Toyota is set to announce a series of incentives to win back American car-buyers following a series of product recalls for safety reasons, according to Reuters, which says the programme will be unveiled Tuesday 2 March and run for a month. It includes offering consumers zero percent financing on some new car models and two years of service with few charges for returning customers.
Links to other sites: MSNBC, Toyota USA
Nearly half a million Honda cars are being recalled to have their airbags checked, in the latest safety issue for carmakers. The main market concerned is North America, but other regions such as Australia are also affected. European Hondas are not being recalled. The problem is the potential for the bags to over-inflate and explode, spraying metal. Toyota has been hard hit by 10 million recalls worldwide.
Links to other sites: BBC, Bloomberg video
Toyota’s troubles don’t appear to be set to end soon, with the Japanese carmaker now recalling half a million Prius and other hybrid cars for potential brake problems. The company has recently recalled more than 8 million cars worldwide for a series of safety defects. The cost is expected to be higher than $2 billion for initial recalls alone.
Links to other sites: Business Week, Reuters, Toyota recall notice
Toyota’s headaches in the US might be small compared to what it is facing in China, reports CNN. The automobile manufacturer’s recall of cars this week, due to the same accelerator pad problems that are behind a major recall in the US, is the fifth in China since January 2009. China is now the world’s largest car market and a critical market for Toyota’s Asian presence.
Toyota’s US operation said 27 January it is stopping sales of some of its top models and will probably have to recall another 1.1 million cars for safety reasons. The company has already recalled 2.3 million cars because of safety concerns over floor mats that could jam the accelerator, but these are part of a larger problem that has seen the company recall 6 million cars for problems linked to acceleration, according to Reuters. The company’s shares fell 2 percent on the Tokyo stock market Wednesday, following the latest news.
Asian stocks rose Monday 26 October on news that Toyota had made an “unexpected profit” and South Korea posted the best growth figures for its economy in seven years, reports Bloomberg. The global economic picture remains mixed, with the UK Monday posting figures for July-September 2009 that show the recession on a par with that of 1979-81, says the FT. In the US, the Federal Reserve closed three more banks, bringing the number of closures to 100 for the year, the highest figure since 1992.
Links to other sites: BBC, Bloomberg, Financial Times
Italian carmaker Fiat has plans to buy American automaker GM and, with its recent agreement to purchase Chrysler, create the second largest car manufacturing company in the world, after Toyota. CNN, Financial Times
The world’s second largest car manufacturer, Toyota, will post a loss when its year ends in March 2009 because of falling sales in North America, it announced. It downgraded its previous estimate for profits of 600 billion yen to a loss of 150 billion ($1.7b). Bloomberg
