While the world is trying to come to grips with pedal-gate, tiny Hong Kong is attempting an exorcism of its own gremlins: 18,000 (mostly Toyota Crown) taxis and 2,000 minibuses are propelled by LPG, liquefied petroleum gas. The gas is lugged around in a large tank housed in the trunk of the taxis, much to the chagrin of suitcase-schlepping tourists. The real problem is: The LPG mobiles are breaking down in wholesale fashion, China Daily reports. Hundreds a month.

The Hong Kong government set up a special task force to investigate. Nobody is blaming Toyota – this time. (Read More…)

And the winner is (left.)

China’s 11th Five-Year Plan (they still have one of those) encourages industrial design as one of the six key modern service sectors that will receive priority support from the central government.

One of these support measures was the creation of a government-sponsored patent award, which “ aims to boost the nation’s intellectual property strategy and accelerate creation of proprietary intellectual property,” as Gasgoo put it.

FAW’s Besturn B70 was the only design patent to win a gold medal at the 11th China Patent Awards in Beijing. There is just a small niggling problem: (Read More…)

Here’s something positive you may get out of the Toyota recall debacle: Cash on the hood and a Hyundai-like warranty. Reuters says that Toyota is discussing a range of options with its U.S. dealers to support sales.

Toyota already gives a $1,000 “loyalty bonus” to match monies offered by GM, Ford, Chrysler and Hyundai to Toyota customers who want to abandon their brand. Toyota is now thinking to pay a total of $2000 to returning Toyota customers, an anonymous source told Reuters. If this turns into a bidding war … (Read More…)

The Toyota case is heading towards hearings in DC and to courts all over the country. Both sides are putting heavy artillery in position. Both sides of the SUA wars commission heavy caliber studies – both with inconclusive results. Toyota funded a study into the electronics in its vehicles. Before that, a group of lawyers had “sponsored” Safety Research and Strategies, a company that makes money by investigating auto-safety for those suing auto makers. Ford, which had been at the receiving end of an SRS fusillade during the Explorer crisis, called the company “supposed safety advocates who are actually just shills for trial attorneys.”

Here are the latest dispatches from the front lines: (Read More…)

The German magazine Der Spiegel got its hands on an internal document. In the paper, the German economy ministry gives an awful assessment of the business plan that Nick Reilly had circulated amongst interested parties. Interested parties being the countries where Opel has plants and where GM wants to collect €2.7b in government aid. The Spiegel’s article will appear in the printed issue on Monday. But there are some damning pre-releases.

Minister Rainer Brüderle has serious doubts about Opel’s restructuring plan. “The viability is questionable,” the internal memo says. The planned job cuts are “hard to understand.”

And once more, Germany’s all-time phobia when it comes to Opel aid emerges: (Read More…)

Don’t bogart that joint: Toyota will recall about 8,000 model-year 2010 Tacoma pickup trucks in the US. Not for unintended acceleration, or brake gremlins, but for good old cracks in the joint portion of the drive shaft, says Reuters. The front drive shafts are manufactured by Dana Holding Corp, and the affected vehicles were produced from mid-December 2009 to early February. (Read More…)

In that Wolfsburg car factory I had the honor to work for for more than 30 years, one of the many pearls of wisdom was: “Wenn man nicht mehr weiter weiss, gründet man nen Arbeitskreis.” If you are totally out of options, establish a committee.

Toyota seems to have taken that Teutonic haiku to heart. The Nikkei reports that Toyota Motor “has formed an expert panel, chaired by President Akio Toyoda, to analyze the potential risks throughout its global production and sales networks.”

As far as committees go, lean it won’t be. It will be a monster of a committee: “The president will be joined by executives ranked senior managing director and higher,” The Nikkei writes. ”The committee’s composition will change depending on the type and locality of a particular problem, and input from lawyers and consultants will be sought as warranted.”

For added redundancy, Toyota established a second committee. (Read More…)

Alfa has rekindled its long lost love with a mature lady: Aunt America.

Last December, Cammy Corrigan reported on TTAC that there are “very important opportunities for Alfa Romeo in the United States.” At least in the eyes of Luca di Montezemolo, Chairman of Fiat. Despite being the object of unconditional admiration of Alfa-crazed owners, commonly known as “Alfisti,” Fiat’s sporty brand has reportedly lost €200m-€400m per year for the last decade. So something needs to be done.

“Andiamo a America,” appears to be la soluzione in Torino. Reuters reports that “Alfa Romeo is likely to return to North America by 2012 after a 15-year hiatus.”  Alfas were last sold in America in 1995. (Read More…)

In the let’s-do-something-anything dept., Toyota engineers are now re-jigging the keyless ignition button, reports Das Autohaus in Germany. According to a Toyota corporate spokesperson, the re-jigged button will cut the engine when the button is pressed three times in rapid succession. (Read More…)

And yet again, the reports of Chinese cars flooding worldwide markets have been greatly exaggerated. The reverse is true: Chinese car exports are a disaster. China’s already anemic auto exports dropped 46 percent in 2009. That according to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) data reported in China Daily. (Read More…)

Click to enrage … we mean, enlarge

According to the MSM and many on-line pundits, the NHTSA has been drowning in customer complaints about Toyotas for years. Supposedly, the warnings were thrown in the wind.

Edmunds went through the pain of sifting through NHTSA’s complaint database from 2001 through Feb. 3, 2010 . After the counting was done, Edmunds came to a startling conclusion: The deluge of complaints is a myth, to put it charitably. “Fabrication” would be a better word. Amongst 20 brands, “Toyota ranks 17th among automakers in the overall number of complaints per vehicle sold,” says Edmunds. NHTSA’s own data shows: Only drivers of Mercedes Benz, Porsches and Smarts have less to kvetch than Toyota owners. (Read More…)

Yesterday, a strange love-fest between U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos and Japan’s transport minister Seiji Maehara ensued. After their meeting in Tokyo, as reported by the Nikkei, the ambassador and the minister said that everything is hunky-dory, and that Toyota’s recent recalls won’t undermine relations between the U.S.A. and Japan. Which is odd in itself: Since when does a $15 gas pedal get a leading role on the world stage of international politics?

Ambassador Roos effusively told reporters that the recall issue ”in no way has any kind of direct or indirect impact on the strength of the bilateral relationship between the United States and Japan.” Who said it would? (Read More…)

Toyota’s president Akio Toyoda was already getting ready to “visit the United States over massive recalls of its vehicles,” reported the Nikkei [sub]. Japan’s transport minister Seiji Maehara told U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos that Toyoda would be dispatched to DC. There, he would be ready to  “explain the recall problems to the U.S. Congress if asked.” (Read More…)

Every year, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry hands out prizes for products it regards as the pinnacle of energy-efficiency and eco-friendliness. This year, Toyota’s Prius was chosen as the recipient of the grand prize.

Last Monday, Toyota said “enryo shimasu” (no thanks) to the Ministry, and refused to accept the governmental honors, an industry ministry official disclosed today to the Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

Honda said it will recall another roughly 378,000 vehicles in the U.S. to fix potentially faulty airbag systems that are linked to at least one known fatality and 11 injuries in the U.S., says the Nikkei [sub].

That brings the number of airbag-related recalled Honda and Acura models to more than 826,000. Honda said some airbags in its older vehicles deploy with too much pressure, and send metal fragments flying into the car. (Read More…)