After 25 years, California’s last automobile plant will be closing it’s doors. Toyota announced the closure last year shortly after General Motors Co. pulled out of the facility which was a joint venture between the two companies. The plant made Toyota Tacoma trucks and Corolla sedans. The last Tacoma rolled off the assembly lines last week, and the production of the Corolla ended Thursday. Over four thousand jobs will be lost due to this closure.
Tag Archives: Toyota
Mazda Teams Up With Toyota On Hybrid
Mazda’s long time relationship with Ford is weakening as Mazda looks to Toyota for hybrid drive train technology. In the past Mazda has used Ford’s hybrid system in its sport-utility vehicle, the Tribute, but because Mazda plans to make their new hybrid car in Japan, they decided to lease the technology from Toyota instead. Masaharu Yamaki, Mazda’s executive vice-president, said the group had chosen Toyota’s technology over Ford’s because, “We need to procure components quickly and reliably from domestic suppliers.” The agreement which the two companies had been negotiating since last spring, will include hybrid components such as control systems, inverters and the regenerative braking mechanism.
Takeshi Uchiyamada, Toyota’s executive vice-president, said the Mazda deal would help lower production costs for Toyota’s own hybrid cars by expanding the market for shared components. As a result, “We hope that the cost of parts will fall and new innovations will emerge.”
Honda Toyota Price Wars
In the recent shadow of Toyota’s unintended acceleration, Toyota has offered price and loan incentives to get customers back in the doors and buying automobiles. Honda, in an attempt to not fall behind, is offering its biggest deals ever, starting a price war which could leave other automobile manufacturers behind. The irony of this price war is that it is being started by Japanese automakers which historically don’t use these types of tactics. American automakers have been cautious about entering the price wars since they do not have a lot of cash to offer incentives.” said Aaron Bragman, auto industry analyst at IHS Global Insight.
These incentives may end up hurting Toyota in the near future. The company has seen sales soar as bargain hunters and loyal customers stream into showrooms to take advantage of the deals. Once that traffic runs out, Toyota will find it even harder to sell to people who are not loyal or who are skeptical of the brand.
Toyota Offers Secondary Fix For Customers
If you have taken your Toyota in for repairs under their January recall for unintended acceleration and you are still unhappy with its operation, Toyota is offering another fix. The Japanese automaker said in a memo obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press that if a customer is unhappy with the feel of the accelerator after the car is repaired, dealers can provide a replacement pedal at no charge. “A replacement pedal should only be offered to a customer after the reinforcement bar has been installed and the customer has expressed dissatisfaction with the operation and/or feel of the pedal,” Toyota said in a memo to dealers, service manager and parts managers.
Over 100 owners have complained about problems with sudden acceleration after Toyota dealers fixed their vehicles. Toyota has said it is confident in its repairs and has found no evidence of other problems. Many feel the problem with the vehicle is not a problem with the accelerator parts but rather with electronic interference. A group of consumer advocates and engineers who contend Toyota has discounted potential electronic problems in problem vehicles planned to hold a news conference Tuesday on the massive recalls.
Kristen Tabar, an electronics general manager with Toyota’s technical center in Ann Arbor, Mich., said in a video clip posted by the company on Monday that the automaker has eight labs in Japan that it uses to bombard vehicles with electronic interference. She said Toyota ensures that “every system in the vehicle operates properly under those conditions.”
Below is a list of Toyota Vehicles recalled:
- 2005-2010 Avalon
- 2007-2010 Camry
- 2009-2010 Corolla
- 2008-2010 Highlander
- 2009-2010 Matrix
- 2004-2009 Prius
- 2010 Prius
- 2009-2010 RAV4
- 2008-2010 Sequoia
- 2005-2010 Tacoma
- 2007-2010 Tundra
- 2009-2010 VENZA
Toyota Prius Recall Fueled By Mass Hysteria?
In February 2009 over one hundred complaints had been made to The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Office in regards to 2010 Prius brakes that do not always function correctly. An internal NHTSA agency memo indicated that the issue was a “short delay” in regenerative braking when hitting a bump. Japan’s Ministry of Transportation ordered Toyota to investigate Prius braking problems after it received 14 complaints, and Toyota received 77 complaints in Japan. On February 9, 2010 Toyota announced a voluntary global recall of third generation 2010 Prius models. A total of 133,000 Prius vehicles in the U.S. and 52,000 in Europe received software updates to fix the problem.
NHTSA has received at least 10 reports of unintended acceleration on Prius models that Toyota claims to have already been fixed under its recall. The Associated Press reported on March 5, 2010 that additional complaints may be a psychological response of “mass hysteria” to “relentless media coverage” of the Toyota recalls.
Below are two accounts of runaway Prius’s that Toyota concluded the problem was driver related as they could not find anything wrong with the car.
On March 8,2010 the California Highway Patrol (CHP) received a 911 call from a man speeding down a California highway at 90 mph in his 2008 Toyota Prius. James Sikes, the driver of the vehicle claimed that his gas pedal was stuck and pressing the brakes would not slow down the car. The highway patrol officer at the scene says he could see the brake lights turn on and off periodically, and he could smell the heated brakes from a quarter mile away.
When the officer told Sikes to shift to neutral Sikes refused, later telling reporters he feared shifting to neutral would cause him to loose control of the car. Eventually, the car stopped on its own by applying the foot brake and parking brake at the same time.
Toyota’s investigators examined the car and found that the accelerator pedal was functioning normally with no mechanical binding or friction. However, the front brakes showed severe wear and damage from overheating. One of the most surprising Toyota findings was evidence of numerous, rapidly repeated on-and-off applications of both the accelerator and brake pedals. Sikes insisted he was pressing hard on the brakes to stop the car, so repeated application of the gas pedal does not seem to make sense, says Toyota. Toyota’s engineers also purposely overheated the brakes, but could still stop the vehicle.
On March 9, 2010 a similar story in New York involved a housekeeper who said that the 2005 Toyota Prius she was driving sped up on its own down a driveway and crashed into a stone wall. The driver of the car was not seriously hurt, but the car was totaled.
The NHTSA said the computer data from a Toyota Prius showed that at the time of the accident the throttle was open and the driver was not applying the brakes.
Can Toyota Survive Their Problems?
According to Toyota’s company earnings results, it is estimated that Toyota’s unintended acceleration will affect almost 8.5 million cars world wide and could end up costing the company almost $2 billion. Analysts say that this is a conservative estimate and that the cost will more likely be almost $6 billion, if you include repairs for recalls, lost sales and the ever growing lawsuits being filed against the company.
Still, amongst all the bad publicity, Toyota has done a good job cutting costs over the past year, and it is still a leader in environmental technologies. Most analysts predict good profit growth next year as demand grows in markets like China.
“Toyota has announced plans to deal with the recalls, and is working to address the problems promptly,” said Noriyuki Matsushima, an auto analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Japan. “We think the recall story is likely to die down by April if its quality dealerships can quickly repair the problems while providing reassurance to customers.”
For now, Toyota’s incentives appear to be working. Dealers are reporting surging sales and expect to post a net profit of $885 million in the fiscal year ending March 31, coming back from a loss last year.
Black Boxes On Automobiles
David Strickland the administrator for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that the agency is considering mandatory installation of “black boxes” on all cars and trucks. These “black boxes” similar to flight recorders in aircraft will record critical automobile information leading up to an accident. The NHTSA had first encouraged black box technology in 2006, but because of Toyota’s unintended acceleration problems, the NHTSA hopes to make this technology mandatory and the information from these “black boxes” readily available.
Some feel the addition of this technology will only drive up the price of automobiles which will be passed down to the consumer. Others feel it will reduce our privacy rights by allowing our vehicles to be so closely monitored resulting in benefits for the insurance companies and auto makers but not necessarily the drivers of the automobiles. Even today, with technology such as “On star”, the consumer does not have the choice whether they want it on their vehicle and though it can be deactivated, consumers still wonder what information is being transmitted, and how can this information be used against us.
2009 Was A Year Of High Auto Recalls
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced 2009 as the highest for auto recalls since 2005. Although the number of campaigns was the lowest in five years, the number of automobiles recalled in each campaign was high. 2008 brought about 10.5 million vehicles recalled in 684 campaigns while there were 16.4 million vehicles recalled in 2009 in 492 campaigns. Only Honda reported a decline in recalled vehicles in 2009.
Below is a list of how the recalls were distributed amongst auto makers in 2009:
- The leader with nine campaigns adding up to 4.26 million vehicles recalled was the automaker Toyota and their unintended acceleration problems. This is the first time a Japanese automaker has led the industry total.
- Ford recalled 4.5 million vehicles in eight campaigns. The largest being a defective cruise control switch which was linked to vehicle fires.
- General Motors had 2.2 million vehicles recalled in 16 campaigns. The possibility of engine fires in passenger sedans accounted for 1.5 million vehicles recalled.
- Chrysler had 15 campaigns, recalling almost 600,000 vehicles. Chrysler’s popular minivans the Town & Country and the Dodge Grand Caravan accounted for over 350,000 of these recalls for defective crash sensors.
- Honda had four campaigns recalling 454,000 vehicles. Almost all these vehicles were recalled due to an airbag defect.
- Nissan Motor Co. had six campaigns, recalling 706,000 vehicles in 2009. Almost 550,000 of these recalls were due to a brake pedal pin becoming partially disengaged causing a loss of normal braking power.
- Hyundai Motor Co. and its Kia unit recalled 1.3 million vehicles in eight campaigns. Over 530,000 recalls were due to a malfunctioning stop lamp switch that could prevent the brake lights from illuminating or cause them to stay lit after the brakes were released.
- Volkswagen had eights campaigns and 100,000 vehicles recalled. Almost 17,000 sport-utility vehicles were recalled to fix a software program that could lead to passenger air bag failure.
