Ah, political spectacle. When Detroit’s CEOs took the stand at congressional hearings over a year ago, the main browbeating bullet point wasn’t the decades of mismanagement and greed, but the fact that Messrs. Wagoner, Mullaly and Nardelli had taken separate corporate jets to the festivities. The lesson: convenient focal points for anger always trump the complexity of a substantive dressing-down. And as congress gears up to grill Toyota’s CEO, the Japanese automaker has given congress just the thing to sharpen its collective knife against: an honest opinion. One document [via Politico PDF here] briefing Toyota USA boss Yoshi Inaba for the hearings, reveals that Toyota believe the current administration is “activist” and that “not industry-friendly.” True or false, this document sets up an adversarial relationship between Toyota and the majority party going into the hearings. Which would be bad enough if Toyota hadn’t also handed over evidence, already leaked by the Oversight committee, indicating that it balances recall costs against risks and lobbies the government in its own interest. On its own, this evidence might be merely embarrassing, but having slighted the Democrats, news that Toyota treats recalls like a business has become prima facie evidence in the (increasingly political) case against the Japanese automaker.

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Chrysler To Recall Entire Range, Will Run “Let’s Recall America” Ad Campaign

After the violently successful “Let’s Refuel America” ad campaign, during which time Chrysler pitched itself as the $2.99/gallon antidote to what seemed like expensive gas, Chrysler plans to follow it up with a new “Let’s Recall America” ad campaign.

The Chrysler Group is poised to announce a spate of wide-ranging recalls, having observed the trend set in recent weeks by global giants Toyota, Honda and Volkswagen. In the absence of actually developing new product, it is understood Chrysler has instead elected to focus on those areas where it remains competitive. As a result – and in a move clearly designed to outgun its rivals – Chrysler’s recall program will extend across the carmaker’s entire lineup, a point the company believes will give it a crucial advantage in the race to the bottom.

“As usual, the media is bowing down to Toyota and their precious recalls. Well, we can out-recall them. In fact, by the end of the week Chrysler will be recalling a bigger percentage of its product line than any other company – 100%!” said Chrysler PR spokesman Charlie Riven.

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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 >

For those of you who’ve read my work, you’ll know I’m no stranger to controversy. So, this next piece, will be a little, well, dark, shall we say? In the above picture, what do you see? It’s a classic VW Beetle. Nothing bad there. But this particular Beetle has caused a huge amount of grief stateside, followed by controversy. It was hidden under a black cloth and when it came off what people saw at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment was a 1968 VW Beetle, exactly like what you’re seeing. But it wasn’t so much what it was as WHO it was. Read More >

TTAC’s Steve Lang recently documented the historical “leaning” of the Camry beginning with the 1997 model here, and EN’s recent editorial on the transition from “fat” to “lean” quality standards documented Toyota’s rationale and its consequences. So when a neighbor asked me if I wanted to check out and drive a used 1990 Camry she was buying, I figured it was an opportunity to indulge in some genuine Toyota fatness. Little did I realize I was about to have the automotive equivalent of a banana split. 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 >

At the Wednesday press conference in Tokyo, Toyota slipped in the remark that they “will more actively use on-board event data recorders, which can, in the event of a malfunction, provide information necessary for conducting such activities as technological investigations and repairs.”

This remark was widely overlooked. It should not have been.

Five days before, the Wall Street Journal had written:

“The safety problems that have engulfed Toyota Motor Corp. are focusing renewed attention on one of the most controversial components in an automobile: the black box. The box, officially called an “event data recorder,” is a small, square, virtually indestructible container akin to those found on commercial airplanes. Tucked inside the dash or under the front seats of most newer vehicles, it records vehicle and engine speeds as well as brake, accelerator and throttle positions and other data that can help determine the causes of accidents.”

If there would have been such a black box in the Toyotas that had crashed, it would have been easy to read out whether the foot was on the gas or on the brake. Guess what: Toyota has this box. It had been in many of the crashed vehicles, says the Wall Street Journal: Read More >

There is widespread public concern regarding reports of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota motor vehicles.  There appears to be growing public confusion regarding which vehicles may be affected and how people should respond.  In short, 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.  To help clarify this situation, I am inviting you to testify…

House Oversight Committee Chair Edolphus Towns invites Akio Toyoda down to DC for an evening of under-oath testimony and light refreshments. According to the NY Times, Toyoda has said he “would consider” dancing the Potomac two-step “if he receives a formal invitation, which none of the committees have issued.” Consider yourself officially invited, Mr Toyoda. We’ll start making the popcorn.

Typically, the only reports on China’s BYD involve booming Chinese sales, unproven future products, and Warren Buffett’s investment in the battery and auto manufacturing conglomerate. But these don’t tell the whole story of how BYD has emerged from relative obscurity to publicly announcing that it intends to challenge Toyota to become the world’s top automaker by 2018. Chinese outlet Caixin [via GreenCarReports] attempts to shed some light on BYD and what it takes to rise to the top of China’s massive manufacturing industry, in a piece titled “How Manufacturing’s Mockingbird Sings.” The piece details BYD’s reliance on reverse engineering, the practice of stripping down competitor automobiles and components and copying them, and its extreme (even by Chinese standards) dependence on cheap labor.

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Toyota is getting in big kuso (doo-doo) back home.

Up until now, the company could do no wrong. Largest company in Japan. Largest employer. Provided income to countless publishing houses that printed books about the Toyota Way.

Now, Toyota is being blamed for Japan’s falling reputation abroad, political difficulties, and just about everything including the bad weather (it snowed this morning in Tokyo,) and the falling GDP. 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 >

Everybody promised this would not be a repeat of the Japan bashing of the 80s. But when the DetN starts outing lawmakers and administrators in DC for driving Toyotas, then it’s open season. Let them dawgs out …

“The vaunted Toyota Prius is everywhere in Washington,” reports the breathless Detroit News after exhaustive traffic analysis. 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 >