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I’m sure by now you’ve heard the latest Toyota news: A little less than a week ago, it was announced that “NASA found no evidence that a malfunction in electronics caused large unintended accelerations.” That’s according to Michael Kirsch, the principal engineer and team lead of the study from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.
And if you recall, reports of unintended acceleration were being blamed on three possible factors: sticking accelerator pedals, a design flaw that enabled accelerator pedals to become trapped by floor mats and electromagnetic interference and/or software…
This is just a guess on my part, but I’d be willing to bet that when you hear mention of Toyota’s manufacturing operations most of you probably think of the Toyota production system (aka lean manufacturing). And if you know anything about lean manufacturing, then there’s an even better chance that you’ve heard about the Kaizen philosophy. “Kaizen” means “improvement” in the Japanese language, and the Kaizen philosophy is all about continuous improvement.
I think we can all agree that there’s really no substitute for safe driving habits; however, when the weather and road conditions are stacked against you, it’s nice to know that someone (or something) has your back. One “something” is Toyota’s Star Safety System — five safety features that come as standard equipment on Toyota’s five SUVs.
Let me start this post with a promise: I’m not going to make you endure the same details about the Toyota gas pedal recall that you’re getting everywhere else. You know, the possibility that the gas pedals may stick, the reasons why they may stick, the specific model years affected and so on. If that’s what you’re after, well, you can get that information just about anywhere (including in the three links that I’m attaching below). Instead, let’s focus on…
If you have been watching the news, you know that the Toyota Prius is having problems with its brakes as well as with the accelerator. Here is a discussion of the brake problem – on bumpy roads the brakes don’t work right: They can also fail on icy roads: Toyota set to recall Prius hybrid [...]
Hybrid Cars. I know they’ve been a popular choice over the past several years, but it truly seems like they’re all over the place now. Hybrids are a common sight on the roadways, they’re parked in plenty of garages and driveways and the next time you’re at the mall, the local park or the grocery store take a look around you when you’re in the parking lot — they’re everywhere.
Over the weekend I read an article by Hiroko Tabuchi in The New York Times that caught me a little off-guard. I don’t know why the news was so unexpected — but it was. As you know, here in the states, auto production (with very few exceptions) has been greatly reduced or even halted in some cases. But did you know that they’re working overtime at the Toyota Prius factories in Japan?
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