Sweet Jesus: Toyota suspends sales of...well, pretty much everything they sell.

[elspaniard]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/toyota-suspends-sales-of-_n_437769.html

WASHINGTON — Toyota suspended U.S. sales of some of its most popular vehicles – including the best-selling car in America, the Camry – to fix sticking gas pedals that could make the cars accelerate without warning.

In another blow to the world's No. 1 automaker, Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it would halt some production at six assembly plants beginning the week of Feb. 1 "to assess and coordinate activities."

The company said it would stop selling eight models of cars and trucks, a significant portion of its fleet. The suspension comes after a recall of the same models last week involving 2.3 million vehicles.

Toyota has said it was unaware of any accidents or injuries due to the pedal problems associated with the recall, but could not rule them out for sure.

"This action is necessary until a remedy is finalized," said Bob Carter, Toyota's group vice president and general manager.

The Japanese automaker said the sales suspension includes the following models: the 2009-2010 RAV4, the 2009-2010 Corolla, the 2007-2010 Camry, the 2009-2010 Matrix, the 2005-2010 Avalon, the 2010 Highlander, the 2007-2010 Tundra and the 2008-2010 Sequoia.

Some dealers suggested taking vehicles to dealerships for inspections if people have safety concerns.

Aaron Bragman, an auto analyst for the consulting firm IHS Global Insight in Troy, Mich., said Toyota typically sells about 65,000 Camrys and Corollas a month, and the frozen sales could strike at the company's bottom line and reputation for quality.

Thank Christ the Mrs. and I didn't buy that Camry we were looking at last year

[Jad]

good god.  Somewhere out there Ford is loving this.

[Synth]

I miss my Camry

[Jad]

yeah, given Toyota's knack for standardization across all models, this is going to be Big McLargeHuge for them.

[Newsposter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/business/30toyota.html

DETROIT — Toyota said Friday that its recall of eight models in Europe could include up to 1.8 million cars, pushing the total number of vehicles affected by problems with floor mats or gas pedals to more than 9 million worldwide.

That is nearly as many vehicles as was sold by all automakers in the United States in 2009.

In his first public comment since the latest recalls, Toyota’s chief executive, Akio Toyoda apologized for the situation. “I am deeply sorry,” he said in a brief interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Mr. Toyoda told the Japanese television network NKH that he could not answer specific questions about the recall because an investigation was under way.

“We’re extremely sorry to have made customers uneasy,” Mr. Toyoda said, according to a translation provided by NHK. “We plan to establish the facts and give an explanation that will restore confidence as soon as possible.”

“Truly, we think of our customers as a priority and we guarantee their safety,” Mr. Toyoda said. He was seen driving off in a black Audi, according to ABC News.

In Washington on Friday, the Congressional inquiries into Toyota’s problems with accelerator pedals on its vehicles widened, when a second House committee said it would hold hearings into whether the situation endangered public safety.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said it tentatively planned a hearing next Thursday into the question, “Toyota Gas Pedals: Is the Public At Risk?” This past week, the committee gained attention for a tense session in which the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, was questioned about the federal banking bailout.

The oversight panel’s hearing is in addition to a session, scheduled later in February, by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Consumer Reports magazine said Friday that it was temporarily suspending its recommendations on eight Toyota vehicles, as well as the Pontiac Vibe, which shares components with the Toyota Matrix. The magazine advised shoppers to wait for Toyota to devise repairs before buying its cars.

Toyota has stopped selling eight models involved in one of its two recalls, and plans to temporarily cease production of vehicles affected by the recalls at plants in the United States and Canada next week, although production of models not involved in the recalls will continue.

In the United States, about 2.3 million cars are affected by the accelerator pedal could wear down and become difficult to depress, slow to spring back or get stuck partly depressed. And some 5 million cars have a design flaw that could cause the gas pedal to become trapped under the floor mat.

Jake Fisher, a senior automotive engineer with Consumer Reports, said the situation was the most serious Toyota had faced in its half-century in the United States.

“There’s been some cracks in the armor, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything to this magnitude,” Mr. Fisher said. “We’ve never seen multiple production lines shut down. If you go to a Toyota dealer right now, they can’t sell you a Camry, they can’t sell you a Corolla or a Highlander.”

With the involvement of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Toyota faced the most publicized investigation in the industry since problems with Firestone tires on Ford Explorers and other vehicles early last decade.

The committee announced that it would hold a hearing on Feb. 25 to examine consumer complaints about sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles.

In letters to the company and to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, the committee’s chairman, Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, asked to see documentation from Toyota and the agency on when they first learned about potential safety defects, as well as actions they had taken to investigate and resolve them.

The committee also asked for data on the agency’s investigation of consumer complaints and Toyota’s response to the complaints. “Like many consumers, I am concerned by the seriousness and scope of Toyota’s recent recall announcements,” Mr. Waxman said in a statement.

Toyota said it welcomed the opportunity to appear before the committee and pledged its full cooperation. “Helping ensure the safety of our customers and restoring confidence in Toyota are very important to our company,” said a spokeswoman, Martha Voss.

The chairman of the committee’s panel on oversight and investigations, Bart Stupak, a Democrat of Michigan, said meetings between the committee’s staff and Toyota on Wednesday had been helpful, but he said the lawmakers continued to have questions about the Toyota recalls.

The committee said sudden unintended acceleration in all Toyota vehicles had resulted in 19 deaths in the United States over the last decade. That is nearly twice the number of deaths associated with similar events in cars built by all other automakers combined.

The company that makes the pedals, the CTS Corporation, has already started shipping replacements to Toyota plants, and Toyota said on Thursday that it was working with the manufacturer to develop and test modifications for existing vehicles.

In Europe, the models in the recall include the Aygo, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, Avensis, and RAV4. In China, the recall includes about 75,000 RAV4 sport utility vehicles made in 2009-10, the Chinese government’s product safety watchdog said on its Web site.

In addition, the Ford Motor Company said Thursday that it had stopped production of some commercial vehicles in China because they used the same accelerator pedals built by CTS, based in Elkhart, Ind., the supplier whose products led to Toyota’s recent recall.

Over the last three decades, Toyota has risen to become the world’s biggest carmaker and second-biggest in the United States, in part because of the loyalty of its buyers, who became evangelists for the automaker’s vehicles. “A lot of Toyota buyers never set foot in a competitor’s dealership,” Mr. Fisher said.

The company’s image was also helped within the business community by its management philosophy, which stressed continuous improvement and a production system that allowed workers to slow or stop the assembly line if problems arose.

Kevin L. Meyer, president of the Factory Strategies Group in Morro Bay, Calif., who has studied the company for more than 15 years, said he became concerned in 2007 when Toyota recalled its Lexus ES 350 and Toyota Camry for sudden unintended acceleration, but did not seem to follow up with other vehicles.

In this case, he said it was not clear to him and other students of Toyota whether the company’s latest efforts were in line with its operating philosophies, or simply a bid at damage control.

“I think that’s the big debate right now,” Mr. Meyer said. “Is Toyota going back to its roots and protecting consumers because it is the right thing to do? Or are they doing it because of legal considerations?”

John Paul MacDuffie, a management professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said the public reaction to the recalls demonstrated that Toyota had to take major steps to address the problem — “the corporate equivalent of stopping the line,” he said.

“Reputations take a long time to build up and they can be damaged quickly,” he added. “Right now it’s all very chaotic, and it looks pretty bad.”

[Newsposter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/business/global/06toyota.html

NAGOYA, JAPAN — The president of Toyota apologized at a hastily arranged news conference Friday night for the quality problems that led to the recall of more than nine million cars worldwide.

He also pledged that the Japanese automaker would soon announce steps to address brake problems on the 2010 Prius.

Akio Toyoda, grandson of Toyota’s founder, spoke in his first formal remarks since the uproar enveloping his company, the world’s largest automaker, and took personal responsibility for the problems.

“I deeply regret that I caused concern among so many people,” Mr. Toyoda said. “We will do our utmost to regain the trust of our customers.”

Asked whether Toyota had underestimated the situation, Mr. Toyoda said, “I believe what is happening now is a very big problem. We are in a crisis.”

Mr. Toyoda also apologized to shareholders for the fall in the company’s share price. The company’s stock has dropped about 20 percent in the last two weeks.

He said a committee would be set up to look at quality issues. With his comments, he became the second successive Toyota president to apologize for defects on the company’s cars — and the second to assemble a committee to address them.

In 2006, his predecessor, Katsuaki Watanabe, shocked onlookers by bowing low at a news conference and vowing Toyota would improve its quality. But many cars involved in the two recent recalls, one for sticking accelerator pedals, the other for floor mats that could become entangled in the pedals, went on sale after that effort.

One car now in question is the 2010 Prius, the newest version of Toyota’s most important car. The automaker said it was working on a solution to fix issues with the car’s anti-lock brakes, which were redesigned for the 2010 model. Toyota has sold just over 300,000 of the new Priuses in Japan, the United States and Europe since it was introduced.

Company executives also are looking at two other hybrids with the same brake system, the Lexus HS250h and the Sai, a small hybrid sold only in Japan.

Mr. Toyoda is among the industry’s best-known executives, but he has been conspicuously absent in recent weeks, even as his company struggled on three continents to contain the fallout of problems that have shaken its long-held reputation for quality.

Until Friday, Mr. Toyoda’s only public comments came in a brief interview with a Japanese broadcaster on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Toyota’s slowness in addressing its problems has been criticized by regulators in the United States and Japan. Earlier this week, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood spoke with Mr. Toyoda, after sending officials from Washington to Japan in December.

“Users are noticing defects and there have been accidents,” Japan’s transport minister, Seiji Maehara, said Friday ahead of Mr. Toyoda’s briefing. “This leads me to believe Toyota has not put consumers first.”

Mr. Toyoda, who spoke in Japanese and English during the news conference, said that was not the case. “I came out here today because I would not want our customers to spend the weekend wondering whether their cars are safe,” he said.

He would not answer a question about whether the company has ever withheld information related to safety concerns. “Toyota is committed to safety,” he said.

He added in broken English: “The people who drive Toyota, who cares about Toyota, I’m a little bit worried while they are driving, they feel little bit cautious. But believe me, Toyota’s car is safety but we will try to increase our product better.”

The Japanese government has ordered the company to investigate the brakes on the Prius, as has the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Safety regulators in Washington said Thursday that they would open an investigation into the car’s brakes. Toyota said it would “fully cooperate” with the investigation.

Under ordinary circumstances, the Prius braking problem would probably not be serious enough to prompt a recall, said David Champion, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports magazine.

But given the amount of negative attention surrounding Toyota, and with two committees of the House of Representatives scheduling hearings this month, the carmaker needs to show that it is doing everything it can to ease fears about its vehicles, Mr. Champion said.

[elspaniard]

Well, there was a plant being built in Tupelo that was going to crank out Priuses.  Not anymore.

[Jad]

no good :/

[angst the fool]

oh no, we had some accelerator issues...

let's go back to gas guzzlers, they're safer!

[Jad]

Honda's okay.

[elspaniard]

We test drove one when we were shopping around for this last one.  I had a 96 Accord, my mom a 97.  Fucking things were tanks.  I hydroplaned once in Jackson and smashed that fucker into a concrete barrier doing 45, took the whole front-left corner off.  Still managed to ride it almost two hours back home.

Not anymore though.  Hondas these days are all plastic and pc.  They don't feel sturdy anymore and they're all curves and glitz, no features.  That and they all of a sudden got really pricey, for a Honda.

[Jad]

price is more of a function of the crashing dollar than Honda's decision making.  The weaker the dollar gets, the more the price of imports will rise.

[elspaniard]

well...  :\

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Honda-adds-437000-cars-to-apf-2428558261.html?x=0

[Jad]

yeah so much for that

[DeathOfScythes]

Main difference being that I've heard 500 NPR news stories on it (approximately 50 of which are about how the media is overhyping it) and this is the first I've heard of any honda recall.

[Jad]

well, it just happened so...

[DeathOfScythes]

TOKYO (AP) -- Honda Motor Co. is adding 437,000 vehicles to its 15-month-old global recall for faulty air bags in the latest quality problem to hit a Japanese automaker.

...

The recall now affects 952,118 vehicles

952,118 - 437,000 = 515,188, they started with half a million over a year ago,

[Jad]

right... the additional recalls just happened.

Also Toyota is a much larger company than Honda and thusly is a much bigger story.

[Newsposter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/business/08webtoyota.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1266174218-xdM7HC/3Ya7M2pJKFosnvg

TOKYO — Toyota plans to recall at least 311,000 of its 2010 Prius hybrid models after receiving a flurry of complaints about the vehicle’s brakes, a person briefed on the decision said Sunday.

The decision is to be announced early this week, this person said. It comes after Toyota’s recall of about 8 million cars worldwide over gas pedals that could stick or get caught in floor mats. The size of the recalls and questions about Toyota’s slow response to safety concerns have stung the automaker, which built its reputation on vehicle quality.

Regulators in the United States opened an investigation into the brakes of the 2010 Prius last week after complaints from drivers that the car can momentarily lose the ability to slow down when driven on an uneven surface. The Japanese government has also said it is also looking into the matter after similar complaints were reported in Japan.

Toyota executives acknowledged on Thursday that the company had identified a flaw in the car’s braking system, and corrected it for Priuses built since late January, which would not be part of the recall. The Prius, which runs on a combination of gasoline and electric power, was redesigned for the 2010 model year.

Toyota sold about 311,000 Priuses for the 2010 model year as of the end of December, including 103,000 in the United States and 176,000 in Japan.

An announcement will come early this week and cover all regions of the world where the latest model has been sold, said the person briefed on the plan, who insisted on anonymity.

The automaker is also looking into the two other hybrids with the same braking system - the Lexus HS250h and a model sold in Japan, the Sai - to determine whether they are susceptible to the same problem.

The 2010 Prius has an overhauled regenerative brake system different from the ones used in previous generations, a cutting-edge design Toyota said gives the car a technological edge and better mileage. With regenerative braking, energy from the wheels is used to help recharge the car’s battery. The car also has an anti-lock brake system.

The Prius and other hybrid models also rely on electronic systems that combine regenerative braking with conventional brake pads, so that the battery can absorb as much energy as possible while the pads do most of the work of stopping the car. Toyota has determined that the problem occurred as the car switched from regenerative to conventional brakes just as the anti-lock brake system kicked in.

On Friday, Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, apologized for the recent recalls at a press conference on Friday and said the company would cooperate fully with U.S. authorities on the matter.

[Newsposter]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8523125.stm

Toyota's global president has said he will testify to US politicians next week about the carmaker's giant global recall programme.

Akio Toyoda said he was looking "forward to speaking directly with Congress and the American people".

He had previously indicated he would not travel to Washington, instead wishing to lead the recall from Japan.

Mr Toyoda is now due to appear before a congressional committee on Wednesday of next week.

Call for clarification

His apparent change of heart came after the chairman of the committee in question - the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - formally called Mr Toyoda to go before it.

Democrat Representative Edolphus Towns said he wanted Mr Toyoda to "clarify" how the recall is working.

"The public is unsure as to what exactly the problem is, whether it is safe to drive their cars, or what they should do about it," said Mr Towns, in an open letter.

Toyota is continuing to recall 8.5 million vehicles worldwide, including six million in the US.

It has been hit by three main faults - faulty accelerator pedals, accelerator pedals getting stuck in floor mats, and a problem with the braking system on its Prius hybrid model.

Too slow?

Toyota has been criticised in the US for being too slow in both starting and implementing the recalls.

The matter is being investigated by the US car safety watchdog, which earlier this week ordered Toyota to hand over documents relating to its mass vehicle recalls, to see if the firm reacted quickly enough.

Toyota has denied any cover-up, and said it would "co-operate to provide all the information" requested by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

On Wednesday, the carmaker took out full-page adverts in major Japanese newspapers to apologise for the recent recalls.