Tesla and Toyota to build electric cars at NUMMI plant

The closure of the NUMMI plant in Fremont, California six weeks ago was just another downfall to California’s struggling economy and double digit unemployment rate. Late Thursday, Tesla Motors announced that it is teaming up with Toyota to build its all-electric Model S sedan at the recently shuttered NUMMI plant in Fremont, creating more than 1,000 new jobs.

Under the agreement, Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, will invest $50 million in Tesla, which will buy the NUMMI plant for an undisclosed sum. The joint venture was unveiled by Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s CEO, who flew in from Japan for the announcement, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger at a heavily attended 5 p.m. news conference at Tesla’s Palo Alto headquarters.

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Prius owners defend their cars online

James Sikes now famous runaway Prius story, is still making headlines, but YouTube users are not buying his story. Several Prius owners have posted videos onto the website proving that it is rather trivial to stop a “runaway” Prius.

The hybrid owners in the video have no problem slowing the car down at freeway speeds using the brakes. The videos also prove the car will turn off and will shift into neutral even if the throttle is stuck.

Check out the videos after the jump.

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Driver’s Account Doesn’t Match With Findings

For the past week, the media have been waiting for the results of an investigation into Jim Sikes’ runaway Toyota Prius. While the investigation was taking place, a Congressional memo leaked, followed by an NHTSA report, both of which found little evidence to support Sikes’ story. Now, Toyota has released its preliminary report on the incident, and the automaker has reached the same conclusion.

Toyota engineers completed an investigation of the 2008 Prius driven by Mr. James Sikes that was the subject of a 911 emergency call on Monday, March 8. 61 year-old Mr. Sikes reported that the vehicle was traveling at a high rate of speed down a San Diego freeway, the accelerator pedal was stuck, and that the vehicle was out of control and could not be stopped. The emergency operator repeatedly instructed the driver to shift the car into neutral and turn off the power button.

Sikes refused to heed the operator’s advice to turn off the car or put the transmission in neutral, concerned that the car would flip over if he did. After a half-hour run down the freeway, a California Highway Patrol officer who had caught up with Sikes advised him to use both the brake pedal and parking brake to stop the car. After bringing the speed down from 94 mph to about 50 mph, Sikes finally turned the car off.

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Who is at fault, the driver or Toyota?

In a bizarre turn of events, Toyota’s recent recall problems may free an imprisoned man. Koua Fong Lee, a Hmong immigrant with only a year of driving experience, was involved in a fatal accident in June 2006. Lee claimed his 1996 Toyota Camry would not stop. The alleged out of control Camry struck an Oldsmobile parked at a red light at a speed of approximately 70 to 90 mph. The accident resulted in the death of three people.

A jury did not believe that Lee attempted to stop his vehicle and as a result he was sentenced to eight years in prison. Lee contested he attempted to stop the car, but was unable too. A city mechanic inspected the brakes and testified that they appeared fine. The prosecutor during the trial argued that Lee must of hit the gas by mistake.

Lee is now hoping to get his case reopened and is now claiming that his vehicle must of suffered from the same acceleration problems several Toyota models are being recalled for. Surprisingly, both the prosecutor and the family of the victims are interested in freeing Lee if the Camry was to blame.

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Lawmakers blistered the world’s largest automaker with accusations of greed and insensitivity

After an exchange of pleasantries that included praise from committee members for his willingness to step into a lion’s den, Toyota President and Chief Executive Officer Akio Toyoda, and Yoshimi Inaba, president and chief executive officer, Toyota Motor North America, drew heavy fire from both Democrats and Republicans for the company’s slowness in dealing with safety defects in its autos and trucks that led to deaths and eventually the massive recalls.

“I’m deeply sorry for any accident that Toyota drivers have experienced,” the grandson of the founder of the Japanese auto giant told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He suggested his company’s “priorities became confused” in a quest for growth over the past decade at the expense of safety concerns.

Toyoda told the panel he was “absolutely confident” there was no problem with the electronics of Toyota vehicles and repeated the company’s stance that sudden accelerations were caused by either a sticking gas pedal or a misplaced floor mat. Some outside experts have suggested electronics may be at the root of the problems.

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A broken front drive shaft could end a weekend of four-wheeling prematurely.

GM’s Akio Toyoda voodoo doll must be working, because 8,000 Tacoma pickups are being recalled due to possible cracks in the front drive shaft. The recall is only for the 2010 4WD model. Toyota decided to issue the recall after Dana Holding Corp. issued a report stating up to 34,000 drive shaft components it produced may be defective.

Dana Holding Corp. also supplies drive shaft components to both Ford and Nissan, but the two companies have claimed their trucks are not affected. Toyota has admitted that the cracks in the drive shaft components could lead to a separation of the drive shaft and joint portion.

In a document obtained by Reuters, Toyota has discovered that when the drift shaft fails, it could separate from the joint and hit the road which could potentially cause the driver to lose control of the vehicle. This could be a worst case scenario and there are no reports of people being injured as a result of the front drive shaft failing.

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TOKYO – Toyota says it is recalling about 437,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles worldwide to fix brake problems.

“I don’t see Toyota as an infallible company that never makes mistakes,” President Akio Toyoda said at a press conference Tuesday in Tokyo. “We will face up to the facts and correct the problem, putting customers’ safety and convenience first.”

There have been about 200 complaints in Japan and the U.S. about a delay when the brakes in the Prius were pressed in cold conditions and on some bumpy roads. The delay doesn’t indicate a brake failure. The company says the problem can be fixed in 40 minutes with new software that oversees the controls of the antilock brakes.

“Let me assure everyone that we will redouble our commitment to quality as the lifeline of our company,” Toyoda said.

The company is recalling the 2010 Prius gas-electric hybrid — the world’s top-selling hybrid car. The automaker is also recalling two other hybrid models in Japan, the Lexus HS250h sedan, sold in the U.S. and Japan, and the Sai, which is sold only in Japan.

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Toyota Motor Corp. is preparing a recall of the Prius hybrid car in Japan as early as Tuesday, followed by similar steps in the United States, Europe and other markets, according to several news agencies, all citing multiple sources

Toyota, which has earned a reputation as the green-vehicle front-runner with the fuel-sipping Prius, has said it is discussing with safety authorities worldwide how to fix a software glitch that delays braking on the model in certain road conditions.

Right now, many Toyota owners are angry, scared and feeling “in the dark” about this massive recall going on. What exactly should you do if you own one of the millions of Toyotas recalled for the floor mat problem or the sticking gas pedal problem?

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Toyota ordered by Japan to address Prius brake complaints

Toyota Motor Corp., already grappling with recalls totaling 8.1 million vehicles on five continents, has been ordered by Japan’s Ministry of Transportation to investigate a rash of consumer complaints about braking problems in its popular third-generation Prius hybrid vehicle. Specifically the 2010 model as the Japaneses government has ordered Toyota to investigate the car’s braking system.

The Japanese carmaker has received several complaints about braking in the Prius in both Japan and North America since the end of last year. A computerized search for the 2010 Prius on the online data base at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration generated at least 102 complaints against the car.

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Updated Jan. 28

Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. is telling dealers to suspend sales of eight models, and halting production of those models, after a recall to correct a problem that could cause the accelerator pedal to stick.

The Japanese automaker said the sales suspension includes the following models:

• 2005-2010 Avalon
• 2007-2010 Camry
• 2007-2010 Tundra
• 2008-2010 Sequoia
• 2009-2010 Matrix
• 2009-2010 RAV4
• 2009-2010 Corolla
• 2010 Highlander

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