All Entries Tagged With: "unintended acceleration"
Five Things Toyota Can Teach Lebron James
Unless you’re living in a cave in Waziristan, you’ve undoubtedly learned that Lebron James has abandoned Cleveland for South Beach. After two years of nauseating speculation, LeBron finally announced his decision last night. [Sidebar: Staying in Cleveland would have been the right thing to do in my opinion – they have been destroyed because of him.]
Image copyright Keith Allison
The thing is, all this publicity and media love for LeBron has many parallels with Toyota’s rise to fame in North America. James has thrust himself into the spotlight, and playing in Miami with two other superstars is only going to raise expectations. Consider the following:
Toyota Unintended Acceleration Scandal Update – 255 Days Later
On Friday, August 28th, 2009, Mark Saylor and his family died in a fiery wreck, the victim of unsecured and over-sized floormats in the Lexus ES they were borrowing from a local dealership. Saylor’s story was compelling because he was a California Highway Patrol officer, and because of a panicked 911 call recording Saylor’s last moments where Saylor said that his throttle was stuck.
The crash that lead to an international scandal. Image copyright NBCSandDiego.com.
The death of Sayler and his family gained national media coverage, eventually growing into a full scandal. Groundless accusations of malfunctioning electronic throttles combined with greedy and inept Toyota execs combined to tarnish the reputation of Toyota. In the 255 days since Saylor’s crash, the following has occurred.
SNL Toyota Acceleration Gag Video
The comedians at SNL did a nice job of lampooning Toyota’s perceived unintended acceleration problems – check it out:
It’s definitely a good laugh, and it speaks to a much larger issue – Toyota’s success and reputation is being co-opted by Ford (at least in the eyes of the public).
Toyota Creates Unintended Acceleration A-Team
Yesterday Toyota announced their new rapid-response S.W.A.T. SMART team to deal with unintended acceleration complaints within 24 hours of being alleged. SMART – which stands for Swift Market Analysis Response Team – is supposed to contact Toyota customers within 24 hours of an unintended acceleration complaint. SMART members will schedule an on-site analysis of the customer’s vehicle, and – if necessary – bring in some Engineers from Japan to look things over.
If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The SMART Team
No, this is not an April Fool’s joke that’s 8 days late – this is real. Here’s the commentary:
Toyota Accelerator Recall Lawsuits Could Cost $10 Billion
In the last two weeks a few class-action lawsuits against Toyota have been announced (one by the Orange County DA, one in Phoenix, and a few others). Central to all of these lawsuits is the allegation that Toyota knowingly mislead consumers in regards to unintended acceleration problems, which is technically known as “consumer fraud.”
For the record, there are degrees of fraud. Fraud as a result of stupidity or negligence is different than intentional acts that will knowingly injure another party. For example – accidentally writing a bad check from an account you closed is definitely considered fraud, but it’s not the same as stealing someone else’s checkbook and writing what you know to be a bad check. Intent is important.
Toyota’s problem is, it’s very difficult to argue that their actions weren’t intentionally designed to hurt consumers. Here’s how allegations of fraud at Toyota break down (and why they’re probably going to lose billions when it’s all over):
