Posts Tagged ‘toyota safety’
But maker has yet to come up with fix.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Mar.15, 2013
Toyota's FJ Cruiser is its latest model to face recall.
Toyota is recalling about 310,000 of its distinctive FJ Cruiser SUVs, the majority of which were sold in the United States, due to a seatbelt problem.
The announcement is the latest in a series of safety-related problems for the maker which topped the list among manufacturers in terms of the number of vehicles it recalled in the U.S. for three of the last four years.
According to Toyota, the problem involves seatbelts that could fail because of excess wear.
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“The seatbelt retractors for the driver and front passenger seat belts are mounted on the rear doors of the vehicles,” Toyota explained in a press statement. “Due to insufficient strength of the rear door panel, cracks may develop over an extended period of time if the rear door is repeatedly and forcefully closed.”
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Tags: auto news, auto safety, car news, car safety, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota fj cruiser, toyota fj cruiser recall, toyota news, toyota quality, toyota recall, toyota safety
Posted in Automobiles | 2 Comments »
Lentz running North American ops; former GM exec Hogan joins Toyota board.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Mar.06, 2013
From sales to manufacturing, Toyota's Jim Lentz will now run all operations in the Americas.
In an unexpected announcement, Toyota has announced a major shake-up in its global management structure that will significantly increase the role of the North American market – and senior U.S. executives, in particular.
The realignment positions Jim Lentz, who has been the top American executive at the giant Japanese maker, as its number one boss for all of North America. Meanwhile, the current U.S. head of the Lexus luxury brand will now become managing officer for Lexus International. And Mark Hogan, a former General Motors senior executive, will become the first American ever on the 76-year-old Toyota Motor Co.’s board of directors.
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“These changes will help us to achieve sustainable growth and realize our global vision by giving more responsibility to each region, including our North and South American operations, so that they may develop and deliver even better products and offer the best service to our customers,” declared Akio Toyoda, TMC’s global chief executive and grandson of the maker’s founder.
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Tags: Akio Toyoda, Toyota shake-up, auto news, car news, jim lentz, mark hogan, mark templin, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, steve st. angelo, thedetroitbureau, toyota global management, toyota management, toyota news, toyota recalls, toyota safety
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Settles with 29 states for delayed response to unintended acceleration problems.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Feb.15, 2013
The Lexus RX400h was covered by the latest unintended acceleration safety recall.
In the latest development involving Toyota’s problems with so-called unintended acceleration, the maker has agreed to pay $29 million as part of a settlement with the attorneys-general in 29 states while also improving the way it handles future recalls.
The automaker will also set aside another $5 million to help reimburse owners of various Toyota Motor Co. products who were affected by those recalls to cover costs for rental cars, taxi rides and other replacement transportation.
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Toyota has already paid a series of record fines levied by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a result of its handling of recalls linked to a series of problems that could cause its vehicles to surge out of control. Since the first of those recalls – involving issues such as carpet entrapment and sticky accelerators – was launched in 2009, more than 10 million vehicles have been affected.
“Car buyers deserve the assurance that manufacturers will quickly and appropriately respond to known safety risks,” Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said. “The terms of this settlement require that Toyota make changes to improve its responsiveness to safety issues, and that benefits consumers.”
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Tags: auto news, auto safety, car news, car safety, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota lawsuits, toyota news, toyota nhtsa, toyota recalls, toyota safety, toyota settlement, toyota unintended acceleration
Posted in Automobiles | 2 Comments »
Maker optimistic as yen weakens, U.S. sales rise.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Feb.05, 2013
An assortment of new models, including the latest Avalon sedan, have helped drive Toyota's surge.
Toyota has substantially increased its earnings forecast for the current fiscal year, predicting profits now will triple when compared with what it delivered in the wake of the March 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami that nearly shut the maker down.
The maker has issued an advisory that it will deliver a net profit of 860 billion yen, or $9.3 billion for the current financial year, which runs through March 31st. It had previously anticipated earnings of 780 billion yen, or $8.5 billion.
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“We believe that our efforts have been bearing fruit and that we are finally on the road to sustainable growth,” said Takahiko Ijichi, senior managing officer at Toyota.
A variety of factors appear to be contributing. Of course, it helps to have gotten its factories back up and running after the shortages of 2011 which cost it 100s of thousands of units of lost production. But it doesn’t hurt, either, that demand has been soaring, especially in the key North America market.
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Tags: auto news, car news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota earnings, toyota news, toyota profit, toyota recalls, toyota safety, toyota sales
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Separate safety actions involve defective airbags, faulty wipers.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.30, 2013
The Lexus IS is targeted by one of two new Toyota recalls, the other affecting the Corolla.
Toyota says it is recalling a total of more than 1 million vehicles, including some late-model luxury cars, due to a pair of safety problems involving defective airbags and faulty windshield wipers.
The announcement comes during the same week the maker confirmed it regained its title in 2012 as the world’s best-selling automotive manufacturer. But Toyota also had more vehicles recalled than any other automaker operating in the U.S. last year – the third time it has captured that dubious distinction in four years.
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The new recall involves about 752,000 Corolla and Corolla Matrix cars sold in 2003 and 2004. According to Toyota, a control module is susceptible to short-circuiting. If that happens, it could cause their airbags and front seat pre-tensioners to inadvertently deploy.
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Tags: Toyota Corolla, auto news, auto safety, car news, car safety, lexus is, lexus is recall, lexus news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota corolla recall, toyota news, toyota recalls, toyota safety
Posted in Automobiles | 2 Comments »
GM slides to second, VW in third.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.28, 2013
The success of the latest Toyota Camry helped the maker regain its global sales crown.
Toyota has officially reclaimed its global sales crown, the maker confirming it produced 9.75 million vehicles in 2012.
That was slightly ahead of a preliminary tally Toyota forecast as the year came to a close and locks it in first place ahead of General Motors, which sold 9.29 million vehicles. Volkswagen, at 9.1 million, came in third for 2012.
Toyota’s sales were slightly lower than the company had projected earlier in the year, the shortfall reflecting the ongoing dispute between Japan and China over a chain of small, uninhabited islands both nations claim.
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In customary fashion, Toyota officials downplayed the sales results. “Rather than going after numbers, we hope to make fine products, one by one, to keep out customers satisfied. The numbers are just a result of our policy. And our policy will continue unchanged,” Toyota spokeswoman Shino Yamada told the Associated Press.
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Tags: Akio Toyoda, GM sales, auto news, car news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota china, toyota china boycott, toyota global sales, toyota gm, toyota news, toyota recalls, toyota safety, toyota sales, toyota sales crown, volkswagen sales
Posted in Automobiles | 4 Comments »
by Joseph Szczesny on Jan.22, 2013
Toyota has begun to settle at least some wrongful injury and death claims rather than drag the fight out.
Toyota Motor Co. is pushing to settle a series of wrongful death lawsuits in which the plaintiffs appear to have a solid chance of proving to a jury that unintended acceleration-related design flaws contributed to the accidents.
The company maintains stuck floor mats and driver error are the reasons for vehicles unexpectedly surging out of control, while plaintiffs’ attorneys contend Toyota’s electronic throttle control system is to blame.
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In the first critical step, Toyota has elected to settle a wrongful death suit in Utah. The company said Thursday that it came to terms with the family of two people killed in a Utah crash that was set to go to trial next month and might have served as a test case for hundreds of other lawsuits that are pending.
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Posted in Automobiles | 1 Comment »
Maker could put Unintended Acceleration issue behind.
by Joseph Szczesny on Jan.16, 2013
Toyota may soon settle at least some wrongful injury and death claims rather than drag the fight out in court.
Toyota appears to be moving towards settling two high-profile unintended acceleration lawsuits in a bid to put the embarrassing issue to rest – and avoid having potentially damaging go before juries, according to a new report.
The maker announced a tentative, $1.2 billion settlement late last month with a group of owners who had sued alleging the unintended acceleration scandal had reduced the value of their vehicles. But that agreement – since given tentative approval by a federal job in Southern California – did not cover wrongful death and injury cases.
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At least some of those would be covered under a new settlement, said the Los Angeles Times, including two deaths in a horrific 2010 crash in Utah. The world’s largest automaker still faces more than 300 sudden acceleration lawsuits in state and federal courts.
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Tags: auto news, car news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota agreement, toyota crashes, toyota lawsuit, toyota news, toyota runaway cars, toyota safety, toyota settlement, toyota unintended acceleration
Posted in Automobiles | 2 Comments »
Overall industry tally rose 4.5% last year.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.08, 2013
Toyota paid a record fine for illegally delaying the recall of the Lexus RX line last year.
For the third time in four years, Toyota Motor Corp. recalled more vehicles than any other automaker operating in the U.S. market during 2012.
Toyota’s various safety-related service actions involved a total of 5.3 million cars, trucks and crossovers last year, nearly half of those in a single recall involving potential vehicle fires. That problem pushed the Japanese giant past Honda, which led the recall list in 2011 and came in second in 2012 with 3.9 million vehicles involved in such safety campaigns.
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But the industry, on the whole, called back 16.2 million vehicles last year, a list that also included motorcycles, trucks and RVs. That was a 4.5% increase over 2011, according to a study of National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data by the Detroit News.
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Tags: GM recalls, auto news, car news, ford fire, ford news, ford recalls, gm news, honda news, honda recalls, honda safety, nhtsa recalls, nhtsa safety, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota fires, toyota news, toyota recalls, toyota safety, toyota topped 2012 recall list, toyota unintended acceleration
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Taking a “holistic” view of safety technology.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jan.07, 2013
The Lexus AASRV safety research vehicle.
It can spot a potential problem 500 feet away and tell the difference between a red and green light. It can anticipate a corner even before the driver turns the steering wheel. It’s designed to prevent a crash but can also make it easier to survive a collision even as it automatically calls for help.
Toyota’s Lexus luxury brand is giving the public a first look at its advanced active safety research vehicle at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Also known as the AASRV, it is designed to test and demonstrate a variety of automated vehicle safety technologies that could be used in production vehicles in the not-too-distant future, according to Toyota officials.
But unlike some prototypes, the AASRV is not designed to operate with complete autonomy. Mark Templin, the general manager of the Lexus brand, stressed that the goal is to engage and enhance a driver’s skills, rather than to turn motoring into a fully automated activity.
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“In our pursuit of developing more advanced automated technologies, we believe the driver must be fully engaged,” explained Templin. “For Toyota and Lexus, a driverless car is just a part of the story. Our vision is a car equipped with an intelligent, always-attentive co-pilot whose skills contribute to safer driving.”
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Tags: auto news, auto safety, car news, car safety, ces autos, lexus aasrv, lexus active safety research vehicle, lexus ces, lexus news, lexus safety, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota ces, toyota news, toyota safety, toyota safety research vehicle
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