All eyes are on Harrison, NY, today. Technicians from Toyota and NHTSA will head to the NYC burbs and pour over a 2005 Toyota Prius that crashed into a stone wall in the tony bedroom town of Harrison. Its driver claimed the hybrid had sped up on its own. Toyota will read out the data recorded in the Prius computer. According to the Associated Press, Toyota techs will “use equipment to determine how many times the driver hit the brakes and gas. It used the same tools earlier this week to cast doubt on a California driver who claimed his Prius sped to 94 mph before a patrol officer helped him stop it.” (Read More…)
A few days ago, James Sikes and his runaway Prius was all over news. Until we mentioned that something is fishy. Sikes’ driving skills were put in question. Stories about a wife swapping website emerged. Stories about bankruptcy. Stories about an unpaid lease on the Prius. And sundry other stories. Quickly, Sikes turned into Balloon Boy 2.0
Michael Fumento, director of the Independent Journalism Project, went on Neil Cavuto’s show on Fox Business and said: “It appears that everybody on planet earth suspected that there was something horribly wrong with this picture – except for the national media. The real hoax wasn’t James Sikes, it was in fact our press.” (Read More…)
Two days ago, Ed Niedermeyer received a tip from an anonymous tipster that James Sikes, the guy who couldn’t stop his runaway Prius until a cop pulled up next to him and told him to, is, well, a bit exposed.
The tipster pointed out that a James Sikes had also started a business called Adultswinglife, LLC. A look at the phone numbers showed that Adult Swing Life LLC (619) 957-7355 shared the same phone number as the real estate business of Patty & Jim Sikes (619)-957-7355. We left it at that. Times are rough, and one needs to find extra streams of income.
A few hours later, an anonymous poster that went by the name “CincyJazzy” posted on the CBS news website that Sikes “is caught in 2 attempts to defraud his insurance company out of $60K, Just lost his house, and was fired for ‘unethical behavior’, in the middle of bankruptcy, and now this.” No reaction from CBS.
On September 19, 2008, William Hippsley, 74, was behind the wheel in the parking lot of a shopping center in Brigg, South Humberside, UK. Outside, his wife Brenda, 69, helped him park his car. Suddenly, Hippsley’s car shot forward, dragged his wife 130ft across the parking lot – and killed her.
One of my pet gripes about the media and celebrities is the lack of follow-up and accountability. Remember all the hoopla about Steve Wozniak’s Prius with the mysterious electronics glitch that he could manipulate to create UA? My take was that obviously his cruise control had a minor bug that only showed up at over eighty mph. Woz readily admitted that he could disengage it with a tap on the brakes. Well, thanks to his celebrity status and the coverage, the story ended with Toyota agreeing to take his Prius for a week to test it thoroughly. So what happened? (Read More…)
While America gets a Lexus-badged Toyota Sai as our first entry-premium hybrid car, the Europeans will get this CT200h instead. In addition to better differentiation from the Prius (to this blogger, the HS250h smacks of old Buick-style brand engineering), the CT200h is said to be more driver-focused than previous Toyota hybrids. But then, we Americans are all used to not getting the smaller, tauter, hatchback-ier models by now, right? Right?
This 1965 Falcon Futura first caught my eye, not the Prius. But seeing them jowl-to-cheek gave me a dramatic lesson in how far car aerodynamics have come. Well, at least in common everyday cars. The Tatra T77 of 1934 still has this Prius’ Cd of .25 handily beat. The Falcon? Who knows; probably around .50 or so. But this semi-fastback roof on the Falcon was the hot new thing when it came out on the 1963.5 Fords, specifically to help the big Galaxie on the high speed NASCAR tracks. (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…)
It’s the software, stupid. At a press conference at 3:30 pm Japanese time, Toyota came clean and announced that it will recall 223,068 hybrid vehicles in Japan, including its latest Prius model and three other models–the Sai, the Lexus HS250h and the Prius Plug-In Hybrid, says the Nikkei [sub]. They will get a re-flash of the brake software. Worldwide recalls of affected models will follow. This ends – for now – weeks of waffling over the latest in a series of Toyota problems.
The recall will start Wednesday. A total of 199,666 Prius vehicles manufactured between April 20, 2009 and Jan. 27 of this year will receive new ABS software. (Read More…)
Readers of the Nikkei [sub] were greeted this morning with the purported news that by the end of this month, Toyota “is expected” to recall its Sai and Lexus HS250h hybrids, which use the same braking system as the Prius hybrid. Furthermore, “the company is believed to have decided” to recall the current Prius, “and is expected” to notify the Transport Ministry of the plan early this week. (Read More…)
After piles of books have been written about the „Toyota Way,“ this round of recalls will have a permanent place in the annals of how to completely NSFW-up crisis management. The epicenter of the disaster at Toyota is not in the pedal dept., it is not in the software development dept., it is in the Public Relations Department in Toyota City. Or possibly, right at the top.
Last Friday evening, Toyota trotted out their CEO and founder’s grandson Akio Toyoda to address the complaints about Prius brakes. Toyoda said nothing of substance. What irked the public, and what became instant fuel to the already raging fire, was that Akio Toyoda refused to address the fact that Toyota had changed the Prius software, and changed the braking hardware in January, for cars in production. People wanted to know what happens with the cars they had already bought. Akio Toyoda left his customers in a lurch. Answering in very bad English instead through an interpreter made matters worse.
A day later, Reuters wrote that Toyota will recall the Prius “in the next few days.” Who was the source? A Toyota spokesperson? Nah. A “person close to the matter?” Nope. The source was a Toyota car dealer. “Toyota officials were not immediately available to comment.”
Today, the Nikkei [sub] writes that Toyota “has decided to recall and repair free of charge the latest model of its Prius hybrid sold in the domestic market due to complaints over brake problems.” And who’s the source? A Toyota spokesperson? Nah. (Read More…)
Oy, will they get slaughtered for that: So Toyota Prez. Akio Toyoda met the press late in the Japanese evening in Nagoya. And what did he say? Basically nothing. He said he “ordered swift action” to get a grip on the reported brake problems of the (in Japan) wildly popular Prius hybrid. But he didn’t say anything else. Recall? Shirimasen. (I don’t know.) Free repair if customer requests it? Shirimasen. Computer reflash? Shirimasen. Does Toyota know what’s going on? Shirimasen. Apparently, LaHood’s threat of bodily harm was lost in translation. (Read More…)
Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda will do something highly unusual tonight: The usually reclusive CEO will meet the press in Nagoya on Friday night at 9 p.m. Japanese time to discuss product quality, says the Nikkei [sub]. Toyoda won’t face the Fourth Estate all alone. Executive Vice President Shinichi Sasaki will also attend, and hopefully deflect the worst.
The press conference is not for Japanese consumption. Friday night at 9, most papers are put to bed, and the evening news are over. The meeting is for U.S. consumption. Friday night at 9 in Nagoya is 7 a.m. in New York. (Read More…)
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