Toyota's global president has said he will testify to US politicians next week about the carmaker's giant global recall program.
My friend’s mom wasn’t too happy when her mother’s car happened to be one of the Toyota car models that was recalled. But she had had some problems with her car so she wasn’t that surprised. But Toyota’s global pres, Akio Toyoda, kind of sends mixed signals if you ask me. First he says he’s not going to travel to Washington to discuss the giant global recall and instead lead the recall from Japan, and then he changes his mind and goes on to say he’s looking forward to speaking directly with the Congress and the American people.
Mr Toyoda is now due to appear before a congressional committee on Wednesday of next week.
Call for clarification
His apparent change of heart came after the chairman of the committee in question - the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee - formally called Mr Toyoda to go before it.
Democrat Representative Edolphus Towns said he wanted Mr Toyoda to "clarify" how the recall is working.
"The public is unsure as to what exactly the problem is, whether it is safe to drive their cars, or what they should do about it," said Mr Towns, in an open letter.
Toyota is continuing to recall 8.5 million vehicles worldwide, including six million in the US.
It has been hit by three main faults - faulty accelerator pedals, accelerator pedals getting stuck in floor mats, and a problem with the braking system on its Prius hybrid model.
Too slow?
Toyota has been criticized in the US for being too slow in both starting and implementing the recalls.
The matter is being investigated by the US car safety watchdog, which earlier this week ordered Toyota to hand over documents relating to its mass vehicle recalls, to see if the firm reacted quickly enough.
Toyota has denied any cover-up, and said it would "co-operate to provide all the information" requested by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
On Wednesday, the carmaker took out full-page adverts in major Japanese newspapers to apologize for the recent recalls.
Can you say scandalous? I hadn't heard about until reading it just now, but I have to say that some of those things sound a bit sketchy, especially in regards to the fact that the international president of toyota had not planned on recalling the cars in the United States, but in Japan. I'm curious as to why exactly he had a change of heart.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that Mr. Toyoda at least seems to be opening up to reveal full information about the recall to U.S. sources now. But the biggest surprise of this article for me: the fact that Toyota is recalling 8.5 million vehicles worldwide and *six million* of them are from the U.S. No wonder the big three are in such terrible shape. I wonder what exactly the terms of the recall will be and if this hit for Toyota will offer an incentive to U.S. buyers to purchase new American-made cars.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see that Toyota is willing to disclose information regarding. I agree with Bridgett that the biggest surprise of the article is the six million cars from the U.S. With that kind of competition, it's really no surprise how the big three are hurting. A
ReplyDeleteI for one am glad I do not own a Toyota car. I would be very disqusted if my car was being recalled, especially after reading this article. He was really not going to recall toyota cars in America. That would be a very sketchy situation, and it would not have ended well from my end
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