Can Toyota Rebound From Slowing Sales?
Toyota is facing an impending sales slump. However, comfort in this news is the fact that the company isn't the first to confront plummeting sales and a hesitant consumer.
The uncontrolled acceleration is a frightening, life threatening situation for consumers and their families, obviously. And, while Toyota wrestles with this, the dangerous braking problems with the Prius and Lexus models have surfaced and added to the stress of consumers.
Toyota’s tumbling January sales are a grim reminder that consumer confidence is waning. Last month's sales of 98,796, are the lowest in over a decade.
Volkswagen’s Audi brand has regained its sales as a result of nearly two decades of mending consumer confidence.
Sudden acceleration was the reason for that recall, and Audi consumers filed a class action suit in 1987 against the automaker — a suit still being arbitrated.
Mitsubishi was also on the edge of economic failure from their recall of over 2 million vehicles in 2000 — a recall was one of the largest before the Toyota's.
Toyota accounts for almost 20 percent of all vehicles sold in the U.S., and as widely reported, the Japanese carmaker has recalled 8 million cars worldwide for uncontrolled acceleration. The recall has halted the sales and production of its eight top-selling models.
Henry Waxman, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, stated that 19 deaths are the result of the gas pedal malfunction.
John Wolkonowicz, an analyst at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts, says there are similarities between the Audi and Toyota recalls.
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