and pronounced differently from the founding family name because Toyota is written in Japanese script with eight brush strokes, considered luckier than the 10 required for the family name.

Toyota's problems have even spread to the prized Prius hybrid after complaints in the United States and Japan about problems with its complex braking system. The quality issues threaten two of the company's core assets — its sterling reputation for reliability and safety, and its world-beating technology.

In the company museum at corporate headquarters — where the address is 1 Toyota Town — there is nothing subtle about the safety message. Main exhibits are devoted to subjects like "Active Safety,""Passive Safety," and "Intelligent Safety." A large room in a prime location next to the entrance is devoted to the hybrid, with a dissected, flashing Prius demonstrating how it works.

Kazuhide Ueyama, 54, visited the museum Saturday on a tour from his home in Osaka, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

"This trip was planned before these problems came up, but everyone was talking about it on the bus over here," he said, referring to the recall woes. "I have no doubt they will deal with the problems firmly, but it does raise some questions."

The city, 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Tokyo, has suffered in the latest global downturn along with the company, which cut temporary workers at its Japan plants to 3,000 workers at the end of last fiscal year from 9,000 a year earlier.

Toyota struggled to its first annual loss in nearly 60 years last fiscal year, and as its tax payments fell the city budget shrunk, leading to cuts in municipal services.

Despite the loss, many point to the company's strong financial standing. Unlike competitors in the U.S., the company boasts solid finances — a report from investment research firm Morningstar on Jan. 27 after the gas pedal problems came to light called Toyota's balance sheet "fortress-like."

Last week Toyota said it would become profitable again in the current fiscal year through March, after earlier forecasting more deep losses. It now expects a profit of 80 billion yen ($890 million), versus an earlier projection for a 200 billion yen loss. But that was without any potential costs from the latest Prius problems factored in.

Until the recent safety issues, the company was seen by some as more creditworthy than the Japanese government. On Friday, however, ratings agency Standard & Poor's Ratings Services put Toyota under review for a possible downgrade.

Jun Morikawa, who works at a company that transports car parts for Toyota, was among many who voiced concern about the recalls and the financial implications.

"The company just managed to get into the black, and now it looks like it might fall back into the red," he said.

For many Japanese, Toyota is a source of pride because of the legend of its success — from when its founders tore apart a Chrysler in 1933 to see how it worked, to the company eventually passing General Motors Co. and becoming the No. 1 automaker in the world two years ago.

Now the fear in Toyota is that the company's recent stumbles could see it lose the top spot.

"This is a chance for American companies like GM, who could catch up," said Ueyama.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Toyota says it will announce Prius action plan soon in response to ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 02:29 PM PST

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Toyota's response to the safety issues has drawn the attention of U.S. politicians. Toyota Motor North America Chairman and CEO Yoshi Inaba will appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Wednesday, as will Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Administrator David Strickland, the committee chairman announced Sunday.

"There appears to be growing public concern regarding which Toyota vehicles may be problematic and how people should respond," Chairman Edolphus Towns(D-NY)said in a statement. "Consumers want to know whether their cars are safe to drive and, if not, they need to know what to do about it."

A key committee member has asked that transportation officials who served under former President George W. Bush also appear.

Besides a full-fledged safety recall, the company could simply ask owners to bring in their vehicles for repairs, since the brakes are not failing completely. The Yomiuri newspaper, however, said that Toyota decided on the more serious step of a recall for the Prius to give priority to restoring consumer trust.

Toyota has acknowledged receiving dozens of complaints about the Prius in Japan, where there is high-level government concern about Toyota's quality problems. Cabinet ministers have expressed alarm and urged the company to move more quickly to ease consumer worries.

Media criticism of Toyota has intensified since a news conference on Friday by Toyota President Akio Toyoda in which he offered an apology for the defects, but few details about what the automaker would do about the Prius.

The reports said the new Prius model was released in May, and more than 300,000 have been sold in about 60 countries and territories.

Toyota plans to resume production Monday at U.S. factories that make the eight models recalled for sticky gas pedal systems, spokesman Brian Lyons said in an e-mail Sunday. The production halt involved the RAV4 crossover, Corolla, Matrix hatchback, Avalon, Camry, Highlander crossover, Tundra pickup and the 2008-10 Sequoia SUV.

___

Associated Press writers Yuri Kageyama and Jay Alabaster in Tokyo, Ken Thomas in Washington, and AP Auto writers Dee-Ann Durbin and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Dead car brands - MSNBC

Posted: 07 Feb 2010 11:08 AM PST

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

TOYOTA, Japan - Even in its hometown, the great automaker has lost some of its mystique.

"You can't really separate the town from the company," said Hideki Nagata, who works independently in auto repair. "And now there is this sense of — are we OK?"

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.