Toyota president Akio Toyoda has conceded that the company's current recall problems are a result of it growing too fast, too soon.
Speaking at a press conference where he outlined plans to raise standards, Toyoda said: "With the rapid expansion of production, perhaps we weren't able to develop appropriate engineering skills and human resources.
"The basic rule of the Toyota Production System is build only as many cars as can match demand, and we ourselves broke that rule."
Among the plans outlined by Toyoda to improve quality are the appointment of a chief quality officer for each geographic region; an expansion of the network of local technical offices, the instillation of brake over ride systems on all future models, better use of in-car data recorders following accidents.
In addition, Toyoda will chair a special committee for global quality, which will meet for the first time on 30 March.
Toyoda also confirmed he won't attend Congressional hearings into the current spate of recalls, saying that Yoshimi Inaba, the head of Toyota's US operations, is better suited to testify.
That has drawn criticism from sections of congress, with some members saying Toyoda should be forced to testify.
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Re: Toyota 'grew too fast, too soon'
The US car industry is guilty of that. Many years ago a GM truck (SUV / 4x4) has a design fault with a fuel tank. In a crash it would catch fire burning those in the truck. They lobbied congress and instead of recalling the trucks, as congress initially wanted, made a donnation to a burns unit!
Now that really is sick.
Re: Toyota 'grew too fast, too soon'
Toyota makes appliances not cars, they are so boring to look at and to drive, would never own one, bought mostly by women here in the US. The US dealers are taking a big hit on sales, advertising on TV begging people to come in, giving them deals now where before they couldn't care less about the customer, you had to pay full retail price or get lost. Now the Corrola has power steering problems, another 400,000 cars in the US to be recalled, well if the dealers can't make any money selling the cars, they can make loads fixing all the recalled cars.
Toyota has lied for years about the safety of their cars, that will come out in the Congressional hearing, they hired staff from the US auto safety to cover up all the problems with their cars,
Re: Toyota 'grew too fast, too soon'
Not if it's like the VW one... my Skoda allows heel and toe activity - the throttle dies after about 1-2 seconds on the brake pedal.
Left foot braking however, is not on the cards... but that might be good thing. :-/