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Toyota recall: Lentz on Digg

As I previewed in this column over the weekend, Toyota's U.S. boss Jim Lentz today faced Digg's 40 million strong audience over the company's global recall and cascading quality control problems:

On the whole, Lentz handled the social media format fairly well. He was dry, calm, and informed — even boring.

The set, on the other hand, was old school TV: two guys and a potted plant. It felt like a bad trip to infomercial-land. I kept waiting for Lentz and Digg corresondent Dave Yewman to don Snuggies and pitch us all a Bagel Guillotine Special Edition.

Those aesthetic quibbles aside, here are the top 10 (read: most Dugg) questions put forth by the Digg audience — and subsequently answered — by Lentz:

1) What do you drive?

2) How far along is Toyota on moving into some truly gas free cars in the future? Are these kinds of vehicles even possible or feasible in our current lifetime?

3) I was a General Manager of one of your largest dealerships in the US. I was aware that this problem dates back to 2004. In fact, there was a death involved in a sudden acceleration incident at an Atlantic City Hotel in a Camry that our dealership sold. At this point is Toyota's posistion going to chage as to the dates involved?

4) When will Toyota start making hybrid cars that aren't ugly as sin?

5) A former Toyota attorney has stated the company has known about these issues for at least three years, yet did nothing. He charges that Japanese Toyota executives instead covered up the problems. Are these charges true? And, whether or not they are, there are reports that Toyota has known since 2007 of the gas pedal problems. Why wasn't this dealt with sooner?

6) It has been years since Toyota had a sports car (Supra) available for sale in North America.
Are there any plans to bring back the Supra or come out with a new afordable sports car?

7) Mr. Lentz, I'm currently in the market for a new car, and until the recalls, the 2010 Prius was at the top of my list. I'm now back to square one and researching other manufacturers' hybrids. While Toyota's issues with acceleration and braking issues may be isolated, it has become clear that your company did not address these issues proactively or in a timely fashion. What is your message to non-Toyota drivers who may still be interested in your cars, but are very concerned about Toyota's response to the current crisis?

8) In the world of today, why does Toyota still produce 5 types of SUV's, is that not excessive?

9) Toyota has electronic data recorders in the cars -- yet they refused to release the data when I was in a crash, and it would have proven that the accident was not my fault. So I lost my car, my health and thousands of dollars. And now you say you can't track down the cause of this problem. Why not release the electronic data?

10) Did you hear about Steve Wozniak's software problem with his Toyota Prius?

Toyota's PR blitz

As Toyota's quality problems mount, the company has thrown its PR machine into high gear.

First, company president Akio Toyoda (and grandson of the firm's founder) finally made an appearance — 15 days after Toyota announced a global recall of nearly 9 million vehicles.

"The recalls are affecting several models in several regions and have caused anxiety among customers who are wondering if their cars are okay," Toyoda told reporters at a hastily called press conference in Nagoya. "For that we are very sorry."

Then, just a few moments ago, I got an email invitation that linked to this page on the popular social bookmarking site Digg:

Toyota wants to hear from you – submit and vote up questions below!

With the recent controversy surrounding the Toyota vehicle recall, Jim Lentz, President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, will answer the Digg community’s top questions for a very timely and topical live Digg Dialogg. He will be sitting down with Digg to provide perspective on what happened, what they’re doing about it and what consumers need to know about the recall.

Submit and Digg questions from now until Monday, February 8th at 8am PT to decide which will be asked in this exclusive interview.

As of this writing, Digg users have submitted 98 questions (the list is growing fast).

The questions range from "Why did so many people have to die before there was a recall?" to "say in 350 characters, Why i should buy your car?" to my personal favorite: "What's your favorite thing to cook?"

Toyota recall: The cascade continues

Another day, another piece of bad news for Toyota.

That trend continued again today, after the U.S. Transportation Department said it had opened an investigation into brake problems in the 2010 model year Toyota Prius, according to the Associated Press.

The news comes one day after the Japanese automaker admitted design problems with the brakes in its popular gas-electric hybrid model. On Tuesday, the Japanese government ordered an investigation of complaints of defective brakes on them.

Separately on Tuesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urged American owners of recalled Toyotas to "stop driving" them and to take them to dealers for repairs.

In other Toyota news, the company announced a quarterly profit through last December of $1.7 billion — though that financial performance came before the recall of almost 8 million vehicles worldwide for accelerator pedel problems and other issues.

So how is one native Detroiter viewing all of this?

The Toyota Diaries, cont.

Now it's brake problems on the Prius, Japan's "Car of the Year" for 2009.

Fordzilla v. Japan, the sequel

The U.S. auto sales numbers are in for January, and it's another win for Detroit.

Ford sales rose 25 percent last month.

Toyota's, meanwhile, fell 16 percent, hurt by a recall of some 4.6 million cars and the temporary sales halt of eight models in the U.S.

As part of a frenzied media blitz to help restore confidence in the company, Toyota's U.S. boss Jim Lentz is stressing safety, and playing the friends and family card:

"I drive Toyota products, my wife drives Toyota products, my family drives Toyota products, friends and neighbors drive Toyota products, and I can tell you that I wouldn't have loved ones in our products if I didn't think they were safe," Jim Lentz said in an interview yesterday with NPR.

Here's my radioactive lizard take on what's been a fascinating week or so in the global auto industry.

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