Risk register · entry
Q1 · PredictableToyota unintended-acceleration recall
Toyota bragged internally about saving $100M by negotiating the recall down. It cost them $1.2 billion.
Documented, foreseeable risks that were ignored anyway. The failure is attention, not information.
Why this quadrant
The information was not merely available, it was internal and treated as an achievement. A July 2009 presentation to Toyota's Washington office listed, under 'Wins for Toyota - Safety Group', that it had negotiated an equipment recall on the Camry and ES and 'saved $100M+, w/ no defect found', alongside 124 million dollars saved on side-airbag rulemaking. The hazard was known and the remedy was priced. The decision was to buy a narrower one. The 1.2 billion dollar penalty attached to the concealment, not to the defect.
The record
- A July 2009 internal Toyota presentation listed under 'Wins for Toyota - Safety Group': 'negotiated "equipment" recall on Camry/ES re SA; saved $100M+, w/ no defect found', referring to the September 2007 recall of 55,000 floor mats.certain
- The same presentation claimed a phase-in of new side-airbag safety regulations saved Toyota $124 million and that delaying a tougher door-lock rule saved $11 million.certain
- In March 2014 the DOJ imposed a $1.2 billion financial penalty under a deferred prosecution agreement, on a wire fraud charge, the largest penalty of its kind ever imposed on an automotive company; Toyota admitted misleading consumers and NHTSA about floor-mat entrapment and 'sticky pedal'.certain
- Toyota recalled approximately 9 million vehicles worldwide over unintended acceleration: about 5.2 million for floor-mat entrapment and about 2.3 million for accelerator pedals, with roughly 1.7 million subject to both.high
- As of January 2010, 21 deaths were alleged in NHTSA complaints linked to the defect, rising to 37 alleged deaths after the 28 January 2010 recall announcement.medium
Sources
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