All Entries in the "Auto News" Category
Toyota’s Legal Troubles, Independent Testing, and Little Black Boxes
This promises to be a tough week for Toyota. While they’ve finally gotten their PR team in gear, the CEO of the company (Akio Toyoda) is going to be testifying before congress and it’s not likely to go well. Toyoda’s not a confident English speaker, a lot of embarrassing facts have come out about Toyota, members of congress are going to be working hard to get a good anti-Toyota sound bite or two, and despite a mountain of evidence that Toyota’s unintended acceleration problem is completely overblown, mainstream media continues to harp on the issue. Here’s a break-down of what you can expect.
Toyota CEO Writes Op-Ed in Wall Street Journal
Akio Toyoda, scion of the Toyoda family (pun intended), has written an open letter to the Wall Street Journal. Here are the highlights:
GM Steals 2010 Tundra’s Intellichoice Best Value Award
Intellichoice.com recently announced their 2010 vehicle Best Value Awards, and GM’s pickups nearly swept the truck category. Here are all the winners in the truck categories:
- Compact Pickup – Toyota Tacoma
- Half-ton Pickup – Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Crew Cab Hybrid, GMC Sierra 1500 Crew Cab Hybrid
- 3/4 ton Pickup – Chevrolet Silverado 2500 HD Crew Cab, GMC Sierra 2500 HD Crew Cab
- One-ton Pickup – Chevrolet Silverado 3500 Crew Cab, GMC Sierra 3500 Crew Cab
First of all, congrats to GM for winning the 3/4 and 1 ton categories – that’s great work in a tough segment. However, when it comes to winning the 1/2 ton segment, we think Intellichoice screwed up. Intellichoice didn’t account for the GM hybrid’s diminished capabilities. If they had, they would have excluded the GM hybrids from the half-ton competition, and we believe the Tundra would have been the winner.
Runaway Toyota Accidents Almost Always Driver Error
When the L.A. Slimes L.A. Times asked Richard Schmidt, a noted automotive safety expert, about unintended acceleration back in November 09′, here’s what he had to say:
…the problem almost always lies with drivers who step on the wrong pedal. “When the driver says they have their foot on the brake, they are just plain wrong,” Schmidt said. “The human motor system is not perfect, and it doesn’t always do what it is told.”
It’s really popular right now to say that Toyota’s electronic throttle system is somehow responsible for unintended acceleration accidents, but the data shows that most runaway accidents are simply driver error. We’ve all seen and heard stories of runaway Toyota vehicles, but consider this:
7 Ways Toyota Can Recover Consumer Confidence
Now that some time has passed and Toyota has begun repairing vehicles, it’s likely the media firestorm around the unintended acceleration issue will settle down. While there will certainly be more mentions of this issue in the future, the immediate crisis seems to be over.
The issue for Toyota – once they get all of the cars fixed – will be re-building the confidence that consumers have lost in the Toyota brand. Here are 7 steps Toyota can take to restore their credibility:
