Toyota executives' testimony comes off as clueless

- J
- john
  
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posted
14 years ago

Sat, Feb 27, 2010 6:57 AM

"Akio Toyoda's story doesn't add up.

The president of Toyota Motor Corp., the centrally controlled behemoth founded 73 years ago by his grandfather, told a congressional committee Wednesday that he didn't know about mounting sudden- acceleration complaints with Toyota vehicles until late last year.

He also didn't know the substance of a corporate briefing paper prepared in July that touted $100 million in savings on recalls, warned about sudden acceleration complaints in Toyota and Lexus models and described a federal bureaucracy that is not "industry-friendly."

But now, faced with a global brand and P.R. fiasco, Toyoda knows with "absolute certainty" that the sudden unintended acceleration complaints tied to 34 deaths and the recall of 8.5 million vehicles worldwide cannot be attributed to electronic throttle controls in Toyota and Lexus cars and trucks.

Really?"

From The Detroit News:

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- Tegger
  
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posted
14 years ago

Sat, Feb 27, 2010 12:30 PM

john wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m27g2000prl.googlegroups.com:

ALL automakers have SUA incidents. In fact, from 2004 to 2009, Ford had FAR MORE of them than Toyota did. See the small graph part way down this page:

How fast did Ford react to those sticking cruise-controls? Not too quickly, I see...

Where was your righteous indignation then, "john"?

No company is going to react until they see that there really is a problem resulting in issues over and above what is "normal". And certainly nobody's going to bug a company's President with mundane technical issues.

But I thought the NHTSA was in the automakers' pockets! You can't have it both ways, buddy.

Yeah. Really. It's simple pedal misapplication, just like always.

And that Rhonda Smith lady? Her complaint had been rejected by two inquiries already, so why is she being given a third kick at the cat?

As for 77-year-old Guadalupe Alberto, she fits the standard profile of the pedal-misaplication SUA incident:

- female

- elderly

- occasional driver. Her family's ghoulish lawyers will try to turn her death into cold hard cash, but Toyota is almost certainly blameless.

This is just a hatchet-job written by a union worker who is upset that his union pals are losing their Government Motors jobs.

A different view, here:

- A
- Ashton Crusher
  
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posted
14 years ago

Sat, Feb 27, 2010 10:24 PM

The graph fails to differentiate between the causes and solutions. Many of the Ford complaints would be expected to be related to the cruise control issues and in many/most of those cases stepping on the brake disengaged the cruise and allowed teh vehicle to be brought to a normal stop. That has not been the case with the latest Toyota problems that have been making the news. It's the same problem as when people make a big deal over the JD power reliability ratings, they don't differentiate between a $3 warranty issue and a $3000 one.