A Toyota dealership advertises a 0% interest rate on the windshield of an unsold 2010 Toyota Matrix in Lakewood, Colo.
David Zalubowski / AP
The flood of recalls — nearly 9 million vehicles in the past 12 months — and reams of nasty publicity involving runaway cars and unintended acceleration seemed finally to have abated for the beleaguered automaker Toyota. Then, on Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was intensifying its investigation into another potential Toyota safety issue: sudden-stalling problems on its Corolla and Matrix models.
This new NHTSA move, a formal engineering investigation of the Matrixes and Corollas from model years 2005 to ’07, stems from more than 1,000 complaints that have been received by Toyota and the NHTSA. It could possibly lead to another major round of recalls if mechanical or electrical problems are found. (See the 50 worst cars of all time.)
The investigation is just the latest in a barrage of challenges — and heavy damage — to the once gilt-edged reputation of the world’s top automaker. While solidly profitable during the first quarter of fiscal year 2011, the company still has a way to go before it can repair that reputation. "They are still a successful company, they just aren’t on a pedestal anymore," says Rebecca Lindland, an analyst with IHS Global Insight.
"This controversy has damaged our reputation," acknowledges Toyota spokesman John Hanson, referring to the sudden-acceleration issue. But it’s about more than just reputation: Toyota faces liability claims over incidents that have been blamed for 79 deaths and hundreds of crashes.
Earlier in August, Toyota executives were heartened to receive a report from the NHTSA that the agency hadn’t found any evidence that faulty electronics played a role in sudden-acceleration accidents, and instead suggested driver error…
GM today reported that they will reinstate over half, 600 of the 1,100 dealership franchises they told to get lost last year- in an effort to keep the other some 5,000 dealerships "healthy and profitable." The lucky 600 will be getting letters asking to stay with the automaker, that’s if they haven’t already closed their doors forever due to the fact that 1) car sales suck despite an upbeat report earlier in the week 2) some people would argue that GM cars suck and finally 3) the GM brand may be discontinued forever a la Pontiac, Saturn, and Hummer.
A consortion of dealerships have been fighting the Detroit giant, citing they’ve been treated unfairly and that GM was vague in their decisions and thoughts on what dealers are actually profitable, and which ones are not.
Chrysler too, which slashed almost 800 of it’s franchises is also reconsidering the cuts; according to the Associated Press "the decision was a compromise meant to avoid federal legislation that would require that the showrooms be kept open."
Under the revised cutting procedures, dealers would "get face-to-face reviews, binding arbitration and faster payments to help dealers slated for shutdown."
As published by the Associated Press on Yahoo!:
"Congress-brokered talks between dealer groups and the automakers began in September. But those talks stalled over disputes about the review process for targeted dealerships and other issues. Looming over the fight has been the threat of federal legislation to deal with the closures. Lawmakers warned that if a deal wasn’t reached, that legislation would move forward.
The White House has opposed the legislation over concerns that it could hurt GM’s and Chrysler’s efforts to rebound from their government-led bankruptcies."
I guess Congress figures, they’re not done launching torpedos at Toyota- better keep some of these domestic dealerships open to sop-up the overage from Toyota’s once ivory, and now bloodied domestic tower of safety and reliability.
As if the Japanese didn’t already suspect that our new found zealoutry about car safety wasn’t just protectionism in disguise, now it’s been made perfectly clear.
Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns (R) says the US should look into banning Japanese car imports until all the safety issues have been worked out.
Johanns, who as USA Today notes used to be the Agriculture Secretary during the beef import ban, likened such a move to restricting tainted meat from foreign countries.
But says Johanns: "I’m as free-trade as anybody here."
Let’s take a look from a different perspective, in defense of Toyota – is it all politics? Or mostly. Mike Whitney suggests a blood in the water situation. - Ilene
Does anyone really believe that Toyota is being pilloried in the media for a few highway fatalities?
Nonsense. If Congress is so worried about innocent people getting killed, then why haven’t they indicted US commander Stanley McChrystal for blowing up another 27 Afghan civilians on Sunday?
But this isn’t about bloodshed and it’s certainly not "safety regulations". It’s about politics--bare-knuckle Machiavellian politics. An attack on Toyota is an attack on Japan’s leading export. It is an act of war. Here’s a excerpt from the New York Times which explains what is really going on:
"The Japanese economy has emerged from its worst recession since World War II, but is still reeling. Japan must do more to lift its economy out of deflation and boost long-term growth, S.&P. said.
“The outlook change reflects our view that the Japanese government’s diminishing economic policy flexibility may lead to a downgrade unless measures can be taken to stem fiscal and deflationary pressures,” S.&P. said. “The policies of the new Democratic Party of Japan government point to a slower pace of fiscal consolidation than we had previously expected.”
President Barack Obama is expected to address similar worries in the Untied States on Wednesday, with a call for a freeze in spending on many domestic programs, a move he hopes will quell perceptions that government spending is out of control. Fiscal problems in Greece and Ireland have also helped put the spotlight on the issue of national debt." ("Japan’s High Debt Prompts Credit Rating Warning", HIROKO TABUCHI AND BETTINA WASSENER, NY Times)
Japan’s new liberal government is fighting deflation using the traditional methodology, by lowering interest rates and increasing fiscal stimulus. But that’s not what Washington wants. Neoliberal policymakers and their buddies in the right-wing think tanks want "fiscal consolidation" which means harsh austerity measures that will deepen the recession, increase unemployment, and…
Not much. At least not from an engineering, mechanical or even a quality point of view. You don’t reach the top gear in the global auto industry unless you make outstanding cars, which Toyota does — most of the time. Though cars are familiar machines, they are also highly complex ones. To create a modern car, a company has to design, engineer, build, buy and then assemble some 10,000 parts. Sell 7.8 million cars, as Toyota did worldwide in 2009 — a horrible year for the industry — and there are billions of new parts with the potential to go kerflooey. Inevitably, some do.
What makes the recall since November of nearly 9 million Toyotas that are susceptible to uncontrolled acceleration and balky brakes such a shocking story is not so much the company’s manufacture of some shoddy cars or even its dreadful crisis management — though those are errors that will cost it more than $2 billion in repairs and lost sales this year. It’s something more pernicious: the vapor lock that seems to have seized Toyota’s mythologized corporate culture and turned one of the most admired companies in the world into a bunch of flailing gearheads. Not only is Toyota producing more flawed cars than in the past, but an organization known for its unrivaled ability to suss out problems, fix them and turn them into advantages is looking clueless on all counts.
Although the recalls seemed sudden, the evidence has been piling up. Literally. According to a report from Massachusetts-based Safety Research & Strategies (SRS), a consumer-advocacy group, there was a spike in the number of unintended-acceleration incidents in some Toyota vehicles in 2002, about the same time that Toyota introduced its electronic throttle control. The problem was initially blamed on a floor mat or vehicle trim that, if it came loose, could jam the accelerator pedal in an open-throttle position. That was followed by the first of several National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, in 2003, and two small recalls in 2005 and 2007. But accidents mounted, and last November the company had to take back nearly 3.8 million U.S. Vehicles — its biggest-ever recall — to address the problem.
Modifying the floor mats, though, didn’t fix things. Toyota at first refused to…
Some might say that Toyota’s current crisis is a result of enormously bad luck, and they might be partly right.
Yet Toyota’s problems also appear to have been the result of a series of tiny flops, over and over, ranging from quality control to public relations disasters.
For example, it shouldn’t have taken until today for its CEO to address its safety matters in public
99% of your hard work is meaningless when 1% of the time you’re a complete joke.
We’ve put together a quick guide to the amazingly unfortunate serious of events that put Toyota into its current situation.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at a Wednesday breakfast that people should stop driving their Toyotas, then later toned down his comments to a repair advisory. Maybe it’s just Washington’s new toughness in dealing with Big Business, but LaHood’s shot was clearly a sign that respect for the king of cars is no longer in effect.
The damage done to Toyota by its recall of more than 5.3 million autos is clearly accumulating: U.S. sales dropped 16% in January, and the company’s stock surrendered $21 billion in value in a single week. The Department of Transportation is threatening the company with fines for being slow to react to the problems — a pair of faults that can cause sudden, dangerous acceleration — although DOT itself is being criticized for the same reason. Lawyers, who are never slow to react, are swarming. One class action alleges that jammed accelerators in Toyotas have caused 16 deaths and 243 injuries. Customers who once wouldn’t think about looking at another brand now have reason to.
Toyota has now made two recalls in the U.S. The first, involving 4.9 million cars, was triggered by a problematic floor mat that could come loose and jam the gas pedal open. The second, of 2.3 million vehicles on Jan. 21, concerns a problem with the gas-pedal mechanism itself. Toyota has told drivers to remove the floor mats; its fix for the sticky pedal requires a free 30-min. shop repair. DOT has urged owners of the 11 recalled models to use caution and get to a dealer. Still unknown: whether an electronic problem is also a culprit in sudden acceleration. Toyota says it isn’t.
The parable of Toyota may be that the tortoise became the hare. Over decades, Toyota built its reputation and market share in tiny increments through its renowned "continuous improvement" method. In the Toyota mantra, quality was always first, because it led to lower costs, which would eventually lead to higher market share. Eventually.
But in the ’90s, Toyota set out to become the world’s top auto company. Being best and being biggest created a tension that Toyota couldn’t resolve, says MIT operations expert Steven Spear: "If quality is first, it drives a certain set of behaviors. If market share is the goal,…
Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Electronic throttle systems are under review by U.S. safety officials as a possible cause of sudden acceleration in Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles, as alleged in at least seven lawsuits.
I wrote on this the other day in which I opined:
But not all cars can "run away" in this fashion, and it can be argued that none should. Indeed, it can be argued that that any vehicle with a drive-by-wire system MUST have a means of intuitively overriding an "un-commanded" acceleration in order to be considered reasonably safe and thus able to be certified for sale.
Now I happen to think that all drive-by-wire throttles should be interlocked with the brake pedal. Put a means to install an override on it if you want (rally drivers will complain if they can’t get one) but for ordinary street use this is something that just plain old-fashioned ought to be there.
If I stomp the brakes the throttle should be returned to idle. Period.
In my VW Jetta Wagon it is.
That won’t cover the case where the computer goes insane, however.
That is only covered by a mechanical ignition switch that interrupts power to the ignition circuit, and that too should be mandatory.
To use electronic "start buttons" for reason of vanity is outrageous. And let’s not kid ourselves- that’s exactly what those switches are.
Second, I’ve been around a lot of dangerous gear in my life with a lot of "emergency stop" buttons all over the wall (or on the machine.) You don’t have to hold them in for three seconds to stop the machine, you just hit them and that’s it – power’s off!
I have a lathe in my shop. It has a big fat RED emergency stop button front and center on the control panel where I can get to it FAST if I need to. It does exactly what you think it should do too – it cuts the power. If I need that machine to stop in an emergency I need it to stop NOW, not three or five seconds later.
Toyota gas pedal makers says it is ramping up production of replacement pedals for new cars
WASHINGTON (AP) — The company that makes the gas pedal systems implicated in Toyota’s big recall says it is working with the automaker on a fix.
CTS Corp. officials say they have ramped up production at three factories to manufacture redesigned pedals. The pedals are meant to solve problems with condensation that Toyota has said can cause them to react slowly when a driver presses on the gas. In rare cases, the gas pedals can get stuck.
CTS says it is also working with the Japanese automaker to find a potentially quicker repair for vehicles already on the road.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons says the automaker has not decided if the new pedals will go to dealers or factories.
He says the company has also not decided whether it will repair the defective pedals or replace them. Toyota engineers are working on ways to fix the pedals, he said… more here.>>
Timothy warned me about Toyotas several months ago, and this is his previous article with updates in the comments at the very end – scroll down. See also my previous article, M-m-m-my Toyota - featuring my first attempt at song writing, for my car of all things (thankfully not on the recall list!!). It goes to the tune of My Sharona. (Okay, I had some time on my hands.)
Timothy was subject to one of my interviews back in October, in case you missed it. - Ilene
All Toyota-produced vehicles sold in the U.S. today—including Toyota cars and trucks, and Lexus automobiles—are unsafe. It will take years before new models roll off the company’s assembly lines that are completely safe. Also, millions of Toyota vehicles are on American roads already that are unsafe to drive. Any recent-vintage Toyota product, model years 2002[2] and later, potentially can turn into a runaway vehicle at a moment’s notice. Driving one or being a passenger is like playing Russian roulette. Query whether Americans, especially young families with small children, will trust their lives to Toyota?
Tragically and irresponsibly, the company has lied for years and it is lying now. First, Toyota claimed it was a floor mat problem. Next, the problems were related to the accelerator pedal[3]; and on and on the company’s lies go. Toyota has had 10 years to investigate these issues, and determine and implement solutions, but its management has lied repeatedly and it is still doing it. The runaway vehicle safety problems, which are confronting the giant automaker, are of a magnitude equal to or greater than those that brought down the storied Firestone tire brand, and the same thing may happen to Toyota. Every American needs to read about runaway Toyota-produced vehicles. The facts are sobering.
After the sudden-acceleration problems surfaced in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said “more motorists have died in Toyota vehicles associated with sudden acceleration in the last decade than in cars made by all other manufacturers combined.”[4] Consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s trail-blazing and Herculean efforts helped launch the automobile safety movement. His speeches and writings on behalf of Americans (see, e.g., “Unsafe at Any Speed”) helped expose
The market went through some gyrations on Wednesday in reaction to Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. He first defended continued quant easing by warning, “A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but also would carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery.” Stocks dutifully rallied and all major indexes hit new intraday highs.
But alas, consensus is apparently not a given over the longer term. The minutes hinted that a tapering off could start sooner, “A number of participants expressed willingness to adjust the flow of purchases downward as early as the June meeting if the economic information received by that time showed evidence of sufficiently strong and sustained growth.” So …...
Few stocks have attracted more news over the last six months than nutritional supplement maker Herbalife (NYSE: HLF).
Even casual market observers are aware of the circumstances surrounding the the initial bout of extreme volatility in the name back in December 2012. The shares went into free-fall at the end of the year after hedge fund manager Bill Ackman revealed in typical sanctimonious fashion that his firm Pershing Square Capital Management was short around $1 billion worth of the stock.
Amid much pomp and circumstance, Ackman laid out his short thesis at a New York investment conference and...
SKS - Saks, Inc. – Timely bullish bets initiated in Saks options just seconds prior to the closing bell on Tuesday are generating sizable gains for at least one trader today, with shares in the high-end retailer up at the highest level since 2008. The stock closed Tuesday up 11% on the day at $13.67 after the company reported first-quarter revenue above average analyst expectations. Within minutes of the close shares in SKS moved sharply to the upside after the New York Post, citing a source familiar with the matter, reported...
With yesterday's dovish duo Bullard and Dudley to set expectations, the S&P 500 rallied in anticipation of Chairman Bernanke's congressional testimony and soared to its all-time intraday high, up 1.07% during his prepared remarks. But the Q&A deflated the balloon, and the 2 PM release of the latest Fed Minutes accelerated the decline. It seems that the possibility of tapering QE in the near term is not entirely off the table. The index hit its -1.23% intraday low about 30 minutes before the final bell. It then trimmed its loss to close down 0.83%. The 10-year yield jumped 9 bps to close at 2.03%, just off the 2013 interim high of 2.07% on March 11th and 37 bps off its 2013 low set 14 sessions back.
Here is a 15-minute look at the week so far.
Not surprisingly the volume on today's 2.32% high-low intraday range was 24% above its 50-day movi...
The indexes along with a host of stocks are putting in a bearish outside candle today (over yesterday's highs and below yesterday's lows). Typically this is … well bearish. But in the QE era when a technical signal screams bearish it has tended to be completely forgotten within a few days, causing those who follow it to get squeezed if you are short or left behind if you go to cash. This is the difficulty of the current market – QE causes it not to behave as normal. In the "old days" today would be a day to take major note of.
The RSI I noted at an extremely rare 75 this morning, is...
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I am going to share with you how I manage my IRA and the power of reducing your cost basis. My goal each year is a 20% return in my IRA. Sometimes I make it and sometimes I don't, but I believe that all of my success is due to reducing my cost basis. To illustrate the power of reducing your cost basis here are some trades we did last year. These trades are taken from an educational portfolio we ran in a paper-trading account for a little more than a year.
We bought RIG on 5/15/2012 for $44.13, sold it on 1/18/2013 for $46 but booked a profit of $1,154.
We bought MT on 1/4/2012 for $19.24, sold it on 12/21/2012 for $15 but booked a profit of $454.
We bought CHK on 1/27/2012 for $21.93, sold it on 10/19/2012 for $18 b...
Stock market posts another record setting week, but the big news came after Friday’s close.
Courtesy of NASA
The stock market put on another record setting show with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) closing at a record high 15,118 and the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) closing at 1633.70, another all time closing high.
For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSEARCA:DIA) gained 1%, the S&P 500 (NYSEARCA:SPY) climbed 1.2%, the Nasdaq Composite (NYSEARCA:...
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Well, well, well....it is good to know that there are others in the scientific arena who believed that YMI Bioscience's data (cough - Gilead) is a better drug than Incyte's Jakafi. Now, the definitive data are still unknown, but there was enough evidence from a Phase 2 trial to take a small risk for a huge reward. So, let's forget about Apple (AAPL), and do nothing but biotechs from now until Congress passes universal health care coverage for prescriptions....and drive the prices down so that research and development is no longer feasible to conduct in the US. Even Seattle Genetics (SGEN) has been on a tear as of late...
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What’s wrong with Toyota?
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U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters at a Wednesday breakfast that people should stop driving their Toyotas, then later toned down his comments to a repair advisory. Maybe it’s just Washington’s new toughness in dealing with Big Business, but LaHood’s shot was clearly a sign that respect for the king of cars is no longer in effect.
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Courtesy of Timothy D. Naegele[1]
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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