Toyota Recall

Foreign cars have been popular in American culture. More and more people nowadays are buying manufactured cars such as Audi, Toyota, Kia, and so much more. Recently, in Japan, Toyota has faced a recall in their Corolla model. The problem is the unintended acceleration and the braking problem with the cars. Toyota is blamed for their slow response to this problem. So 8.5 million cars are being recalled.

Source:

(2010). Toyota announces hybrid recall. The Chosen Ilbo (English Edition). Retrieved on February 14, 2010 from http://english.chosun.com.

Economists report that Toyota's massive recall crisis could lead to an overhaul in the Japanese economy. In Japan, Toyota has been one of the companies leading the Japanese automobile economy. However, due to this whole recall business, their image is pretty much shattered. In the beginning, the recall only happened in the United States where one of their cars fitted with U.S. parts was recalled, so the Japanese blamed the U.S. However, since the Prius was also recalled, that just shows that the perfect craftmenship or called "monozukuri" has been shattered. Japan is also struggling with China and Korea with their cheaper labor costs with their automobiles. It has been said that Japan should just switch back to their IT technology and software. In my opinion, Japan should just stop trying because they seem to be hitting their limits. This recall has been shattering their image, and instead of wasting all that money to revive their good image, they should surrender to the competition and focus more on different products. The other option is that they could re-do their whole manufacturing process to put some new freshness out there. It seems as if in the past decade products from Japan and China have been recalled for either defects or some other problems. I think that they should pay more attention and put some more effort in what they are making. Maybe do some more simulations. That might revive their image and increase their profits.

There is one more point I want to make on this post. Image is very important in the economy. For example, most consumers would buy a well-named respectable product like a Sony product because of the name and reliability attached, than a generic product that they know nothing about or a company that is known for problems. Image means a lot to the economy. It also relates to one of the lectures in Macroeconomics a week or so ago about coffee. What would consumers buy? Starbucks coffee or McDonald's coffee? Since Starbucks has good reliable coffee that they have been producing for many years, it would be hard for consumers to shift away from one company to the other.