[ti:A Rough Road for Toyota ]
[ar:Steve Ember]
[al:Economics Report]
[by:www.21voa.com]
[00:00.00]This is the VOA Special English 
[00:03.16]Economics Report.
[00:04.97]Toyota became the world's 
[00:07.13]largest automaker 
[00:08.66]in two thousand eight. 
[00:10.90]But after years of building loyalty, 
[00:14.11]the Japanese company may 
[00:16.12]have put its quality brand name 
[00:18.82]at risk, at least temporarily.
[00:21.94]Toyota is recalling 
[00:23.85]millions of cars and trucks 
[00:26.56]around the world because of cases 
[00:29.01]where vehicles have 
[00:30.74]sped up unexpectedly. 
[00:32.99]Last August, a driver 
[00:35.00]in California was unable to stop. 
[00:38.75]The crash killed him 
[00:40.46]and three of his family members.
[00:43.21]Toyota says the problem 
[00:45.71]is rare and caused 
[00:48.11]by accelerator pedals 
[00:50.04]becoming stuck open. 
[00:52.24]On January twenty-sixth, 
[00:54.94]the company suspended sales 
[00:57.35]of eight of its top-selling vehicles 
[01:00.25]in the United States, 
[01:02.57]its largest market. 
[01:03.97]Toyota dealers have been 
[01:06.93]receiving parts to make repairs.
[01:09.47]General Motors and Ford both 
[01:13.53]reported increased sales in January. 
[01:17.44]But Toyota sales 
[01:18.94]in the United States have fallen, 
[01:21.79]and so has its stock price. 
[01:24.79]Toyota says it expects costs 
[01:28.25]and lost sales from 
[01:30.69]its recent safety recalls 
[01:32.55]to total two billion dollars 
[01:35.21]by the end of March.
[01:37.22]Louis Lataif spent 
[01:39.78]twenty-seven years 
[01:41.21]in the car industry at Ford. 
[01:44.08]Now he is dean of the School 
[01:46.79]of Management at Boston University.
[01:49.82]"It's Toyota's biggest such recall. 
[01:53.13]It's voluntary incidentally, 
[01:55.49]it's not mandated. 
[01:56.34]So, in that respect, 
[01:58.39]they are doing something fairly bold, 
[02:00.24]namely, taking the hit of 
[02:02.89]shutting production and correcting
[02:05.04]the vehicles that are in inventory 
[02:06.81]on which they have stopped sales."
[02:09.11]A recall late last year 
[02:11.01]involved floor mats 
[02:12.71]that Toyota said could cause 
[02:14.73]the accelerator to get stuck. 
[02:16.74]One of the vehicles 
[02:18.52]in the floor mat recall 
[02:20.19]was the Prius, 
[02:21.76]the world's top selling hybrid.
[02:24.30]Now American officials 
[02:26.77]are investigating the brake system 
[02:29.29]on the twenty ten Prius. 
[02:31.85]The Transportation Department says 
[02:34.57]it has received more than 
[02:36.77]one hundred twenty reports, 
[02:38.92]including reports of four crashes.
[02:42.37]Toyota says it found a software problem 
[02:46.92]that could briefly affect the "feel" 
[02:49.72]of the anti-lock brakes on rough 
[02:52.72]or slippery roads. 
[02:54.46]It says it fixed the 
[02:57.07]brake problem last month.
[02:59.67]But a growing number 
[03:01.47]of legal cases claim Toyota knew 
[03:04.90]for a long time about the 
[03:07.19]sudden acceleration issue 
[03:09.20]with other vehicles. 
[03:11.48]The problem reportedly has led to 
[03:14.34]more than eight hundred crashes 
[03:16.54]and nineteen deaths 
[03:18.94]in the past ten years. 
[03:21.29]Congress is preparing for hearings.
[03:24.20]Greg Bonner is a marketing professor 
[03:28.02]at Villanova University. 
[03:29.98]He says to regain trust, 
[03:33.35]Toyota will have to make public 
[03:35.96]everything it knows about the problems 
[03:38.59]and show it accepts responsibility.
[03:42.14]The recall has also
[03:44.40]intensified questions 
[03:46.45]about all the computer 
[03:48.26]control systems used 
[03:50.15]in modern cars.
[03:51.31]And that's the VOA Special English 
[03:56.96]Economics Report, 
[03:58.82]written by Mario Ritter. 
[04:00.80]I'm Steve Ember.