Crisis veterans give company mixed grades
by Jesse Snyder - Automotive News

Suddenly, Toyota is playing defense.

Recall. Another recall. Sales suspension. Production halt. Expanded recall.

Each new headline hammered Toyota's reputation for high quality.

So far, Toyota's recent actions in handling the crisis -- such as halting North American production and sales of vehicles recalled for sticky accelerator pedals -- are correct, say veterans of other safety crises.

But Toyota receives mixed grades for staying on top of breaking events, which could cascade out of control.

Toyota acknowledges it's a challenge to keep pace with daily, even hourly, developments on a global basis.

"It's all about the customer," says Mike Michels, a spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. "Our primary concern is getting information and getting it out. Make sure it's accurate. Discourage speculation."

Said Tom McDonald, U.S. head of public relations when Audi was fending off charges of unintended acceleration in the 1980s: "Toyota is doing absolutely the right thing, putting the customer first. That's the No. 1 thing in any brand strategy. It has taken swift, bold steps."

Toyota is "doing as much as anyone can do," said Jason Vines, who headed Ford communications during the Explorer-Firestone controversy in 2000.

But Toyota's public response is hampered both by global time zones and its corporate networks of international subsidiaries that each report back to Toyota Motor Corp. in Japan. In the United States, separate corporations handle sales (based in California), manufacturing (Kentucky) and governmental affairs (Washington).

Mixed messages
Take redesigned parts. Last Tuesday, Jan. 26, Japan sources said supplier CTS Corp. was shipping new, redesigned pedals to North American plants so they could resume production soon. That day, Toyota Motor Sales in California could not confirm the report.

On Thursday, Jan. 28, Michels said CTS was indeed making new parts -- but not shipping them, because Toyota still was deciding who was to get parts first: idled plants, sales-restricted dealers, fleet customers or customers with recalled vehicles.

Like the Ford-Firestone tire recalls, Toyota's task is complicated by having millions of recalled vehicles on the road.

"There's no way to recall and fix them fast enough," Vines said. "There are deaths involved."

But these recall veterans see a danger of escalation beyond Toyota's control. On Friday, The Washington Post reported that Toyota faced complaints of unintended acceleration for years but did not install electronic overrides to prevent such acceleration until this month. Two U.S. House committees have scheduled February hearings on the matter.

"The train of public opinion is very, very strong," McDonald said. "And when the train is running out of control, it's difficult to stop."

Vines said Toyota must hurry to make replacement parts and fix recalled vehicles.

"Every day that goes by, there are more chances that there will be another death," he said. "And you know every time a Toyota is in an accident, film crews will be there."

That's already happening, said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst for IHS Global Insight. She pointed to a local TV report last week about a sudden acceleration resulting in the crash of a Lexus SUV.

Toyota's stellar reputation could be tarnished by repeated dribbles of bad news, Lindland said, comparing it to serial confessions of women saying they slept with golfer Tiger Woods.

"This is totally Tiger Woods," Lindland said. "We're all just waiting for the next one to pop out of the woods."

Lindland said Toyota's risk is greater with potential buyers than with current customers.

"Owners will trust that Toyota will take care of them," she said. "But this makes it hard to get new customers, younger customers, in the door."

Toyota is determined to make lemonade from the lemons of its current situation.

"We do have a chance to touch millions of customers," Michels said. "We have to make sure that experience communicates that they can have confidence in us, that the company takes care of them."

Report: Toyota Prius brakes under investigation by Japanese government

The pain just keeps on coming for Toyota. First came complaints of cars running away without the driver pressing the accelerator. Now the Japanese government has ordered an investigation of the brake system on the 2010 (third-generation) Prius. Like most other hybrids, the Prius uses an electro-hydraulic brake system that blends the regenerative and friction braking functions. There have apparently been dozens of complaints in Japan and North America of a momentary loss of braking power at low speeds on slick or bumpy road surfaces.

We can't say for sure what is or is not happening on the Prius, but we can offer some possible insight. On hybrids vehicles, the brake system monitors the state of charge of the battery, the available amount of regenerative braking and the driver's brake demand (as measured by the brake pedal apply). As the vehicle comes to a stop, the amount of regenerative braking is ramped down to zero since you can only capture kinetic energy when the wheels are rolling. Doing this smoothly requires an accurate software model of the friction braking behavior. If the friction brakes are generating less torque than the model says it should be, the brake system will apply less pressure to the brakes. The result would be a momentary loss of deceleration during the hand-off from regen to friction braking.

Because the behavior of friction brakes varies over time depending on temperature, moisture, wear and other factors, it is very difficult to calibrate these models. The other part of this equation is the fact that this is happening at low speeds. The wheel speed sensors become less accurate at low speeds as the time period between sensor pulses is extended. Rough or slippery surfaces exacerbate the problem, which could make the brake system think there is slip that might not be there, resulting in lower brake pressure. The result is a perceived loss of deceleration.

If these are the problems that the Prius is experiencing, they could be corrected with an update to the control software. However, that will take time for Toyota to calibrate and validate.

WASHINGTON—Toyota Motor Corp. is wading into a tricky political situation as its executives prepare for congressional hearings later this month about the company's massive safety recall.

The Japanese auto maker is the top competitor to General Motors Co., now majority-owned by the U.S. government. It also was a major beneficiary of last summer's "cash for clunkers" rebate program for car buyers, which lawmakers initially designed to spur Detroit's flagging sales.
[TOYOTA] United Press International

Union protesters outside the Japanese Embassy in Washington last week.

And Toyota has long faced resentment from the United Auto Workers for its resistance to unionized labor and for taking market share from its U.S. rivals, ultimately at the expense of union jobs.

Now, the UAW is seizing on Toyota's quality woes as it mounts a campaign to keep open a Toyota plant in Fremont, Calif., that includes unionized workers in a partnership with GM. The UAW also has pressed its Capitol Hill allies, including some members of the committees investigating the safety recalls, to take a tougher line against Japan and other countries that it says have put U.S. companies at a disadvantage through trade barriers.

Alan Reuther, the UAW's top lobbyist in Washington, said that the union wouldn't get involved directly in the Toyota recall. But he said he did think the recall could help the union's efforts to keep open the Fremont plant, on the theory that a penitent Toyota could be more likely to make concessions.

Union members rallied outside the Japanese Embassy here last week to protest the plant's closure. The union also sent out a statement following the rally that alluded to the recall, accusing Toyota of neglecting years of safety problems.

Toyota now employs about 34,000 workers in the U.S. Even so, Toyota remains a Japanese company, and its troubles come at a time of new friction between U.S. auto makers and their foreign competitors. The Obama administration, under pressure from Detroit auto makers, last month persuaded Japan to loosen the terms of its own "cash for clunkers" incentive program so that more U.S. vehicles could qualify.

Many Japanese newspapers and magazines are portraying the Toyota crisis in the U.S. as a resurgence of 1980s-era trade tensions over autos and hostility toward Japanese companies. A headline in the Jan. 30 issue of Japanese weekly business magazine Toyo Keizai said in part: "Toyota bashing is seen, as if the past auto-trade frictions were reignited..."

Foreign car makers have continuously increased the proportion of U.S.-made cars that they sell in the U.S., said Michael Stanton, head of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, a Washington trade group representing Toyota and other foreign auto makers. "The reality is changing, but the perception is still out there, and I think some people are trying to build on their perception."

Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.), who chairs the House Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations panel and called for a hearing on the Toyota recall, said the hearing is strictly about public safety. It would be "ludicrous" to suggest broader trade tensions are at play, he said.

Mr. Stupak said Congress put the heat on Ford Motor Co. a decade ago after a rash of deadly rollover accidents involving Ford Explorer sport-utility vehicles and Firestone tires, and that Congress repeatedly grilled executives of GM and Chrysler Group LLC leading up to last year's government bailouts.

Mr. Stupak said the UAW hasn't contacted him personally on the Toyota recall but may have contacted his committee. The panel also includes Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.), a staunch ally of the union and Detroit's auto makers. A spokesman for Mr. Dingell didn't respond to an interview request Monday.

Toyota said in a statement it appreciated the opportunity to appear before the committees and that its focus "is being directed 100% on understanding the cause of this problem and developing the right fix."