Read the full PDF of Toyota’s settlement with NHTSA [courtesy: The Detroit News] here.

On April 5, the NHTSA levied their largest civil penalty in recorded history. $16,375,000 against Toyota,  because “they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families.” When we reported that, people thought Toyota would just appeal and drag it out. Not so easy, said The Nikkei [sub]. Toyota is between a rock and a hard place: “Admitting to the charge could strengthen the cases of car owners suing the firm, while refuting it risks inflaming U.S. public opinion.”  Toyota found a way out. (Read More…)

And the hits, they keep on coming: The Nikkei [sub] has it that Toyota will recall 740,000 Sienna minivans that have been sold or operated in cold-weather areas in the United States and Canada. They’ll be checking for corrosion of the spare tire carrier cable. (Read More…)

Toyota received another invitation to join a little congressional chit-chat,  reports The Nikkei [sub]. On May 6^th,  a U.S. House panel will hold a hearing to “further examine Toyota’s inquiry into potential electronic causes of sudden unintended acceleration,” as the invitation letter from Henry Waxman to James Lentz, president of Toyota U.S. says. The presence of Lentz is requested at the hearing. (Read More…)

According to Reuters, The Nikkei is reporting that Toyota has approved a “competitively priced Prius hybrid minivan” for production in 2011. The new model will be the first Prius-branded vehicle in a long-rumored campaign by Toyota to stretch the nameplate to new models (future additions to the Prius line could include a compact model, based on the FT-CH concept). Depending on the timing of its release relative to the forthcoming plug-in Prius, it could also be the first lithium-ion battery-powered Toyota hybrid. Toyota will initially produce the new batteries in-house, before migrating production to a plant run by its joint venture with Panasonic. Toyota has not yet given details about pricing, performance, or even which markets this new minivan will initially be rolled out to.

On point as always, TTAC commenter ajla called it in today’s Camry review. In the comments after that tale of suburban anonymity and “the Marriot of cars,” he asked:

Wouldn’t you really rather have a Buick?

I figure Toyota thinks that, in their heart of hearts, many Americans do still want a Buick. Not an actual Buick, mind you, but a big, comfortable sedan that’s somewhat luxurious but not at all flashy. Over a year ago, I made the friendly recommendation that Buick ditch its explicitly youthful marketing message for “something along the lines of Canadian Club’s “damn right your dad drank it,” campaign.” This spot for the new Avalon probably comes closer to what I had in mind for Buick than anything I’ve seen since. The question then, isn’t so much “is Toyota the new Buick?” as where is Buick going to find its own niche? The wreckage of Acura?

University of Tokyo professor, author, and Toyota Production System expert Takahiro Fujimoto sits down with Wharton Business School professor John Paul MacDuffie to analyze Toyota’s staggering fall from grace [via Strada Blog]. Fujimoto largely skates over the “fat product” phenomenon, but acknowledges that high quality and increasing complexity led to debilitating arrogance at Toyota. As he says, Hyundai has been growing just as quickly (if not more so) in recent years, and yet has managed to avoid Toyota-esque quality scandals. The problem, he says, isn’t on the production side. Design quality problems stemming from arrogant middle-management at company headquarters, he says, are the fundamental deviations from the Toyota Way.

That was fast: Two days after Consumer Reports slammed the Lexus GX460  with a “Do Not Buy” rating, and one day after ToMoCo halted the sale of said vehicle, Toyota already has a fix. Today at lunchtime in Tokyo, Toyota said to The Nikkei [sub] that there will be changes to the Lexus GX460. This in an unusually quick response to CR’s assertion that the SUV’s tail can wag too much when the gas pedal is released while turning at high speeds. (Read More…)

With weeks of recall coverage and with Lexus’s GX460 snagging a rare Consumer Reports “do not buy” warning, you’d think that at least one of CR’s recent “worst-made cars on the road” [via Forbes] would be made by Toyota. But you’d be wrong. Dodge Nitro, Jeep Wrangler, and Ford F-250 join four GM products (Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Aveo, Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon) as the seven worst cars CR could come up with. And though this hometown sweep for Detroit goes a long way from separating facts from fiction, it’s nowhere near as instructive as the responses from each of the Detroit automakers to the charge of making crap vehicles. Let’s take a look, shall we?
(Read More…)

According to the latest Rasmussen telephone polling [via The Financial], 48 percent of Americans believe that the government’s ownership stake in GM and Chrysler means it has a conflict of interest in regulating competing automakers. 25 percent disagree, saying that the government’s bailout doesn’t affect regulation, and another 26 percent aren’t sure. When it comes to recent criticism of Toyota by administration officials like Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, only 25 percent believe the criticism stems from a desire to help GM, while 38 percent disagree and 37 percent aren’t sure. But the polls most interesting results have nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with perception:

Despite Toyota’s major safety recalls, owners of its cars are still more loyal than those who drive cars made by the bailed-out GM. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans who currently own a Toyota say they are at least somewhat likely to buy their next car from the troubled automaker, compared to 57% of GM drivers who say they are at least somewhat likely to buy their next car from GM.

Toyota’s Lexus GX 460 has been taken behind the woodshed by consumer reports. The SUV re-emerged with two black eyes. CR issued a “Don’t Buy” rating and declared the GX 460 a “safety risk.” Said TTAC’s Edward Niedermeyer: “Expect GX460 sales to fall off a cliff until the model is fitted with an electronic straitjacket.” Fall off a cliff? Sales are zero as of this morning. (Read More…)

The mainstream media’s big story of the day is Toyota’s “sticky pedal” strategy in the courtrooms across the land. And it has little or nothing to do with actual gas pedals, and everything to do with stalling in producing the court ordered company documents that could show known deficiencies in product design and safety. AP analyzed lawsuits covering a range of complaints, and in response to requests for company documents, Toyota has consistently claimed it does not have them, or simply ignored court orders to produce the documents. The pattern being uncovered supports the claims made by Dimitros Biller, a former Toyota attorney who sued (and settled) with Toyota after contending that the company deliberately withheld evidence in older rollover cases. (Read More…)

The Chinese government has been getting serious about controlling the emission and consumption of its rapidly growing fleet. Local manufacturers such as BYD and foreign joint venture partners are quick to rise to the occasion. Toyota’s Chinese joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile launched today a hybrid version of the Camry. The Camry is well liked in China, more than half a million of the non-hybrid version have been sold in China between its launch there in June 2006 and the end of February 2010. The hybrid Camry Hybrid won’t come cheap. (Read More…)

Toyota is still smarting from a heavy decking it has received from Congress, the NHTSA, lawyers, and the press. Toyota’s answer? Let’s get SMART! (Read More…)

The Detroit Free Press sure seems to think it’s “possible.” The paper reports that NHTSA’s “final notification” to Toyota includes a warning that it “would have faced a fine totaling $13.8 billion were it not for caps set by U.S. law on NHTSA penalties.” But then, that’s a bit like Toyota saying it would have manufactured its pedals to space shuttle specification if it didn’t cost so much money to do so. Six paragraphs into the piece, the Freep concedes that

NHTSA said it could issue another fine depending on whether it decides the problems with sticking pedals are technically two separate defects, based on the manufacturing changes made by Toyota.

The AP reports that documents obtained by NHTSA say Toyota acknowledges CTS-manufactured pedals “had two separate defects that may require two separate remedies.” But that’s not all, folks…

(Read More…)