#Quality

Here is a round-up of the Toyota news that is flowing furiously out of all news outlets. Everybody, from the Wall Street Journal to Al Jazeera weighs in on the issue. Grab a cup of coffee. Or something stronger.

More recalls: Toyota announced late Wednesday that it must recall another 1.1 million vehicles “to address the risk that floor mats could trap accelerator pedals and cause bursts of sudden acceleration,” says Reuters. According to Reuters, “Toyota now has recalled nearly 6m vehicles for problems with the accelerators used across its lineup.” This is not counting the 2m vehicles in Europe that will be recalled.

EU recall official: Toyota Motor said today that it definitely will be expanding the recall to Europe, says AFP via Google. “Toyota will implement a recall in Europe,” said company spokesman Paul Nolasco. “We are still not sure about the models and the number of vehicles.” Initial estimates, published by The Nikkei [sub], spoke about another 2m cars in Europe. Plants will not be closed in Europe, because different parts already are being used in new production.

Recall spreads to China: China’s quality watchdog agency said “bu hao” to Toyota and ordered the recall of “at least 75,000 vehicles in China,” says London’s Times.

A quarter century ago, give or take a year, my brother Paul became the first in the family to drive a Toyota. A 1984 Toyota Celica-Supra. It was a true shifting of gears for the Lang Gang. Everyone up to that time had bought a GM. Mom and Dad drove Cadillacs (only one saw 100k). The eldest one had a Monte Carlo (a.k.a. Crapo) that didn’t see the road half the time. Second in line had a Regal (a.k.a. the dying diesel) that ended up stolen and trashed in the Grand Canyon. He actually felt sorry for the Canyon. Within three years both these Roger Smith specials were replaced with 1988 Celica GT’s. Great cars with no nicknames necessary. Three years later I had a Celica GT-S sitting on my driveway. Even better. Still no nicknames. By the end of the decade everyone in the family had a Toyota. But then things changed…

Toyota got hammered by another big recall today, with 2.3m vehicles called back for sticking accelerator pedals. According to Toyota’s release, this recall is

separate from the on-going recall of approximately 4.2 million Toyota and Lexus vehicles to reduce the risk of pedal entrapment by incorrect or out of place accessory floor mats. Approximately 1.7 million Toyota Division vehicles are subject to both separate recall actions.

How much more of this can Toyota take? One thing is for certain: ToMo has got to pull its current ad campaign which emphasizes the alleged quality of Toyota products. Cognitive dissonance might work in the short term but once consumers wise up they’ll never trust you again. Just ask GM.

Toyota’s head start on hybrid technology is easily the most significant advantage any one automaker holds over any other. It’s next closest competitor in hybrid offerings is Honda which is facing serious challenges as its Prius competitor, the Insight, is off to an incredibly weak start. To capitalize on this advantage, Toyota plans to up annual production of its hybrids to one million units by 2011. Despite reports that Toyota is refocusing on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as a long-term option, Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Kazaka Securities believes:

For the foreseeable future, the focus of Toyota’s (low-emission car) strategy will be on hybrids, not electric or fuel-cell cars. Except for Honda, Toyota is facing little competition in hybrids and is set to put distance between itself and other automakers

Parts suppliers in Japan had near death experiences when they opened their Nikkei [sub] this morning. Parts suppliers in China and the rest of the world suffered heart and respiratory problems when the news of Toyota’s latest plan hit the news-wires.

Automotive News China [sub] reports that Mercedes believes its Chinese-built cars are every bit as good as its German-built models. Ulrich Walker, Chairman and CEO of Daimler Northeast Asia says:

Yes, our cars here are exportable. There is no difference in quality with those made outside China.

But, as Bertel Schmitt reports, demand for luxury cars is strong enough in China that we won’t be seeing “Beijing, China” as the point of assembly on US-market Mercs.

Earlier this week Chrysler talked about taking real steps to improve its quality. Today it’s GM. Mark Reuss, GM’s head of engineering, had this to say to the Detroit Free Press:

Reliability has been the Achilles’ heel of GM for my entire career,” he said, promising he would focus the company’s engineers around the world on fixing the problem. “It gets down to an individual engineer’s ability to find a problem and leadership’s ability to fix it,” he said, adding that too many GM engineers have been reluctant to point out problems because they were afraid they’d get the blame rather than praise for catching the mistake before customers suffered.

“There is no other area in the field of human communications that is as rife with disinformation as the story on Chrysler quality,” then Chrysler President Bob Lutz once famously said. Some things never change. According to today’s Detroit News, Chrysler is claiming that they will be a (though not “the”) quality leader by the end of 2012. They (and many other auto makers) have made similar claims before. Sometimes they achieve these goals. More often they don’t. Chrysler’s chances?

We don’t have any numbers yet on GM’s 60 day money-back guarantee, but according to GM dealers speaking to Automotive News [sub] it’s not generating a lot of interest. “If [customers] like the car, if they test drive the car, most of the people would rather have a car to keep,” explains one dealer. Which makes a certain amount of sense, and which is why dealers insist that the number of buyers taking GM up on the offer doesn’t matter. “It’s more important to talk about the money-back guarantee. It conveys confidence in the vehicles,” says another dealer. “It’s not about the deal, but rather it’s about the world-class products.” That sounds good in principle, but the reality is that it actually is all about the deal. Again. Still.