Toyota's accelerator problem goes global

• Source: Xinhua
• [08:49 February 01 2010]
• Comments

With Saturday's announcement of recalling 1.8 million cars in Europe, Japanese automaker Toyota 's problem with accelerator padels is going global.

The announcement came just days after the automaker announced a recall of 1.1 million cars in the United States due to a problem with accelerators in eight of its models.

A further 75,552 models are set to be recalled from China on February 28.

The massive recall has come at a bad time for the Japanese company, with its competitors in the United States struggling to survive amid the global economic downturn and unions for the Big Three motor companies in Detroit have been forced to accept worse conditions in order to keep the firms afloat.

"Toyota's reputation for quality has almost certainly taken a significant hit from this episode, and the effect on its sales, at least during the current quarter, is likely to be significant," said Aaron Bragman, an analyst with IHS Global Insight.

The recall has also led influential magazine Consumer Reports to withdraw its recommendations on eight Toyota models. The magazine has never withdrawn its recommendations on so many models at once before.

The automaker is set to stop production on the faulty models on Monday.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda apologized for the fault in the vehicles on Friday.

After the Toyota recall, Japanese rival Honda announced a recall of 646,000 cars due to a fault that could lead to fires in its vehicles. European automaker Peugeot Citroen has also recalled its models.

Toyota may now face a crisis globally, which will exacerbate the troubles it is having to deal with in the United States.

"Dealers are scared that it will be weeks before they can sell vehicles, customers are concerned over whether or not their cars are safe to drive, and the national media (in the United States) have jumped into what can only be described as a free-for-all, with Toyota at the center," noted Bragman.

The latest recall came on the back of an announcement in November last year that 4.26 million cars would have to be sent back to the factory in the United States because of a similar problem.

Toyota is expected to lose a significant portion of its market share in the United States on the back of the recall, and may see its global sales drop in light of the glitch.