HYBRID 2000

Heard about the 1,100 Cobalt complaints yet?

So, Toyota has sold several hundred thousand Toyota Prius hybrids and a few dozen drivers have complained about less than adequate brakes in icy and/or bumpy road conditions. Obviously, this is an important issue to be investigated, especially in light of Toyota’s sluggish response to potential accelerator issues, but just how important is it really?

For instance, is it more important than more than 1,100 complaints of Chevy Cobalts losing their power steering? It seems so for much the media. For instance CNNMoney ran this headline on the Prius, Complaints pile up about Prius brakes and made it a lead story. CNN also ran the Cobalt story with this headline, About 900,000 Cobalts in probe, and they buried the story.

So, 1,100 complaints are irrelevant compared to dozens of complaints because it’s the Prius? 1100 complaints and growing is a ‘probe’, but dozens of complaints are a ‘pile’ on?

Likewise, today Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stated that Toyota drivers affected by the recall need to stop driving their vehicles until fixed. Of course, he later recanted that statement, but the damage had already been done. The fact that 99 percent of Toyota drivers affected by the recall have experienced NO problem made LaHood change his tune a bit.

For days now I’ve wondered, can the US government objectively monitor Toyota now that it has directly invested more than $100 billion into the US auto industry, while also loaning 10’s of billions more to automakers? For example, in a court of law such a party would usually have to recluse themselves from such a case for having a vested interest.

And the US government certainly has a vested interest. Today, anything good for the US auto industry is good for the US government, and there is no doubt the Toyota recall has been GREAT for the US auto industry. In fact, the Toyota recall has been the best news Detroit has received in years.

Certainly, that doesn’t excuse Toyota, a company that has seemed to have had its head up its ass for a while on this recall issue.

Still, there are almost 1 million cars on the road right now that could lose power steering at any moment. Who knows how many crashes and repair bills this has caused in the past as most complaints have only been received in just the last several months. We do know, however, that some Cobalt owners, minimally, have paid to have this problem fixed in years past without ever knowing that the problem was a defect. So, when did GM suspect there might be a problem?

Yet, most of the press doesn’t care. It’s ‘pile’ on Toyota time. Yet, I have to ask, does that have anything to do with the fact that, historically, GM has been critically more important than all other automakers for the advertising profits of much of the US media?

Again, that doesn’t absolve or lessen Toyota’s recall responsibility, but are Toyota’s problems really that much different from problems that regularly face – and HAVE faced – most automakers at some point in time?