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The New York Times reported on the obvious recently.  Toyota hired an engineering firm (Exponent)  to confirm in a 56 page study exactly what Toyota wanted it to confirm.

The report by Exponent was aggressively promoted by Toyota as proof that the safety experts claiming that electronics were to blame were wrong.   Apparently thenature of the relationship between Exponent and Toyota.  Exponent has been retained as “independent” engineers by law firms representing Toyota in the past to the tune of 11,000,000 between 2000 and 2009.

Apparently the concept of a hired gun came as a surprise to our Federal lawmakers who are now loudly questioning the veracity of the report and bemoaning its self-serving nature.  Well…duh!

Toyota is facing an slew of sudden acceleration – faulty brake pedal litigation.  It’s battening down its hatches and getting ready for a fight.  It’s sending a message to trial lawyers about its tactics and the possibility of settlement without a confidentiality agreement twenty pages deep.  No way – no how is Toyota ever going to admit that there might be a problem with the electronics.  It’s hired gun time at the O.K. corral.

Technorati Tags: Brake Pedal, Toyota Litigation

By YOSHIO TAKAHASHI

TOKYO—Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday provided the clearest signal yet that it has stanched the bleeding associated with its global recalls, unveiling a surprise fiscal-fourth-quarter profit and forecasting an earnings increase this year as it attempts to boost sales in Asia and cut more costs.

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Reuters

The world’s biggest car maker expects net profit to grow 48% to 310 billion yen ($3.32 billion) in the current fiscal year through March 2011. It posted a net profit of 112.2 billion yen in its fiscal fourth quarter after a net loss of 765.8 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.

The forecast is a sign that Toyota’s recall of more than 8.5 million vehicles isn’t likely to stall its recovery after the company recorded its first annual net loss in 59 years in the fiscal year ended March 2009.

“We are still in the storm, but even in the same storm, we see the sky starting to clear up in the distance,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda said at a press conference.

The effect on vehicle sales from the recalls wasn’t as significant as expected, and the costs were in line with the company’s earlier estimate, Takahiko Ijichi, a senior managing director, said.

“The impact of the recalls was smaller than we had expected, supported by sales-promotion measures,” he said. Global sales totaled 7.24 million vehicles for the fiscal year ended March 2010, topping its target of 7.18 million, he said.

The Japanese car maker booked recall-related costs of 170 billion yen to 180 billion yen in its fourth quarter, including promotional costs and expenses to repair problems with gas pedals, floor mats and braking systems. He declined to disclose the level of similar costs the company expects for this fiscal year.

Toyota is pushing ahead with its effort to regain customer trust by setting up regional quality committees world-wide. The company last month decided to recall 36,000 2010 Lexus GX 460 sport-utility vehicles relatively soon after Consumer Reports magazine pointed out the vehicles’ rollover potential in certain situations. Mr. Toyoda on Monday said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has criticized Toyota’s slow response to quality concerns, told him it was a swift decision.

Despite the recalls, the car maker has had solid sales growth in Asia because of booming demand in China and India, while discounts recently helped lift sales in North America.

The risk remains that Toyota will see demand drop in Japan once the government in September terminates incentives to encourage the purchase of fuel-efficient cars and the scrapping of old cars.

Toyota is aiming for a 0.7% increase in global sales to 7.29 million vehicles this fiscal year, with an 11% sales jump in Asia. It expects 1.5% growth in North America, a 0.2% rise in Europe and an 11% sales drop in Japan.

Mr. Ijichi said Toyota will boost sales-promotion costs in the current fiscal year to keep the momentum—a move that dents profitability.

In the fourth quarter, the auto maker posted an operating profit of 95.3 billion yen, compared with an operating loss of 682.5 billion yen a year earlier. Sales rose 49% to 5.280 trillion yen from 3.536 trillion yen a year earlier.

For the full fiscal year, the company reported a net profit of 209.46 billion yen, an operating profit of 147.52 billion yen and sales of 18.951 trillion yen.

For its current fiscal year through March 2011, Toyota expects a 90% jump in operating profit to 280 billion yen and sales of 19.20 trillion yen, up 1.3%.

The company reports its financial results based on U.S. accounting standards.

The original article can be found here.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704250104575237492977695362.html?mod=WSJ_Autos_AutoIndustry3

One of the worst fears of any driver is the possibility of suddenly losing control of your vehicle. This can happen in a car accident, on a slippery road, or through operator error, but recently a new type of danger has come to light: sudden acceleration.

Sudden acceleration occurs when it feels like the gas pedal becomes stuck as your car fully accelerates, and your car continues traveling without the brake pedal functioning properly. This is believed to be caused by a malfunction in the electronics system, which opens the throttle completely and is not easily fixed. Previous victims of sudden acceleration have had to steer the car into a guardrail, call the police for assistance, or try to shift the car into neutral. Others have been injured because they simply couldn’t stop the car.

Models known to have the risk of sudden acceleration include the Prius, Camry, Tundra, and more. Just about every known model and make of vehicle can suffer from this flaw, however. Toyota vehicles are not the only cars at risk for sudden acceleration, despite the fact that they have taken a lot of heat in recent years over the issue. Particularly within the first two years of ownership, any car can have this problem, however briefly.

If you experience unintended acceleration, even if it only happens for a moment, you should immediately take the car to a dealer to have it inspected properly. To actually stop the acceleration, you can try shifting the car into neutral, applying the brake and emergency brake in a slow, controlled manner, or step on the clutch if you have a manual transmission. If you are trying to brake, do not pump the brakes too hard or you could overheat the brake pads, but apply pressure once, as hard as you can. Once your car has slowed enough, steer off the road and stay away from other traffic in case it glitches again. Avoid shutting off the engine, as the brakes and steering will become more difficult to control.

Sudden acceleration can happen to any vehicle, though it has most recently plagued Toyota cars. For both Toyota owners and owners of other types of cars, it is important to know what to do if you ever experience sudden acceleration so you can handle it in a controlled and calm way, while minimizing the risk of injury to yourself and your passengers.

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

Consumer Reports recently took the monumental step of adding one of Toyota’s luxury Lexus models to the Consumer Report’s “Do Not Buy” list.  The Lexus  GX 460 SUV 2010 model was given the poor rating after Consumer Reports testing indicated that the model was unstable and prone to slides and potential roll- over accidents when operated in sweeping turns.  Roll-over accidents can result in very serious injuries and pehaps death.  Although other vehicles have slid, none have slid as far, or as dangerously, as the Lexus model. 

The last vehicle to be designated as a “Do Not Buy” vehicle by Consumer Reports was the Mitsubishi Montero in 2001.  It is rare for Consumer Reports to place any vehicle in this category. 

In response to the testing results, Toyota has halted sales of the Lexus GX460  and is offerring drivers the use of loaner vehciles while Toyota attempts to discover the problem. 

In the meantime, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had advised drivers of the Lexus GX 460 to drive with “…care and caution.”  

The problems with Lexus come on the heels of Toyota’s on-going problems involving sudden acceleration and the brakes on other models.

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

This article by  By KATE LINEBAUGH appeared today in the Wall Street Journal.

DETROIT—The director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation is retiring at the end of the month, as the federal safety agency continues to probe Toyota Motor Corp.’s safety lapses.

Kathleen DeMeter, 60 years old, will retire after 30 years with the federal safety agency and after holding her current position for 15 years. She was the longest-serving director of the department that investigates safety defects and manages recalls, and is the first senior NHTSA official to leave the agency since the Toyota crisis exploded in January.

Ms. DeMeter “delayed her retirement in order to assist the agency during the recent Toyota recall crisis,” a Department of Transportation official said. The NHTSA will appoint an interim director as it recruits a new head for the defects-investigation arm, the official said.

The NHTSA came under attack for being too cozy with industry during congressional hearings on auto safety in the wake of Toyota’s record recalls linked to unintended acceleration. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has denied the charge and blames Toyota for being “safety deaf.”

Earlier this week, the NHTSA said it would seek a $16.4 million fine from the Japanese auto maker for withholding evidence of a safety defect from the federal safety regulators. Toyota has two weeks to respond.

As the chief of the Office of Defects Investigation, Ms. DeMeter signed off on the investigations into Toyota’s sudden acceleration problems dating back to 2004 when the first probe was opened. She was in charge of the department during the recall of Firestone ties related to fatal rollover accidents of Ford Motor Co. Explorer sport-utility vehicles 10 years ago. Ms. DeMeter was promoted to her current position in 1995 after serving as head of the agency’s general law division.

New documents prepared by Toyota that provide a chronology of events in its recent recalls show the company first received notice of a floor mat interfering with the gas pedal of a Prius hybrid in 2006, a year before the NHTSA opened an investigation into the matter. That investigation led to small recall of 55,000 vehicles in 2007 involving Toyota Camrys and Lexus ES models. An internal Toyota presentation boasted that the company had saved $100 million by limiting that recall.

Last year, after a fatal accident in San Diego, Toyota had a recall that now encompasses 5.4 million vehicles in the U.S. because of floor mats entrapping gas pedals to open throttle positions. The recall now involves 12 Toyota and Lexus models including the Prius hybrid.SA

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

I came across an interesting  article by today while looking around the internet for sudden acceleration recall information.  The author,Joel S. Hirschhorn,has a background as a materials and manufacturing engineer and extensive experience with failure analysis of manufactured products according to his post. 

Mr. Hirschorn posits that the focus on finding the defect is misguided and perhaps misleading.  According to Mr. Hirschorn, the defect causing the sudden acceleration problem is probably so rare and sporadic that it only occurs under certain conditions.  He suggests that an override system that prevents fuel being fed to the system while the brakes are deployed  should be installed.

After reading Mr. Hirschorn’s comments I began to wonder why an override system was not in the works or already installed.  the simple answer tha came to mind is that Toyota is trying to narrow the focus to individuals and incidents.  In other words, discredit the individual and the incident and the problem might go away.  Installing an override system might legitimize the preexisting complaints. 

Mr.  Hirschhorn’s comments on sudden acceleration  can be read here http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/03/understanding-toyota-sudden-acceleration/

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

A must watch video that will help to prepare for a sudden acceleration emergency. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoIIT0WJS4s

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox issued a supoena on Toyota demanding any information it has regarding a crash in 2008 that killed an elderly Flint County resident.    The request for a supoena on Toyota requesting Toyota’s sudden acceleration records was authorized by an Ingham County Judge on  Wednesday.      

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

Allright.  Folks seem all to happy to suggest that each and every instance of suuden acceleration is the result of operator error or even fraud.  I’ve read a to of blogs out on the internet recently that attmept to shift focus from the actions of Toyota to the individual instances of sudden acceleration.   This is Toyota’s influence, damage control and spin.  It’s also an attempt to poison the jury pool.  It works like this.  Toyota knows its going to be facing more lawsuits involving sudden acceleration.  It is time to start casting doubt in the minds of the future jury pool members today.  Dirt is dug up on everyone involved.  No proof but that’s allright.  All that is needed is a little doubt to be cast and the victims motivations questioned.  If there is no dirt, then instances where the accidents might have been operator error are exploited.

This method has the global effect of casting doubt on the entire concept of sudden acceleration.  It makes it easier to pick apart the expert engineer who may describe exactly how the sudden acceleration occurred.  It easier to discredit the theory now on a global scale than it will be later after the jury members are picked and admonished not to read the paper.  Too late!  they’ve already read about, and been indoctrinated into, the case theme that sudden acceleration equals operator error or greedy claimant.

Greedy claimants do exist.    They usually don’t get very far in the world of litigation.  We sniff them out and the cases get rejected.  We need to like our clients because we need you to like them.  Especially because we are going to be facing a jury pool that has already been poisoned by the preconception victims are “greedy claimants” and all instances of sudden acceleration are actually “operator error.”

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration

 A NORWEGIAN driver experienced a situation similar to Sikes when he lost control of his Toyota Prius during  a sudden acceleration incident.  The Prius reached a speed of 109 miles per hour according to  police and the Japanese automaker.

The driver stated that the accelerator pedal stuck and he had to steer his vehicle into a roadside safety rail to slow the vehicle down.   

The 49-year-old driver called police on his cell phone around 12:00 pm on Thursday and explained that the pedal had become stuck on a road near Kristiansand in southern Norway according to a local police official.

At the timethe vehicle experienced the sudden unintended acceleration the driver was  already travelling at speeds of 62 miles per hour.  According to reports, Police made an emergency call to Toyota asking what to do.

Toyota sent a a team to the scene to evaluate the vehicle.

Technorati Tags: Sudden Acceleration