Today's New York Times, and many other news outlets, report that Toyota is recalling 6.4 million vehicles worldwide (full article, by Christopher Jensen and Hiroko Tabuchi, here). This follows by only a few weeks the car maker's agreement to pay the largest U.S. fine ever, $1.2 billion, for hiding safety defects (my earlier blog post on the subject, here).
At that time, I quoted U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder: "A recall may damage a company’s reputation, but deceiving your customers makes that damage far more lasting."
The only reason I'm happy about the Toyota news today is that I think, I hope, that it means that the auto giant is taking Holder's comment to heart.
The current recall, involving vehicles as far back as the 2006 model year, relates to potential air bag and seat problems (in the event of a crash, the former may not deploy, and the latter could move). Per the Times report,
Toyota said on Wednesday that it was not aware of any injuries or deaths related to either defect, nor was there any indication that American safety regulators had opened any investigations. Of the vehicles being recalled in the United States, Toyota said it would service 1.3 million to fix the air bag defect and 472,500 vehicles to fix their seats.
The only way to restore Trust is to embrace Transparency.
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