OK. It seems odd to me that we have heard so much about Toyotas accelerating out of control yet there have been almost no stories in the media to corroborate this. There have been some examples but the details always seem to be murky and the circumstances hard to recreate.
I am not saying that Toyota doesn't have a problem here. I don't know if I'd want my kid driving a 2008 Prius around the neighborhood. But it seems that with the huge number Toyotas in the US that there should be obvious carnage everywhere, yet this is not what we see.
It reminds me of the Audi 5000 situation in the mid 1980s when 60 Minutes scared everyone into thinking that the fine automobile was prone to unintended acceleration. It wasn't. What in fact happened was Americans who were used to driving big, clumsy American cars couldn't get used to the smaller brake pedal of the more sporty and refined Audi. So they pushed the gas when they should have been pushing the brake.
This is probably not the situation with Toyota. But CNBC reports that the "runaway Prius "guy of last week may have been fibbing.
It just seems odd that in this time of economic crisis, especially in the auto sector, that Toyota is being held to such scrutiny. The fact that the US government owns 2 out of 3 US car companies and would do anything to spike sales of domestic vehicles has nothing to do with Toyota's black eye.
In fairness it may not. But it is strange. BTW there was a big recall of GM vehicles last week. Of over 1 million vehicles due to loss of power steering. Anyone hear about it?
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