Toyota may record “a double-digit drop in the automaker’s U.S. sales for February,” says The Nikkei [sub] today. The Nikkei bolsters the assessment with interviews at dealerships in the U.S.A., but knowing the Nikkei, a sales droid in northern California is not their only source.

The Nikkei notes that “Toyota was the only major automaker to suffer a double-digit sales decline in the U.S. last month. Its sales were down 15.8 percent from a year earlier, compared with the 24.4 percent and 14.6 percent growth enjoyed by Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co..”

A continuation of this trend would be extremely dangerous for Toyota. We are comparing with the absolutely worst times of carmageddon, and if you are double digits below carmageddon, you roast in hell. Read More >

Surprisingly good news out of Japan: Seemingly unimpeded by the Toyota-bashing, production of cars, trucks and buses in Japan increased 30.7 percent on year in January. Output is up for the third consecutive month, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said today via The Nikkei [sub]. Vehicle output rose to 753,773 vehicles in January from 576,539 vehicles in the same month a year earlier.

Even better fared Japan’s exports of cars, trucks and buses: Exports shot up 45.6 percent from a year earlier in January, the first rise in 16 months, says The Nikkei [sub] in a separate report. “Shipments to key markets such as Asia, Europe and” – gasp – “North America increased in line with recovering auto demand.” To this embedded observer, it seems as if the jobs created by this brouhaha are in Japan.

Let’s see what the next month brings, especially in the U.S. Awfully little, predicts Reuters. Read More >

Akio Toyoda is spending the weekend in Japan, being prepped for his appearance in front of the modern day version of the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, better known as a Congressional Hearing.

According to Reuters, and as suggested by TTAC,  Toyoda “is likely to undergo intense preparation. Toyota may hire lawyers to drill him with mock questions, one consultant said. A company source said it had not yet been decided whether Toyoda would speak in Japanese or English, but the company has already contacted some translation companies.”

The weekend drill was interrupted by the news that State Farm had informed the NHTSA as early as February 27, 2004, that the insurance company had five claims of unwanted acceleration in the 2002 Lexus ES 300 during the previous 12 months. Reuters broke the story, writing “the insurer said earlier this month it had contacted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in late 2007. However, prompted by the public interest in Toyota, the insurer reviewed its records again and has now found that it contacted safety regulators initially in 2004.” All hell broke loose … Read More >

Akio Toyoda is getting a crash course in cross-cultural studies, while he is preparing for his appearance on The Hill this coming Wednesday. Toyota already uncovered the time-tested Washington axiom: “We will fight it tooth and nail, but if we can’t stop it, we might as well dress for it.”

Saturday morning’s Nikkei [sub] greets its readers with the message that “Akio Toyoda’s appearance before Congress on Wednesday could be a chance for the embattled automaker to win back consumer trust in the U.S.”

Hedging a risky bet, the Nikkei adds: “But a poor performance could further undermine its reputation.” To avoid the latter, Toyoda is preparing to counter a three-pronged attack. Read More >

This was a rough night and day for Akio Toyoda, chief of the fishtailing Toyota. At around midnight, Tokyo time, the news reached Toyoda-sama that the Honorable Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had formally invited him for a visit on the hill.

This had followed a Japanese version of the “he loves me – he loves me  not – he loves me.” It was made even more interesting by the botanical truism that the cherry blossom only has five petals to pick. Here, the chronicle of the deflowering … Read More >

When the Toyota recall debacle kicked off, there were two types of reactions from their competitors. There were the ones who went after Toyota customers like a Catholic priest after a choir boy. And then, there was the “we are taking the high road” brood. Franco-Japanese Nissan were a part of the “we are way above this” bunch. They confirmed that they wouldn’t be introducing programs to woo Toyota customers. Who would want a Nipponese cannibalisation in the far abroad?

Somebody must have missed the memo. Read More >

Public and politicians in Japan are not enthused about Toyota’s latest utterings, especially at yesterday’s news conference. “At home, fiercely loyal Japanese drivers are wondering how a firm with a deserved reputation for quality and reliability could allow substandard vehicles to slip through its vaunted quality-control apparatus,” reports the Christian Science Monitor from Toyko. The natives are getting restless … Read More >

To the victor go the spoils. Who will be the victors, and how much spoilage will be there in the protracted Toyota battle? Of course, this is all in the name of safety and the children, and any sales dislocations will be unfortunate collateral damage. Really.

As optimistic as Toyota might want to be, over the next few months, their sales will decrease. They already do decrease.  “Toyota’s US sales tumbled 16 per cent in January from a year earlier and are set to record another hefty fall this month,” reports Financial Times. Stoppage of deliveries and production, topped by a media onslaught, can have that effect.

Maybe Toyota’s ideas of an increased warranty and more incentives will work, long term, but in the short term, they’d better prepare themselves for negative numbers at the end of each month ahead.

As the first law of thermodynamics infers, energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely transposed. If customers are leaving Toyota, they don’t just disappear like Toyota‘s reputation for reliability China’s interest in US debt, they have to go somewhere. So where will they? Read More >

Do you think being the scion of a global brand is easy? Well think again, it’s hard work. No-one knows this more than Bill Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford. So, when Akio Toyoda got thrown into a quality nightmare, Bill Ford empathised with the fellow (and currently not so great) grandson of Kiichiro Toyoda, the one who had founded Toyota. Bill feels for Akio, in the family way. Read More >

5pm in Tokyo. Toyota has a news conference. Somehow, they forgot to invite me. And I’m right here, in Tokyo. From our Ota-ku apartment, the fallout from the conference as it is reported in  Japanese and international media. Call it vicarious live blogging. 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 >

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 >

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 >