Toyota Hearings over Recall: Safety vs Competitive Investment

by Jordan Yerman | February 23, 2010 at 11:14 am

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The Toyota hearings are underway. Congressional hearings into whether or not Toyota's cars are truly unsafe have begun following worldwide recalls surrounding faulty brakes and runaway acceleration. James Lenz, head of Toyota USA, opened with an apologyfor Toyota's slowness in dealing with widely-publicized safety problems, but customers aren't interested in apologies. So far, over eight million Toyotas have been recalled.

Though Toyota USA President and Chief Operating Officer James Lentz tells the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in his testimony that "we are confident that no problems exist with the electronic throttle control system in our vehicles," lawmakers have already said they aren't so sure.

Of course, US lawmakers have invested billions into Toyota's direct competitors--Genreal Motors and Chrysler-- to keep them from going belly-up, so Toyota dealers are not convinced that Congress can truly be impartial.

“I think it puts our senators and our representatives in a very difficult position,” said Paul Atkinson, a Toyota dealer from Bryan, Texas, and chairman of the automaker’s National Dealer Advisory Council.