Toyota vs. NHTSA: The Posturing Begins
By Michelle Krebs February 16, 2010With the first of a series of Congressional hearings only a week away, posturing by Toyota 
and the federal safety agency in charge of watching Toyota and other automakers has begun.
Both will be on hot seats during the hearings, and both are attempting to put themselves in the best light possible between now and then.
On Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was using its statutory authority to force Toyota to provide paperwork showing when and how the automaker learned of the defects that led to the recall of million of vehicles in the U.S. The government safety agency wants to determine of the recall were conducted "in a timely manner."
At the same time, Toyota Motor Co. President Akio Toyoda is preparing to brief the media Wednesday evening in Japan. He is expected to provide detail the global task force he is leading to revamp Toyota's quality control system.
In the U.S., Toyota executive have gone public in print and in person with apologies and assurances to customers and dealers.
Jim Lentz, who heads Toyota's U.S. sales arm, said in an Op-Ed piece in USA Today insisted Toyota was "firmly focused" on quality, reiterating almost verbatim what had penned under Toyoda's name in an earlier Washington Post Op-Ed piece.
Other Toyota executives met with troubled dealers at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando over the weekend."We are going to push the quality benchmark even further," after the recall, Carter said, speaking to reporters following an appearance at the National Automobile Dealers Association annual convention here.
During the convention, Toyota reportedly was talking with dealers about its plan to launch a major marketing campaign as a way to regain consumer trust and keep customers coming to dealer showrooms.
In the meantime, however, Toyota plans to temporarily idle plants in Kentucky and Texas to prevent a build-up of unsold inventory. The San Antonio, Texas plant, which builds the Tundra pickup truck, will be idle the weeks of March 15 and April 12. The Kentucky plant, which makes the Camry, Avalon and Venza. will be idle Feb. 26 and may have more downtime scheduled in the future.
NHTSA Turns Up the Heat on Toyota
Federal officials have received a flurry of new complaints in recent weeks about deaths linked to sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, bringing the total number of alleged fatalities to 34 since 2000, according to government data published Tuesday by the Washington Post.
The paper reported that between the years of 2000 and 2009, NHTSA received complaints alleging 21 deaths attributable to sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Since Jan. 27, federal officials have received complaints alleging an additional 13 fatalities linked to the same issue in Toyota vehicles between 2005 and 2010.
NHTSA also has received a wave of new complaints in recent days about the now-recalled Toyota Prius hybrid for brake problems. Before opening an investigation into the Prius issues on Feb. 3, the agency said it had received 124 consumer complaints. Since then, it has received nearly 1,000, the Washington Post reported.
Toyota Strikes Back
Toyota announced it had commissioned a study into the electronics of its vehicles -- a question that has been raised by many observers as the cause of unwanted acceleration. The study is being done by a Menlo Park, Calif.-based engineering research firm called Exponent. Early results say no evidence of electronic problems exist.
In addition to electronics, Toyota's so-called black boxes are likely to be under scrutiny in upcoming hearings. As a Newsweek article points out only Toyota can read the data from the onboard black boxes. In contrast, Detroit automakers have black boxes that can be read by outsiders with commercially available tools. The information in the black boxes is used in accident reconstruction.
Keeping Customers Buying
While the legal and political wrangling go on, Toyota and its dealers were meeting at the National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando over the weekend to figure out how they to lure customers back to their showrooms.
The effort, as reported by Automotive News and Bloomberg News, may include: extending new-car warranties to give Toyota the best in the industry, possibly as long as 10 years; owner loyalty cash, perhaps in the thousands of dollars; offering used-vehicle warranties; financing dealers' used-car inventories; offering free maintenance; and providing cash to dealers to allow them more discretion in making repairs not addressed by the various recalls.
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