February 08, 2011
By Angela Greiling Keane
Source: Bloomberg Business Week
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Unintended acceleration in Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles was rooted in mechanical flaws rather than electronic defects, a U.S. investigation found.
NASA, the U.S. space agency, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration today said a 10-month probe of defects that led to recalls of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide found no electronic causes. Safety advocates and some lawmakers had pointed to electrical faults as a reason for the reports about the world’s largest automaker.
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“For people that may have been concerned about the brand, this is probably going to make them feel better about Toyota products,” said Jim Hall, principal of 2953 Analytics Inc., an automotive consulting firm in Birmingham, Michigan.
Brian Lyons, a spokesman for Toyota’s U.S. sales unit in Torrance, California, declined to immediately comment on the findings.
Quality Issues
The review may ease questions about quality at Toyota, the only major carmaker to post a decline in U.S. sales last year as the overall market gained 11 percent, because the mechanical causes -- both related to the accelerator pedal -- had already been identified and vehicles recalled to fix them.
Toyota sales fell 0.4 percent to 1.76 million vehicles as the company paid $48.8 million in fines to U.S. regulators over the way some of the recalls, the largest by an automaker, were conducted.
Interbrand, a London-based market research firm, estimated this month that the cumulative impact of the recalls cut the value of Toyota’s brand image by 16 percent, to $25.7 billion. It remains the most highly valued Japanese brand.
NASA, at the request of NHTSA, which regulates auto safety, began a review in March of electronic throttle control systems in Toyota cars and trucks. The company underwent a series of U.S. congressional hearings, which included testimony from President Akio Toyoda on how the flaws occurred.
“Our conclusion, that Toyota’s problems were mechanical, not electrical, comes after one of the most exhaustive, thorough and intensive research efforts ever undertaken,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in prepared remarks.
Unintended Acceleration
NHTSA received 9,698 vehicle owner reports of unintended acceleration from 2000 to 2010, with 3,054, or 31 percent, of them about Toyotas, NASA said in the report. Complaints involving Toyotas didn’t increase after the company introduced electronic throttle control, starting with its 2002 model year Camry.
NASA studied whether electromagnetic interference may have caused unintended acceleration, which may be linked to 89 deaths in 71 crashes since 2000, according to the auto-safety agency. NASA investigators used Chrysler Group LLC’s test facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan, for its vehicle testing work, and bombarded vehicles with electromagnetic radiation, the Transportation Department said.
Mechanical components were tested at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Toyota’s American depositary receipts, each equal to two ordinary shares, rose $2.87, or 3.4 percent, at 1:36 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Toyota said yesterday that in the 12 months ending March 31, it may earn less than a third of its record 2008 net income following a year in which it dealt with record recalls around the world.
Net income may more than double to 490 billion yen ($5.95 billion), compared with a previous forecast of 350 billion yen, the Toyota City, Japan-based company said. That’s less than a third of the record 1.7 trillion yen it made in the year ended March 2008.
--With assistance from Makiko Kitamura in Tokyo, Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles and Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan. Editors: Bernard Kohn, Andrea Snyder
