And the hits just keep on coming for Toyota. The company announced today that it will recall 437,000 hybrid models worldwide for faulty brakes.
In the U.S., Toyota is voluntarily recalling about 133,000 units of the 2010 Toyota Prius and 14,500 units of the 2010 Lexus HS 250h vehicles to update software in the vehicle's anti-lock brake system.
Oh wait...what's this? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is now saying that it's considering opening a formal investigation of alleged defects in the electric power steering of 2009 and 2010 Corollas. Oh boy! Trade journal Automotive News found that the model has been the subject of 83 power-steering complaints since April 2008, most of which report the car veering left or right at up to 40 mph.
Anyone care to guess which model is implicated next in this Toyota Recall-athon? Which are left?
Quite an interesting January as the domestics gained while there were mixed results for imports. You might have heard about that Toyota recall thing? Yeah, that news dinged Toyota's sales a good 16%, could be even worse in February if the situation doesn't improve.
On the flip side, both Ford and GM improved their year-over-year sales in January. Credit some of those gains to incentives designed to get the attention of wary Toyota consumers. Nissan and Hyundai also picked up some nice gains in January. For a full run down on all the stats, check out the full report on AutoObserver.
A NHTSA investigation is never a good thing for an automaker, but this one could be good or bad for Chevrolet.
It's bad for obvious reasons. In this case, the Chevrolet Cobalt is being investigated for problems related to failure of its electric power steering system. According an article in the Detroit News, the problem has caused 11 accidents and generated 1,132 complaints. Although the cars in question range from 2005 to 2009, the majority of the reports have been filed in the last six months.
And the good part? The timing of course. If General Motors can take care of the issue quickly it will likely blow over while the Toyota fiasco dominates the headlines. Should be interesting to see how the two problems are handled.
Spyker has outlined its plans for Saab as the deal with General Motors inches closer to reality. There aren't any real surprises, unless you think continuing with Saab's current lineup is somehow shocking.
According to Spyker officials, it will run Saab as a separate company and it aims to send the 9-3, 9-4X and 9-5 to the U.S. market. The redesigned 9-5 is expected to arrive this summer while the 9-4X will come in early 2011 and the 9-3 in early 2012.
Hyundai will once again flaunt its recently acquired riches by running not one, but two Super Bowl ads this year.
First up, it's Brett Favre, looking quite fresh and relaxed after throwing away the NFC championship game. Then, it's on to the paint shop. Here Hyundai shows off the paint procedure for the new 2011 Sonata, which it says is better than the Mercedes-Benz CLS. And what constitutes "better" paint? Uh....
A new report by the Highway Loss Data Institute, an arm of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, says that states that enacted bans on using cell phones while driving haven't seen any notable changes in accident reports.
"The laws aren't reducing crashes, even though we know that such laws have reduced hand-held phone use, and several studies have established that phoning while driving increases crash risk," says Adrian Lund, president of both the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and HLDI.
So take from this what you will. Anything that gets drivers to pay more attention to actually driving seems like a win in our book.
Yes, a car that retails for the equivalent of around $2,000 is the hottest car in India. Strangely enough, this applies to rich and poor alike according to a recent report in the Christian Science Monitor.
It quotes a rural farmer named Satish Kumar who says he doesn't really need a car. "I'm mainly concentrating on using it socially - taking my whole family to weddings and other family functions," he says.
The flip side of the situation is those who already have cars said a local Tata dealer. "We were expecting people to come who were ... on two-wheelers, or in lower-model cars. It was a total surprise - people were coming ... who have two or three cars, but wanted the Nano just for the sake of having it."
Tata says it wants to sell the Nano in the U.S. after some extensive modifications. Somehow we don't see it getting quite the same reception here.
GM has released a statement regarding the 2009-2010 Pontiac Vibe that was recalled along with a whole bunch of Toyotas last week. GM says that based on its experience, "the Vibe is safe to drive," and it received no complaints of unintended acceleration prior to the recall.
Notably, GM says that after the recall it received several complains about sticking throttle pedals from customers. None of the claimed incidents caused any accidents.
Think people might be watching the news just a little too much?
Think Honda was feeling jealous that Toyota was hogging all the bad publicity? Not likely, but it decided to announce a small recall of its own.
Turns out there's a small problem with the window motors on what we know as the Honda Fit in the U.S. Under harsh weather conditions, water can seep into the window compartment and cause damage to the main wiper switch. The switch then becomes susceptible to fire from overheating.
Honda said the move covers Fit/Jazz cars made between 2002 and 2008 in Japan, China, Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia and India. About 646,000 Fits fall into this category.
You may remember the Ultimate Streetcar Challenge from the heyday of Sport Compact Car magazine. Editors Dave Coleman and Josh Jacquot (now Senior Road Test Editor at Inside Line) created the event to find out which reader-built cars were the real deal. The car had to do more than just go fast in a straight line, they had to stop, run a road course and be usable on the street too.
That event ended with the magazine's unfortunate demise years ago, but a similar event has taken up the cause. Dubbed the Optima Batteries Ultimate Streetcar Invitational, the modern version pits the best of the aftermarket tuning crowd in a similar contest of speed, handling and all around driveability. It was held just after last year's SEMA show and will be broadcast on Speed this Saturday at 11:00 AM EST and again on Sunday at 4:00 PM EST.
It turns out it's quite easy to tell which of the two possible throttle pedals your late-model Toyota was built with. Pedals made by CTS are subject to the recall, those made by Denso are not. We walked downstairs to our own parking garage yesterday to have a look at Toyotas owned by Edmunds employees.
For many of the Toyota vehicles on the list, you don't even have to look: 100% of them were built in North America and therefore have the pedal in question. The status of the other cars on the list comes down to whether the car was built in Japan or North America. This is easily determined by looking at a single digit in the VIN.
It's all cut and dry by VIN until you come to the Camry. U.S.-built examples of those vehicles have been built with both pedals, so a simple visual inspection of the pedal itself as shown above is necessary to see whether owners should expect to see a recall notice in the mail in the coming weeks.
More details about VINs and larger photos of the two pedals can be found after the jump.
The papers are signed and the agreement is done. Nissan has sealed the deal on a Department of Transportation loan that will be used to modify Nissan's Smyrna, TN plant for production of the Leaf electric car and the lithium-ion batteries that will power it.
According to the press release, the plant will be capable of producing 150,000 Leafs a year and 200,000 batteries a year when fully operational.
Hope it works. That's a pretty big chunk of change to hand over for a completely unproven product. Then again, both Fisker and Tesla got half a billion each for cars that don't exist yet, so we'll see who pulls through first.
And Toyota thought it had it bad today. Come tomorrow morning it's going to get even worse as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters is planning to protest at the Japanese Embassy in Washington D.C. over Toyota's plans to close New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI).
"After receiving millions in the taxpayer-funded Cash for Clunkers bailout, Toyota plans to close its New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI) assembly plant in Fremont, CA, which will mean a loss of 5,400 direct jobs and up to 50,000 jobs at suppliers and other supporting businesses. This would be the biggest factory layoff in California since the beginning of the recession. Toyota is also endangering 5,000 middle class jobs in the carhaul industry."
Hmmm...think the Teamsters are attempting to pile on a bit here?
