'Moving Forward' with Unintended Acceleration

With Toyota's massive recall over the last few months culminating in yet another recall last week for a 'sticky pedal', the company has taken severe beating to its image. Now, TMC has admitted to braking related issues in its marquee 2010 Prius. Though, I am not sure how much of a headwind it will prove to be for GM and the likes, I believe it will take Toyota Motor Corporation much work to regain the market share it lost in Jan. 2010 (as much as 20% drop in sales I believe).

I think issues like mats holding down the pedals are made out to be much bigger than they really are. Manufacturers have had much more serious recalls before (such as the Ford Explorer); Ford has million recalls in their 2009 models. But of course, it is bigger news when the King trips compared to a commoner tripping. So US house wants to hold a hearing and NHTSA is considering a fine that could total up to $15m! Good chance to recover some of they money that GM has swallowed, I say!

The common perception of Toyota's quality being far superior compared to GM & Ford (let us not include Chrysler in this even now), was created largely by GM's self initiated downfall in the late 90s and the seemingly never wrong-footed steps of TMC accentuated by the generous publicity by American media. Though it is no longer realistic, still the two American giants had a touch time of convincing people about it. But now that TMC has fallen down a notch, the playground seems to be more leveled. Will this prove to be the watershed? It will be interesting to see how TMC's PR division handle the crisis and how their sales fare in the next few months.