Toyota's car deficiencies

In this blog I will discuss two articles. One that was published in a Belgian newspaper and the other one was published on the newspaper’s site “times online”. The articles relate to the problems Toyota has been having lately. So far the media was spreading the number 21 to be the total of deaths caused by deficiencies in their cars. The national highway traffic safety administration added another nine accidents which makes the total of deaths to 34. Toyota acknowledges that 5 of these deaths were caused by loose floor mats but investigations tell us that Toyota’s defective cars were responsible for 19 deaths and hundreds of injuries! The company of Akia Toyoda already had to recall eight million cars due to various defects. These defects are faulty accelerator pedals, loose floor mats and defective brake systems. Because of all the negative attention the CEO decided not to attend a US Congressional hearing on the carmaker’s safety lapses. The US executives will be answering questions concerning the deficiencies at the hearing on the 24^th of February.

In the search for articles concerning corporate finance I was really shocked! I don’t read newspapers that often and this was the first time I realized what a mess Toyota is in The issue I found the most concerning is that Toyota’s Corolla has possible power steering problems. You must know that the Corolla is known to be a compact family car. I can already see children sitting in that car while their mother is driving them to school and all of a sudden the steering-wheel gets blocked and the car runs into another family walking on the pavement. This is only an example of what can happen someday! In my opinion a car is a weapon on its own, you can drive YOUR car perfectly safe (unless it’s a Toyota of course), but when another driver isn’t that safe, your life can be over soon enough.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/engineering/article7030090.ece

http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=QE2MBJSQ&subsection=215