The Japanese government is getting increasingly worried that the Toyota debacle might turn into a worldwide backlash against Japanese cars, or even all Japanese products. As the world’s 4th largest export nation, Japan has a lot to worry about.
Today, large parts of the Japanese cabinet came down hard on Toyota, says the Nikkei [sub].
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama himself urged Toyota to ensure the safety of its vehicles and customers worldwide: ”When an event that impairs safety occurs, the initiative should be taken to work for the safety of people in Japan and worldwide.”
Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Seiji Maehara was a bit less diplomatic. He said Toyota ”lacked customers’ perspective” and reacted too slowly: ”It might be that Toyota considered it a minor problem,” Maehara said and added that the company must deal ”quickly based on the viewpoint of customers.”
Maehara announced he will meet with U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos on Wednesday. Maehara said, the reason for the meeting is “Toyota’s significant share of the North American market.”
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi Hirano said he ”would like Toyota to deal with the situation properly so that it can alleviate concern among users.”
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada reiterated that the Japanese government needs to offer ”support” to Toyota in an attempt to ease frustrations among U.S. customers and “some government officials” at what they regard as mishandling by Toyota.
Last week, Okada already had called for government ‘backup” to Toyota as the safety problems involving vehicles produced by the world’s top automaker were spinning out of control. In Tokyo, the offer of “backup” was widely understood as an “if you don’t get your house in order, we’ll help you clean up.”
Okada is concerned that ”this is a problem for the whole of the Japanese auto industry and it is also about trust in Japanese products.”
Here’s thinking that the true concern of the Japanese government is about an increasingly proactive American government and that the mistakes of Toyota will be blown out of proportion. Toyota is facing a series of public grillings in Washington, and it won’t be pretty.
And now, the Corolla EPS looks like the next recall…
WASHINGTON — Toyota Motor Corp. faces yet another possible federal investigation, this time of the electric power steering in 2009 and 2010 Corollas.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is considering a formal investigation of alleged defects reported in the compact car, agency spokeswoman Karen Aldana said.
Automotive News found that the Corolla has been the subject of 83 power-steering complaints since April 2008, 76 of which have reported that the vehicle unexpectedly veers to the left or right at 40 miles an hour and up.
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100209/RETAIL05/100209863/1290#ixzz0f3JW07Rc
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100209/RETAIL05/100209863/1290
One fact, and two statements to be verified by the B&B:
Facts:
– Chevy Cobalt has ColPAS problems (first warranty costs off the chart, now recall);
– ColPAS system is produced by JTEKT;
– JTEKT is a subsidiary of Toyota (a roll-up of Koyo, Fuji-Kiko, and the steering assets of Toyoda Machine, Hitachi, and Denso);
– Corolla has ColPAS provlems (investigtion, now recall?).
Verification required:
– Corolla’s ColPAS comes from JTEKT?
– Corollan and Cobalt share similar trouble causing components?
Comment: In the recent past, some people were thinking JTEKT was selling inferior technology to GM … I wonder if these statements will now be proven false.
A comparative analysis is necessary to see how Corolla self-steering, hard-steering incidents compare to the population of HPAS-equipped cars in general, and how they compare to complaints for other similarly-equipped Toyota cars, and the Cobalt in particular.
My company bid on an EPS controller for a large OEM a few years ago. I remember that I was not impressed with the amount of redundancy in the motor drive system for such a safety-critical component, although the details are a little foggy by now.
I have faith Toyota will ultimately respond the way we expect Toyota would respond. If they cannot or will not, then they deserve whatever beating the worldwide market delivers. I don’t fear for the other Japanese manufacturers, as I still believe Honda will emerge as the biggest beneficiary of Toyota’s PR disaster.
State Farm insurance is piling on today with its insistence that it notified the NHTSA of higher than normal unintended acceleration reports with Toyotas three years ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100209/ap_on_bi_ge/us_toyota_recall_us
Wasn’t it also a StateFarm analyst who uncovered the Firestone tire delamination fiasco?
What tools, methods and mentality are being used at StateFarm that are (apparently) not in use at NHTSA?
state farm is in the business of making money and are continually pushing data into thier grids and actuarial tables to determine future outleighs and the appropriate investments and reserves to cover those expendatures.
Exactly rnc.
State Farm gets investigates accidents. It talks to customers. It looks at the data to determine insurance pricing for different cars. This data would easily give you a spike.
The NHTSA, I am not sure what they do. But how often do we hear about gov’t fixing problems retroactively. Nothing proactively. I believe they go off of complaints. Anyone know any differently?
When the Federal government acts proactively it is typically accused of “over reaching” or “meddling in free enterprise”. More specifically, congressmen in whose districts a company is located put pressure on the bureaucracy via the President to back off. [Insert metaphor about sausage being made here.]
Re. Bertel’s article: You really know that Toyota is on the ropes when Tokyo feels it necessary to “get out in front of TMC” on an issue … for them to cross “the threshold of politeness” and what to an average Japanese would seem like assailing The Crown Jewel of Japan, Inc., this really means they are really fearful about collateral damage to their image and economy.
Some other info:
– On damage to Japan Inc.:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/business/global/09toyota.html?ref=global-business
– On the recall of Team Prius:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/business/global/10recall.html?ref=global-home
– And for our friend in Spain who said, during the early days of these issues, he heard little about the issue except for that on TTAC (and thought the US handled recall issues better in general):
“Other commission officials emphasized that safety alerts only were issued once companies, like Toyota, actually had taken some corrective measures. The notice was posted quietly Friday on a relatively obscure Web site.” (Prediction: Eurocrats will discuss shaping pan-Eu recall agency and coordination with US-NHTSA and J-MLIT.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/business/global/09recall.html?ref=global-business
“I still believe Honda will emerge as the biggest beneficiary of Toyota’s PR disaster.”
Yep. Honda is set to CASH IN on the Toyota meltdown. You just KNOW that Honda will go crazy on quality now. Danica is at the wheel and ready to take Honda into … into… well some sort of super mode or something.
I’ve already noticed Honda, Subaru and Mazda drivers now have the smug look on their faces lol. Rare German drivers have the “Toyota whatever never cared anyway” expression.
How much over capacity does Honda have right now?
Without overcapacity they won’t be able to take too much advantage of Toyota’s woes.
But honda cut so far back on R&D and new car development (perhaps over-reacting to the crisis) that they don’t really have anything coming out in the next few years (old ICE, 5T and 2nd hand hybrid tech). Compare with Ford and Hyundai who kept pumping monies into R&D, new products and retooling. It’s not one year from now, it’s five years from now when the clear winners from this (if any) will be known. Honda hacked spending to the bone to be profitable last year, ford actually acelerated it’s development programs and also ended up being profitable.