American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture
This morning’s podcast topic: The Toyota Prius story. Special guest Michael Fumento updates us.
UPDATE
Read Mike’s latest article in today’s Philadelphia Enquirer,
Toyota’s indispensable new role: Hobgoblin
The carmaker plays the villain while officials ignore a much greater danger – bad driving
Link also at his blog.
Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers
The U.S. Department of Transportation has analyzed dozens of data recorders from Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles involved in accidents blamed on sudden acceleration and found that the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash, people familiar with the findings said.
The early results suggest that some drivers who said their Toyotas and Lexuses surged out of control were mistakenly flooring the accelerator when they intended to jam on the brakes.
Mike Fumento has been saying as much for quite a while, along with Walter Olson,
Maybe it’s rude to say “I told you so,” but yes: I told you so, as did others including Ted Frank, Megan McArdle, Michael Fumento, and Ronald Bailey.
Mike’s also looking for a Volunteer for short but fun job regarding The Toyota Terror; also, Mike found the following,
I found eight vehicles in which 99 people died, two with 95, one with 90, one 88, and lots and lots above 10. None were involved in accidents, by the way. One with 10 reported deaths was entered 11 times, getting around the 99 death limit. One fellow who reported 95 deaths twice wrote: “I was shooting the engine with my M16 when it blew up. Why did this happen?”
But back to the WSJ article,
It is unknown how many data recorders NHTSA has read so far.
Or how the data was kept?
Today at 11AM Eastern, Michael Fumento joins us to talk about his investigation of the Toyota Prius hoax, the cancer cluster and other subjects.
You can listen live, or the archived podcast at your convenience here.
Join us!
Michael Fumento has been investigating the Toyota hybrid hoax, and he was on Cavuto last night,
Check out Mike’s article on Forbes,
Toyota Hybrid Horror Hoax
Exploring an overblown media frenzy.
Virtually every aspect of Sikes’s story as told to reporters makes no sense. His claim that he’d tried to yank up the accelerator could be falsified, with his help, in half a minute. And now we even have an explanation for why he’d pull such a stunt, beyond the all-American desire to have 15 minutes of fame (recall the “Balloon Boy Hoax” from October) and the aching need to be perceived as a victim.
The lack of skepticism from the beginning was stunning. I combed through haystacks of articles without producing such needles as the words “alleges” or “claims.” When Sikes said he brought his car to a Toyota ( TM – news – people ) dealer two weeks earlier, recall notice in hand, and they just turned him away, the media bought that, too. In Sikes We Trust. Then the pundits deluged us with a tsunami of an anti-Toyota sanctimony .
Where to begin?
Well, the patrol car didn’t slow down the Prius; the bumpers never touched. The officers used a loudspeaker to tell Sikes to use the brakes and emergency brake together. He did; the car slowed to about 55 mph. Sikes turned off the engine and coasted to a halt. He stopped the car on his own.
There wasn’t anything wrong with the transmission or the Prius engine button either.
Over a 23-minute period the 911 dispatcher repeatedly pleaded with Sikes to shift into neutral. He simply refused and then essentially stopped talking to her except to say that he thought he could smell his brakes burning.
“I thought about” shifting into neutral, Sikes said at a televised press conference the day after the incident. But “I had never played with this kind of a transmission, especially when you’re driving and I was actually afraid to do that.” Sikes, who has driven the car for two years, also said “I figured if I knocked it over [the gear knob] the car might flip.”
You must read the whole article.
As I said before, the government has a clear conflict of interest and now Toyota’s being scapegoated.
In the WSJ today:
Toyota to Recall Prius Models Including One in Runaway Incident
Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday that the Prius involved in a highly publicized acceleration incident on a California freeway along with many others will be the subject of a future recall to prevent floor mats from pinning down the gas pedal.
Allow me one question, please, but how much of this panic is due to the government’s conflict of interest intervening against Toyota, or on drivers who can’t figure out on their own that the floor mat is pinning down the gas pedal?
Michael Fumento has more on the Prius accelerator highway horror and the hysteria.
What happens when the government has a vested interest in a carmaker?
Brian Johnson writes on Toyota and the Union-Backed Government-Led Witch Hunt
There was no government outcry and no demand for Congressional hearings over these [Honda and Ford] recent recalls. So why has Toyota suddenly become the target of a government-led witch hunt?
Toyota’s U.S. operations are extremely successful, not saturated by inefficient union monopolies, and are in direct competition with the now government-owned General Motors.
…
From their first U.S. factory in 1988, the Japanese company’s success in the U.S. is extraordinary. In 2003, the Camry became the best-selling car in the U.S. and still is. In 2005, Fortune magazine stated: “By nearly every measure, Toyota is the world’s best auto manufacturer. It may be the world’s best manufacturer, period.” In 2006, Toyota became the third-biggest seller of cars and trucks in the U.S. In 2007, Toyota captured second place in the U.S. market, replacing Ford, which had held the No. 2 position since 1931. In 2008, as GM declined and temporarily avoided bankruptcy, Toyota surpassed their unionized competitor becoming the largest automaker in the world.Toyota’s ability to ascend, while others plummeted, lies in their philosophy based on efficiency and productivity called “The Toyota Way.” This corporate philosophy is not anti-union, rather based on the principle of “kaizen” which means “continuous improvement.” This principle seeks complete quality management by improving local work environments and raising productivity. It empowers executives and plant employees, who are famously authorized by Toyota to stop the assembly line to quickly solve any problems based on their own discretion. Such practices are never heard of and often forbade in other highly unionized automobile facilities.
In fact, the differences in efficiency and productivity (and why the unions are determined to penetrate Toyota’s workforce), do not stop there. When GM fired over 35,000 employees between 2006 and 2008, Toyota laid off zero. GM loses almost $2,500 in profitability per vehicle where Toyota makes almost $1,500 per vehicle. This is largely due to GM’s forced union contracts. GM’s union, the United Auto Workers (UAW) mandates that GM pay, on average, each non-skilled line worker about $33 dollars per hour. This inflated wage includes workers who are “idle,” meaning they don’t have a specific job that day, but can still come to work, sit in a special facility and collect a pay check.
These artificially inflated costs, bound by forced union contracts, are sinking other US auto industries. Toyota has managed to rise above that, not by being anti-union, but by believing in and enforcing a corporate-wide model based on efficiency and improvement.
Now, the agents of the government, which controls GM, are publicly castigating Toyota in an attempt to smear the company and increase their own profitability. As a direct competitor with Toyota by way of involvement with GM, the assault against Toyota represents one of the most public conflicts of interests the business world has experienced.
Go read the rest.
Another day, another lunacy:
Venezuela’s President Threatens Toyota, GM
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, beset by a recession that is hurting his popularity, has turned his sights on international car companies, threatening them with nationalization and pledging to ramp up government intervention in their local businesses.
The populist leader has threatened to expropriate Toyota Motor Corp.’s local assembly plant if the Japanese car maker doesn’t produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and transfer new technologies and manufacturing methods to its local unit. He said other car companies were also guilty of not transferring enough technology, mentioning Fiat SpA of Italy, which controls Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co.
And who’s going to take over the Toyota plant? The Chinese!
The president ordered his trade minister, Eduardo Saman, to inspect the Toyota plant. He said if the inspection shows Toyota isn’t producing what he thinks it should and isn’t transferring technology, the government may consider taking over its plant and have a Chinese company operate it.
“We’ll take it, we’ll expropriate it, we’ll pay them what it is worth and immediately call on the Chinese,” Mr. Chávez said in a televised address late Wednesday.
Curiously, the article doesn’t mention what the Chinese have to say – if anything – about this proposed arrangement.
The announcement, however, didn’t take the Japanese entirely by surprise:
Any move to nationalize would have little impact on Toyota’s bottom line. The company’s Venezuelan operations are the smallest of the four Latin American markets where it produces cars, and the Venezuelan market has dropped sharply in the past year, while other markets in the region, such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, have either held steady or grown despite the global recession.
Toyota produced about 13,000 vehicles in Venezuela last year, and sold roughly 30,000 for a market share of 11%, lower than the Japanese car maker’s share in the U.S. Globally, Toyota sold nearly nine million vehicles in 2008.
In a typical Communist move, this will adversely affect Venezuelans (who soon enough will only have Venezuela-Iran Venirauto to choose from) more than it will Toyota or the other companies.
Still, it’s a Merry Christmas message from Hugo to China, and yet another f**k you to private enterprise, Japan, Italy and the US.
