Toyota summary - Assignment Example

Toyota Task Runaway Prius incident summary On March 911 dispatchers received a call from James Sikes who claimed that while he was driving through San Diego’s Interstate 8 east Freeway, his Prius went out of control and accelerated to speeds up to 90 miles per hour (p. 228). The California Highway Patrol, in the person of Todd Neibert was dispatched and set out in pursuit of Sikes; he also instructed Sikes on how to halt the car’s acceleration (p. 228). But the Prius was successfully slowed down only when Officer Neibert moved his cruiser in front of the car to halt its acceleration; and at a decreased speed of 55 miles per hour, Sikes was finally able to turn off the car’s engine (p. 228). Task 2: Consequences resulting from Toyota’s recent problems Increasing complaints of sudden acceleration and braking problems (p. 227) Prius panic – slightest car problem in their Prius or Toyota leads to demands of free repair and diagnosis (p. 227) Toyota recall of millions of its cars (p. 227) Lawsuits for damages, for injuries suffered, for loss of profits, for loss of car’s value, for loss of value of stock (pp. 226-227) Loss of reputation (p. 227) Task 3: Lawsuits “A variety of lawsuits are pending against the number one car manufacturer” (p. 227). One group of lawsuits is the “wrongful death or injury lawsuits,” which represents those who have suffered injury or from families of those who have crashed their cars when breaks were lost or when cars accelerated (p. 227). A class action lawsuit has also been filed by car owners who felt that they have experienced losses from the values of their cars because of the braking and acceleration problems (p. 227). And finally, Toyota shareholders have also filed their lawsuits against the company claiming that they were misled by the corporation about the braking and acceleration problems of the cars and they lost the value of their stocks because of this deliberate deception on the part of Toyota (p. 228). Task 4: Prius panic “Experts on consumer psychology say the relentless negative media attention Toyota has received since the fall makes it much more likely that drivers will mistake anything unexpected for actual danger, p. 227). Starting in 2008, Toyota owners started to report problems with their braking and acceleration and as the year progressed, more complaints were reported.

In 2009, reports accelerated to an alarming rate and this increase also gained media attention (p. 227). With media attention on the problem increased, many Toyota owners panicked or were alarmed with the simplest car problem they encountered with their car (p. 227). This has led to Toyota recalling about a million of their cars, even those without problems further resulting to the panic or hysteria over the Toyota-manufactured cars (p. 227). Task 5: Toyota as number one car maker in the world In the 1970s, the oil embargos greatly affected the United States that many of its citizens were prompted to go for more fuel economical cars like those manufactured by Toyota (p. 226). Since then, Toyota was able to enjoy as much financial success and visibility as the other major car manufacturers (p. 226). While Toyota’s American counterparts were building fuel-guzzlers, Toyota was building more fuel-economic and cheaper cars which were greatly patronized by most car users; and such increased sales and increased reliability for the masses slowly established its reputation as the number one car maker in the world.

Works Cited Toyota: The Consequences of Being Number One. pp. 226-227.