I conduct a car reliability survey at TrueDelta.com. Since we promptly update our results four times a year, we can report on new models ahead of anyone else. Last year, we announced that the 2009 Jaguar XF was faring poorly. This provoked a blistering backlash from owners at a particular Jaguar forum. In the end, threads on reliability were deleted and future ones all but banned in the interest of preserving what remained of the UK auto industry.
The photo enforcement industry announced on Friday the creation of a new red light camera and speed camera advocacy group. The Partnership for Advancing Road Safety (PARS) describes itself as an organization that seeks to use best practices to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities on American highways. The group’s number one priority is countering the growing nationwide backlash against the use of automated ticketing machines that has resulted in multi-million dollar loses for camera vendors.
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China has become a world automobile producing and consuming power, but it should also be noted that the industry still lacks core technology and has weak innovative capabilities… This creates hidden dangers for public safety
The closest thing Toyota has given to an explicit accounting of its unintended acceleration woes is the admission that rapid growth detracted from the company’s previously unquestioned commitment to quality. With the Chinese auto market growing even faster than Toyota was, the Chinese Central government is anxious to prevent such nasty side-effects of rapid volume growth from manifesting themselves in the domestic auto industry. And well it should be: with Chinese automakers like BYD poised to launch overseas sales campaigns, the Chinese auto industry is at a crucial stage in developing its international image. China’s Ministry of Information and Technology has released a statement [via DetNews] urging its domestic automakers to heed Toyota’s example, and adopt “new technology, new techniques, new equipment and new materials” to master the balance between profit and quality. And hopefully move past the image of hand-assembled batteries and carbon-copy design while they’re at it. Meanwhile, Toyota is feeling the hurt. Stung by calls by the government to compensate Chinese drivers, Toyota-FAW fell from China’s top ten sales list. Toyota China reported a 30 percent rise in sales in February, but at 45,400 units the firm was still way down from its 72,000 unit January performance.
Anyone who follows the auto industry with any regularity will know that comparing Toyota and Chrysler by any measure is laughable. For mainstream media types, who flit from frenzy to frenzy, all the negative press about Toyota might have left some believing that it’s the worst-off automaker in America. Luckily CNN Money is on-hand to set the record straight, with a piece titled “Forget Toyota. Chrysler’s got the most problems.” It’s a standard litany of TTACian criticism: declining sales, fleet and incentive dependence, no new product, flatlining consideration, and general suckitude. All of which helps make a solid month of media frenzy over sticky accelerators look kind of silly, especially considering that Chrysler’s stunning underperformance comes courtesy of the American and Canadian taxpayers.
Toyota and its contracted engineering auditing firm Exponent held a webcast today to refute the claims that Professor David Gilbert has leveled in an ABC report and recent congressional testimony. Gilbert claimed that he was able to induce sudden acceleration without triggering failsafe mode or an error code in Toyotas by hacking into a Toyota pedal. Toyota and Exponent’s central claims are that the conditions created in Gilbert’s test could not be replicated in real life and that similar tests produced identical results in competitor vehicles.
When the production version of the Honda CR-Z debuted at the Detroit Auto Show, TTAC’s judgment was swift and harsh. Paul Niedermeyer’s piece “Why The Honda CR-Z Is So Ugly And Should Never Have Been Built” met with more agreement than dissent, and with good reason. Even though the hybrid coupe is still months away from going on sale, Honda engineers and dealers are already talking about their misgivings about the project, belying the project’s lack of originality and its poor chances for commercial success. CR-Z Chief Engineer Norio Tomobe describes his struggle to initiate the project to Automotive News [sub].
We had serious doubts about whether this would bring new value. I really struggled for a new idea, and we decided to start over from scratch. The hybrid finally gave us the wow factor.
This also marked the point where Honda’s US bosses started to lose interest in the project.
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Toyota has just started a live webcast intended to rebut some of the allegations made by Professor Gilbert, among others. Click here to watch the webcast, already in progress.
The personal transportation choices of auto executives has always been an easy point of reference for members of the mainstream media looking for an easy story. From Alan Mulally’s Lexus to Akio Toyoda’s Davos Audi getaway, auto execs’ use of non-company vehicles is always good for a quick “gotcha” headline. But no story in this rich oeuvre has had quite the impact of Jet-Gate, the name given to the mini-scandal that erupted when the executives of Ford, Chrysler and GM arrived in Washington DC for bailout hearings in three separate private jets, prompting derisive comments from members of congress. The PR misstep has haunted Detroit ever since, inspiring federal rules barring bailed-out automakers from using executive jets, and making transportation choices for auto-related DC hearings a major priority for automaker PR: Toyota’s Jim Lentz clearly had the episode in mind when he arrived for recent hearings in a recalled and repaired Toyota Highlander. And thanks to a recent revelation about GM Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre’s use of executive jets, furor over auto-exec transportation is clearly a long way from playing itself out.
Recently-reassigned Cadillac boss Bryan Nesbitt isn’t the only GM exec paying the price for weak Cadillac sales, as Automotive News [sub] reports that GM has terminated three other Caddy executives.
Cadillac’s Steve Shannon and John Howell were dismissed Monday, said eight sources familiar with the moves. Jay Spenchian, an executive director who worked on Cadillac and other brands, was also let go, the sources said.
Chrysler sold exactly 399 more vehicles in February than it did in February of 2009, which would be a respectable performance if the comparison weren’t with one of Chrysler’s worst months on record. GM may be tentatively nosing its way out of the bottom of a sales trough, but Chrysler is treading water at unsustainable levels (CEO Sergio Marchionne has said he “needs” Chrysler to sell 1.1m units in the US this year). Considering that a huge amount of Chrysler’s sales release [PDF format here] is spent detailing the company’s many consumer incentives, Marchionne’s goal of turning ChryCo into a 1.1m-unit, incentive-less juggernaut seems less realistic with every passing month.
With rumors of another GM executive shakeup flying thick and fast, we expected a downright miserable sales performance from The General in February. By the year-over-year numbers [full release here, sales numbers in PDF format here], there’s no such flow of red tape, as GM’s four “core brands” gained 32 percent and total sales (including Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Saturn) were up 11.5 percent. But that’s in comparison to February of 2009, when GM’s sales were down 53 percent from the year earlier. In short, GM appears to have hit bottom in terms of volume, but it still has yet to recover to anything close to 2008 volume.
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We at TTAC, (well, me, only) have said that since everyone is raining a storm down on Toyota other recalls are slipping by without equal scrutiny. So when I read this article, I thought it fair, in the interests of journalism, to blog it. Not because of who it is, but the reasoning around it.
Tomorrow the Senate will be taking its shot at the Toyota scandal, with hearings scheduled before the Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. Giving testimony will be three Toyota executives including Yoshimi Inaba, NHTSA Administrator David Strickland and Clarence Ditlow of the Ralph Nader-founded Center for Auto Safety. Conspicuously absent from the list is Dimitrios Biller, the former Toyota lawyer who claims that Toyota hid documents related to vehicle design from discovery in several suits against the automaker. The House Oversight Committee has reviewed a number of Toyota communications courtesy of Biller, and a letter from chairman Ed Towns (D-NY) demands that Toyota answer Biller’s charges [Towns’ letter and Biller documents in PDF format here, courtesy of DetNews]. By invoking Biller’s charges, Towns has dragged yet another witness into the fray whose story raises more questions than it answers [one of Biller’s several suits against Toyota can be found here.] And yet, probably because of his complex backstory] there are no plans for Biller to testify under oath before congress. Should he, or does his testimony just cloud the picture even further?
One of the most important lessons to come out of the last two days of congressional hearings on the Toyota recalls is that blaming individuals for unintended acceleration is too tough a task for our elected representatives. And yet the more we learn, the more necessary it seems to take human error into account when dealing with unintended acceleration. Nothing illustrates this quite like the case of the very first witness to give testimony before congress. Rhonda Smith of Sevierville, Tn told the House Energy Committee, under oath, that her Lexus ES350 became “possessed” and that its brakes and transmission failed to respond at precisely the moment that the car accelerated out of control. “Shame on you, Toyota, for being so greedy,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. But it turns out that the shame belongs almost entirely with Ms Smith.
The Wall Street Journal [sub] [via Jalopnik] reports that, despite her traumatic and inexplicable experience, Ms Smith sold her dangerous, out-of-control ES350 to another family, which has since put 27,000 trouble-free miles on the vehicle (according to just-auto [sub], Toyota has since taken possession of the vehicle). Which means she either lied under oath, or displayed a disregard for the safety of others that puts Toyota’s missteps into stunning context. Or both. In any case, her behavior adds to our growing suspicion that the vacuous, disingenuous, and self-serving congressional hearings have been the best thing to happen to Toyota PR since the recalls began. Shame on you, Rhonda Smith, shame on you.
It’s not likely that former Toyota exec Jim Press wishes he had been called down to congress instead of Jim Lentz, but he may just be trying to angle for a return his old company. Press took time out of his busy schedule of job-hunting and worrying about taxes to write an (apparently unsolicited) email to Automotive News [sub]. Judging by the portions that AN [sub] did publish, it should probably have gone straight to Toyota’s CEO… or the shredder.
Toyota doesn’t want me to speak out, but I can’t stand it anymore and somebody has to tell it like it is. Akio Toyoda is not only up for the job, but he is the only person who can save Toyota. He is very capable, and he embodies the virtues and character that built this great company. The root cause of their problems is that the company was hijacked, some years ago, by anti-family, financially oriented pirates. They didn’t have the character necessary to maintain a customer first focus. Akio does.
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