Toyota has just given Detroit's big three automakers their best chance ever at winning back the hearts, minds and wallets of the American consumer. We ought to know within the next few months whether Ford, Chrysler and General Motors are up to the job.
Japanese automakers have been systematically beating Detroit since the 1970s, and they've been doing so largely because of one main feature: quality.
Twenty years ago, when I was living in another state, I bought a Honda Accord. The reliability of that car was so far superior to the Buick and Oldsmobile I had previously owned, it was hard for me to even consider a domestic vehicle after that. Multiply that experience a million times, and you'll see why the Big Three landed on the rocks.
But now it is Toyota's turn to have their cars suffer from one of the most frightening safety issues imaginable. Cars which accelerate out of control without warning, threatening to kill the drivers.
Worse, Toyota's handling of this has been a PR disaster of almost unbelievable proportions. Corporate headquarters in Tokyo has alternated between stonewalling, denials, and confusion.
This week, Jim Lentz, the president of Toyota Motor Sales in America testified before Congress in what was the worst such performance I can ever remember. Barely a year ago, the press attacked the heads of the Big Three for their clumsy performance testifying before Congress when they were close to bankruptcy.
Toyota's main man in this country made GM's Rick Wagoner look like a combination of Einstein and Shakespeare.
Over and over again, Lentz displayed appalling ignorance of things he had to have known he'd be asked. When did Toyota first hear about the sudden acceleration problem? John Dingell asked him. "I don't know the answer to that," Lentz said. Well, when was the first recall? He didn't know that either.
How many complaints had Toyota gotten?
You guessed it. He didn't know. But what everyone will remember most is an exchange that belongs in a textbook of how NOT to do public relations. Toyota's man was asked if the recalls the company has finally issued, to fix sticky accelerator pedals and floor mats, would fix the problem. "Not totally," he said.
That ought to inspire consumer confidence. One can just see the comedy routines coming, featuring men lining up to buy new Toyotas -- as gifts for their mothers-in-law.
Toyota executives used to say their fear was that they would expand so fast they would become General Motors, by which they meant an unresponsive company with serious quality control issues.
Now, that seems to have happened.
The real question for Detroit's automakers, however, is how they will use this enormous gift that has been dropped in their lap.
Will they find a way to capitalize on it, to inform consumers across the country of their vastly improved safety and reliability records? Will they be able to persuade millions of Californians who long ago stopped buying American to give Detroit iron another try?
Clearly, there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who may now have second thoughts about buying a Toyota Camry or Corolla. But will they buy Chevy Impalas or Ford Fusions instead?
Or will they switch to Honda Accords? The answer may tell us a lot about our automakers' ability to compete in the 21st century.
I drive my Ford "North American Car of the Year Award Winning" Fusion and love it. I was going between the Civic and the Fusion and the Ford won because of my wanting to support the local economy. Most people outside of SE Michigan don't have that same factor influencing their decision, so I hope the quality criteria on their mental checklist ranks high for the Big Three.
Posted by: Carl W. | February 25, 2010 at 01:39 PM
I have a very simple question for Jack Lessenberry. Indeed, it is a challenge. A throw-down, as some people might say.
Jack, my friend, use all of your reportorial and journalistic skills, and explain for us, in 25 words of less, what it is that makes Toyotas dangerously prone to sudden-acceleration accidents. Please. Do it. I don't think you can. Indeed, I don't think Ralph Nader can. Nor can Joan Claybrook, or Henry Waxman, or Ray LaHood, or Sean Kane or anyone in the Democrat-Lawsuit Industrial complex.
I don't believe that there is anyone who can provide us with a direct, plain-English explanation as to what the "fatal defect" is in Toyota automobiles, or how Toyota was negligent.
Jack, I dare ya.
Of course, trial lawyers will come up with something. A theory of some kind. We saw the same process with the Audi 5000. You start with some incident reports, and an interested trial lawyer, with his privately-retained expert, and a capable public relations firm, who talks to newspaper reporters, who inspire a story by 60 Minutes, which is then watched by Congressmen.
I commend to all, Holman Jenkins' column from the Friday, 2/26 Wall Street Journal, entitled, "Trial Lawyers v. Toyota." Jenkins reported on last week's House Energy and Commerce witch hu- er, show tri-, er, "Hearing," in which virtually every witness (save for the medieval ritual shaming of Toyota executives) was part of the product-liability lawsuit industry. This is your government in action.
As Jenkins observed, it is astonishing that when we hear of commercial airliner crashes nowadays, we understand that "pilot error" is always a real issue, despite the fact that commercial airline pilots are some of the more elaborately trained and regulated professionals in our entire society. And yet when we are talking about huge populations of ordinary doofus drivers, we have a hard time accepting that people crash for any reason other than that their car was negligently built. Far be it from Congressmen, faced with weepy relatives of crash victims, to make that observation. But it remains; can anyone describe for us succinctly, what is wrong with Toyotas.
[I should note this non-disclaimer: I have nothing to disclaim. I don't work for Toyota, and I don't represnet Toyota in product liability claims. I don't own a Toyota, and I don't plan to. I do have a deep, abiding, profound conviction that trial lawyers are deserving of the highest possible level of public mistrust.]
Your turn, Jack. Step up to the plate, and give us that plain English 25-word explanation as to what the design defect in Toyotas is.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 27, 2010 at 10:01 PM
First demonstrate that you have a name, and are not too afraid to use it. Then maybe one can judge whether you work for Toyota or not.
Posted by: Jack Lessenberry | February 28, 2010 at 10:52 PM
I didn't think so. And in fairness to Jack Lessenberry, it wasn't a trick question. I wasn't questioning his knowledge or his good sense. Jack's not an automotive engineer, nor am I. Neither one of us ought to be entrusted with any important software, automotive or otherwise.
My question is just as easily put to the whole world, as to Mr. Lessenberry:
Does ANYBODY have a clearly-understandable single theory as to what caused sudden-acceleration accidents in Toyotas?
Was it entangled floor mats? That is easy enough to fix, and hardly worth dragging the CEO of Toyota from Japan to Washington, D.C., to be prostrated in front of a Congressional Committe on national television. Was it a poorly-designed or -manufactured accelerator pedal? Again, that redesign has already been put in place. I don't think it explains most of the crashes in any event.
Was it buggy electronics? A throttle-relay software glitch? Toyota says they know of no such defect. And if anyone has proven such a defect, I'm not aware of it.
But surely Jack Lessenberry and his erudite readership will know. After all, this is, according to Mr. Lessenberry, "one of the most frightening safety issues imaginable. Cars which accelerate out of control without warning, threatening to kill the drivers."
So with something this important, this threatening, this much of a clear and present danger which was so foreseeable by Toyota -- surely, someone will know, and will be able to clearly and succinctly state; Just exactly what is the Toyota defect?
Posted by: Anonymous | February 28, 2010 at 11:21 PM