So Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda's finally manned up and is going to testify before Congress this week. Hoping they nail him to the wall? Hoping Toyota gets what it deserves for its bungled handling of the whole unintended acceleration mess?
Just be careful what you wish for.
From an enthusiast's point of view, the flashes of brilliance at Toyota -- the first front-drive Celica with the Lotus-tuned suspension, the twin turbo Supras, the original Lexus LS 400, the first-gen MR2, the Lexus IS-F -- have been few and far between. But that hasn't stopped most of us in this business recommending Toyotas to people who want reliable, no-nonsense transportation. A Toyota has always been something you could confidently recommend to someone's great aunt in Duluth.
Until now, of course.
The damage inflicted on Toyota's reputation over the past few months has been enormous, and will take a long time to heal. Is it permanent? Probably not -- look how Ford recovered from the Pinto gas-tank and Firestone fiascos and how GM got over the Corvair. What could be permanent, however, is fallout from this week's hearings in Washington.
Congress is now engaged in the Toyota recall saga. What started out as an issue between Toyota, its customers, and safety regulators, has now entered the realm of political theater.
House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman has already fired the first salvo, in a letter sent to Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Inc: "Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report, and made misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls to address the risk of sudden unintended acceleration."
A media advisory from Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman Ed Towns makes a point of noting the hearing "will examine the Federal government's response to the recall, and to gain a better understanding of the nature of the sudden acceleration problem in Toyota vehicles and what should be done about it".
Toyota says it has rewritten its engine management software to ensure the brake will always override the engine, thereby preventing any potential for an unintended acceleration. In the current climate, however, it wouldn't take much of a stretch for lawmakers to simply decide to mandate similar override software on all cars and trucks sold in the United States. It would be an easy way of being seen to be doing something about the issue.
So the Toyota affair may become another excuse for politicians to engineer the cars and trucks we drive, whether we need their help or not.