Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to report a group operating profit of about 100 billion yen ($1.14b) for the April-June period, The Nikkei [sub]. That would be a huge improvement over the same quarter loss of 194.8 billion yen ($2.23b) in 2009. In case you are wondering about the strange quarters: Japan goes by the fiscal year that ends on March 31. The April-June period is the first quarter of the new year, and times are good at TMC. (Read More…)
An anonymous Toyota Tech sent us these recent images of a 2008 Prius and its highly questionable pedal-floormat interface. Did nobody tell this guy that Toyota has had some problems with floormat pedal interference, and that there had been a recall? Did he somehow miss the months-long media frenzy? This is yet more proof that there is literally no way to completely prevent unintended acceleration, even if the problem has been identified and a recall has been issued. Remember folks, when it comes to cars only you can keep you safe.
Remember how Toyota was slapped with a $16.4m fine for allegedly withholding information and delaying recalls? Remember how Toyota was served again with a subpoena for information, what many read as the prelude for another $16.4m fine? (If anyone again says that $16,4m is pocket change, please send me the pocket change.) Well, there are some people in Washington who claim that it’s the U.S. government that might be withholding information. (Read More…)
It’s a little known fact, but Toyota’s first factory abroad was in Brazil. Toyota started producing their Bandeirante (known elsewhere as Land Cruiser, full history here) locally in CKD mode in 1958. In 1962, the factory in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo state was inaugurated. There, Toyota do Brasil produced the 4WD, almost unchanged, until the year 2000. The site is still productive, but now only makes parts. In the 90s, they inaugurated another factory in Indaiatuba, SP state, too, to produce the Corolla. In September, construction of the third Toyota factory in Brazil will begin in Sorocaba, São Paulo state. (Read More…)
Honda is moving closer to the grid. Honda is working on on a plug-in hybrid, and an all-electric car. It will take a while until they are ready, if you want one, you need to wait until 2013. Toyota is a step and a year ahead: ToMoCo will begin mass production of plug-in hybrids and electric cars in 2012. (Read More…)
So when you thought things at Toyota are getting back to normal, what with NHTSA backpedaling on their ghost in the machine busting attempts, here comes a biggie: A federal grand jury in New York served Toyota with a subpoena, seeking information relating to defects in its steering relay rods. Fancy lawyers call that a subpoena duces tecum, and charge more. The Washington Post reckons this might “potentially widen an investigation that began with reports of sudden unintended acceleration.” (Read More…)
What’s that? We still haven’t plumbed the depths of our bag-o-automotive-sales-data thoroughly enough to have published annual sales for the Toyota Prius? Well, here it is, my truth-starved friends: ten years of Prius sales, culminating in two consecutive years of falling sales. And granted, most nameplates are down over the last two years because the market has been down for a solid two years now. Also, if you think the downturn is due to gas prices, you’ve got a surprise waiting for you after the jump. So has the Prius lost its luster? Could the most culturally significant passenger car of the last ten years be running out of steam (or whatever it runs on), or is this just a natural drop in demand in line with a weak market?
On Friday Ford announced [via Automotive News [sub]] that it had reached an amicable resolution to a long-standing dispute over hybrid drivetrain technology with Paice, a company that claims to have invented technology crucial to the operation of hybrid powerplants. Ford uses the disputed technology in its Fusion Hybrid and Escape Hybrid vehicles, and it will likely pay royalties to Paice as a result of the settlement, although Ford refuses to give any details on the agreement. Toyota is also locked in a legal dispute with Paice, after a judge ordered Toyota to pay Paice royalties for hybrid models it sells in the US. Toyota continues to litigate an International Trade Commission complaint by Paice aimed at barring the sale of Toyota hybrids in the US. [UPDATE: Toyota has just announced [via BusinessWeek that it has settled with Paice as well, effectively bringing years of controversy to a close. Details of the settlement have not been made clear, but Paice’s Alex Severinsky says that this vindicates his long-standing claim to being the inventor of modern hybrid drivetrains.
Finally something tangible out of the Toyota/Tesla-hookup: Tesla and Toyota will build an electric version of Toyota’s RAV4 compact crossover. According to a communiqué by Toyota, the two companies signed an agreement to that effect. The E-RAV4 is supposed to be available in the United States in 2012. So fast? Well, it’s as simple as combining the Toyota RAV4 model with a Tesla electric powertrain, says Toyota. The first prototype has already been built and is now undergoing testing. Tesla will “produce and deliver a fleet of prototypes to Toyota for evaluation within this year.” (Read More…)
We didn’t make it down to the first meeting of the NHTSA-National Research Council panel tasked with studying unintended acceleration, but apparently we weren’t the only ones. A scan of the MSM confirms that a number of “more study is needed” stories were filed for the occasion, a good two weeks ago now, but we’ve been pointed towards the presentations for that meeting [available for download here, all 128 slides in PDF format here], and we feel comfortable drawing a few conclusions from them. In fact, we’d even argue that this data puts a lot of the controversy over unintended acceleration in Toyotas to rest.
Welcome to amateur hour. As reported yesterday, The Wall Street Journal claimed in a story that Toyota’s “data recorders can lose their information if disconnected from the car’s battery or if the battery dies—as could happen after a crash.” Their source was “a person familiar with the situation.” Commentator Carquestions concluded that the source doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. After we wrote about it, Carquestions fingered the not so knowledgeable source as “a secretary within Media Relations at the DOT.”
Instead of talking to a secretary, the WSJ could have done what we did: Call Toyota headquarters in Tokyo. (Read More…)
Carquestions noticed a troubling issue with the latest Wall Street Journal report on the investigation of Toyota’s black-box data: the report cites its anonymous source as saying that “black box” event data recorders (EDRs) can lose their data if disconnected from the battery. Carquestions points out that this is not the case, cites the appropriate regulations and concludes that it sounds like this source doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. Meanwhile, Jalopnik is running with the story that Toyota planted the story… but then, why would Toyota imply that its own black boxes don’t meet regulatory standards? Especially when Toyota’s official comment is that it has yet to draw any conclusions from the investigation. For a story with such a logical conclusion (yes, most people are bad drivers) this is all getting a bit complicated.
So far, it had only been the usual people “familiar with the findings” that whispered to the WSJ that the NHTSA has found bupkis in their search for the ghosts in Toyota’s machines, and that there is growing suspicion of the NHTSA that it could have been the wrong foot on the wrong pedal again.
Now, the Financial Times writes for the first time that “US government officials have acknowledged that they have so far found no fault with the carmaker’s electronic throttle controls. They have suggested that many complaints of unintended acceleration that have dogged Toyota stem from driver error rather than defective equipment.” (Read More…)
On the back of the news from the NHTSA that they can’t find evidence of Sudden Unintended Acceleration (SUA) electronic gremlins, you’d think that Toyota would be feeling smug about themselves. You’d want to shout this from the rooftops, wouldn’t you? “It’s the drivers, stupid!” If I were Akio Toyoda, I’d show this to Bob Lutz, a bloke who took great delight in knocking Toyota throughout this affair. But what was Toyota’s European division’s reaction to all of this? Humility. (Read More…)
Much of the hysteria over a possible electronic cause for the Toyota unintended acceleration scandal (aka “the ghost in the machine”) stemmed from an ABC report featuring Southern Illinois University professor David Gilbert. Gilbert demonstrated to ABC’s Brian Ross that unintended acceleration could be triggered in Toyotas without generating an error code, but the report didn’t address the likelihood of this happening. Furthermore, ABC was found to have used misleading footage in that report. Gilbert went on to testify in one of the least convincing panels ever convened before congress, and even after Toyota held an event aimed solely at debunking his suspicions, Gilbert has persisted in believing that something is wrong with Toyota’s electronics. As a result, the AP [via CBC] reports that Toyota has pulled funding for two internships at SIU, two Toyota employees resigned from its automotive technology program advisory board, and another demanded that Gilbert be fired. The AP seems very keen to call these retaliations “smears,” but given recent revelations about the government investigation into Toyota’s electronic throttle control system, it seems that Gilbert and SIU are simply reaping what they’ve sown.
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