Toyota Motor America announced the recall of 2.3 million vehicles, and a week later, Toyota announced that it would continue to recall 165438+ 10,000 vehicles. The reason for the recall is that the accelerator pedals of these cars may not return to the normal position after stepping on them due to design problems, which poses great safety hazards. The recalled vehicles include 8 models including RAV4, Matrix and Avalon.
It is worth noting that of the 2.3 million vehicles recalled by Toyota, 6.5438+0.7 million were "second recalls". On June 5438+065438+ 10, 2009, Toyota recalled 4.27 million cars of Toyota and Lexus brands, and these cars that just left the 4S shop maintenance workshop will enter again two months later.
FAW Toyota announced the recall of 75,552 RAV4 cars produced in China. The reason for the recall is still the throttle problem. Spread to Central and South America and the Middle East.
Several global recalls of Toyota eventually turned into the biggest crisis of Toyota in recent years. Within four months, the total number of global recalls of Toyota cars was close to 6.5438+million. In addition to paying the recall fee and stopping production, Toyota also faces an unprecedented crisis of confidence.
The reason for the pedal door: "The pedal arm of the accelerator pedal and the sliding surface of the friction lever have been used for a long time. When warm air is used at low temperature, the sliding surface will frost and increase friction. Being blocked when using the accelerator pedal may affect the acceleration and deceleration of the vehicle. "
At this point, Toyota's "accelerator pedal incident", which caused a sensation overseas, officially spread to China.
Event development
Toyota's recall incident caused by the accelerator pedal started on March 25th, 20th10, and the trial result will determine whether Toyota will pay huge compensation to thousands of car owners. Due to the traffic accident casualties caused by the accelerator pedal, Toyota faces the lawsuit of the law firm alliance in more than 20 States in the United States. Tim howard, a law professor at Northeastern University, said that the amount of compensation demanded in this trial was as high as $40 billion or more. 20 10 On February 5th, Toyota decided to recall Prius hybrid vehicles with brake system problems in Japan and the United States, with an estimated total of 270,000 vehicles. This is the second time that Toyota has been involved in a global large-scale recall after the "footstep door" at the end of 2009 and the "pedal door" in June 20 10.
The hybrid Prius is the main product of Toyota's new environmentally-friendly car. .
Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan, bowed at the press conference. On the same day, Akio Toyoda apologized for Toyota's global recall and said that Toyota would set up a special committee to improve the safety and quality of cars.
2012165438+1October 19, a Toyota was unable to brake when it started the cruise control function on Hangpu Expressway.
Just as Akio Toyoda held a media briefing in Beijing, Toyota Motor Corporation said that due to the risk of oil leakage, it would replace an oil hose for about 934,000 vehicles of various models sold in the US market for free.
The overseas media who disclosed this news said that they had learned a document sent by Toyota to some American car dealers, which said that there might be small holes in the engine rubber tubing of some six-cylinder models, resulting in oil leakage. Failure to repair in time may damage the engine.
The specific models involved in this tubing failure are Camry from 2007 to 20 10, Asian Dragon from 2005 to 2009, RAV4 from 2006 to 2009, lexus ES350 from 2007 to 2008 and RX350 from 2007 to 2009.
Toyota spokesman Brian Lyons confirmed that the company sent documents to some dealers in the United States under a "limited service activity". However, he stressed that the defect of oil hose is not a safety issue, and the company will not recall the vehicles involved.
It is said that the owner may start to receive the email notice earlier, and after receiving the notice, he can go to the dealer for free maintenance. This activity will last until March 3 1 and March 20 13.
Regarding whether the oil pipeline failure involves the China market, Toyota (China) said that only some models sold in the US market have defects, while Toyota cars sold in China market do not have this problem because of their different model designs and parts supply. Toyota (China) further explained that the imported cars involved in this problem in the China market had been recalled at the end of last year, and neither imported cars nor domestic cars had this problem.
It is also reported that due to the defects of power steering motor, General Motors announced that it would recall 6.5438+0.3 million small cars in the US, Canada and Mexico markets.
GM said that these vehicles are safe to drive, but it may be difficult to turn when the speed is less than 24 kilometers per hour. After the spare parts are in place, GM will immediately notify the owner to repair them.
cause analysis
1, such a large-scale recall has made Toyota's face, which was once crowned with aura, look ferocious. Some people say that this is the "curse of the boss" of the global automobile industry, and GM is obviously the best model. Shortly after sitting on the throne of global car companies, Toyota's bad luck followed. In the dark, the cycle of history. The difference is that GM's decline comes from both internal and external forces, while Toyota's shock comes more from its ambition of global expansion.
"The crux of Toyota lies in its over-internationalization and problems with its internal quality control system." Ke Long, chief researcher of Fujitsu Research Institute in Japan, said.
The performance of excessive internationalization is that due to the rapid expansion of production capacity and the expansion of overseas production demand, it is inevitable to choose parts suppliers on a global scale, not in Japan. If Toyota's quality control system is strong enough, it is not difficult to reduce costs and increase sales by seeking cooperation from overseas parts manufacturers. On the contrary, the consequences are unimaginable. This may be the inevitable embarrassment of globalization and internationalization.
2. In the past, when the Japanese manufacturing industry was in trouble because of the exchange rate problem, the Japanese government often took measures to intervene in the foreign exchange market to maintain the international competitiveness of Japanese enterprises. However, in the global economic recession, the Japanese government did not dare to intervene in the foreign exchange market rashly, making all the pressures brought about by the appreciation of the yen basically solved by enterprises themselves.
As the Plaza Agreement of 1985 contributed to the sharp appreciation of the yen, Japanese enterprises gradually developed a set of corresponding capabilities. They try to cut labor costs or move production overseas with lower labor costs. These efforts have reduced the labor cost in the total cost of Japanese manufacturing from 73% in 1994 to 49% in 2007, thus enabling Japanese enterprises to maintain a certain profitability despite the appreciation of the yen. However, it also brings great side effects. For example, Toyota, which has been pursuing localized production, has scattered many spare parts to many parts of the world for production in order to reduce labor costs. The faulty accelerator pedal was made in India. This makes Toyota's production model known for collaborative production gradually have many hidden dangers.
Toyota's success in the American market has become an almost unshakable myth. If there are no big problems, Toyota can't give up their production methods. So far, cars are mechanical products used for transportation, not electronic products. In the production of mechanical products, Toyota has brought the advantages of collaborative production mode to the extreme. Who can question Toyota's efforts to improve the collaborative production model? But the problem is that automobile electronization is developing rapidly. Maybe in a few years, cars will become electronic products like televisions and computers. In the production of electronic products, what is needed is a modular production mode that is completely different from the collaborative production mode. Collaborative production mode may not only be useless, but also become a stumbling block to the development of enterprises.
Toyota attitude
201February 17, Toyota president Akio Toyoda apologized to consumers at the press conference, and Akio Toyoda bowed 45 degrees to apologize.
According to Japanese tradition, once there is a similar product quality problem, even if the production enterprise itself is not at fault, the senior management of the enterprise needs to bow deeply and apologize in public, and keep a 90-degree bow posture for at least 5 seconds.
Special Committee on quality
On March 30th, 20 10, the first meeting was held in Toyota headquarters, Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The purpose of the meeting is to learn lessons from Toyota's massive recall, improve product quality through global quality information, and prevent similar incidents from happening again. Due to the poor cooperation between Toyota headquarters and local subsidiaries in the large-scale recall incident, Toyota decided to set up a special global quality Committee. Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota, is the chairman personally, and vice presidents of subsidiaries in North America, Europe, China and Asia are members. Toyota sold 8.972 million cars in 2008, down 4% from 2007. However, such sales performance is likely to make Toyota seize the top spot in the global automobile industry, which has been occupied by GeneralMotorsCorp for 77 years. Toyota's "recall door" from 2009 to now should attract more attention than GM's sales at that time, and it should also cause some reflection.
Toyota's different treatment of China and the United States. First, it is necessary for Zhang Nan to go to the United States. Secondly, American consumers can criticize Toyota President Zhang Nan in person. Not in China, Zhang Nan came by himself. Mr. Zhang, a consumer in China, was blocked from the door. The reason is that China and the United States have different national conditions. The United States has enacted car recall legislation. If the incident reaches a certain level, the parties may be sentenced and severely punished. In China, it is only an industry regulation. If the manufacturer conceals the most serious product defects, it will be fined 30 thousand yuan. Different systems should be the most fundamental reason.