Trouble for Toyota

(Thumbnail image: The Telegraph)

More trouble for Toyota. The automaker just announced it's third major recall in four months, dealing another blow to the company's reputation. 

The recall affects nearly half a million Prius and Lexus hybrid models worldwide. 

We're looking at perspectives from The Washington Post, Fox News, NPR, and the BBC.

Amidst a global recall, Toyota's president Akio Toyoda held a press conference in Tokyo addressing the company's mounting issues. 

The company's presidents issued a recall on more than 400,000 vehicles citing a failure with the Anti-lock breaking system.

In an Op-Ed piece for The Washington Post, Toyoda reaches out to the company's American customers. 

"Toyota has not lived up to the high standards we set for ourselves. More important, we have not lived up to the high standards you have come to expect from us. I am deeply disappointed by that and apologize. As the president of Toyota, I take personal responsibility. That is why I am personally leading the effort to restore trust in our word and in our products."

But not everyone is buying into the company's attempt to maintain credibility. NPR's Wendy Kaufman cuts the company no slack, calling the automaker out on its mess.

"The Japanese giant didn't own up to the problems — it minimized them, pointed to a supplier, even blamed the drivers. Toyota watchers wanted to know what was going on, and they wondered where was the company's leader."

Worse for the automaker are allegations that the company had knowledge of the defects and rather than fix them -- opted not to do anything.  An analyst for FOX Car Report Live discusses the company's lack of crisis management.

"Toyota has made I think the worst possible public relations decisions, every single step of the way here. I mean, instead of just coming clean for example, the Prius braking thing we'll just use that as the latest example. Just come clean about that in the beginning and say that you made a software patch and just apply that patch."

So why did it take the company so long to finally come clean about the vehicle defects?  Peter De Lorenzo, author of "The United States of Toyota" told the BBC that for the company, it may have been a matter of pride.

"The Prius is their shining example of their vision of what we should all be driving and it is everything the new Toyota represents. So for them to have to acknowledge a recall of hundreds of thousands of them is a tremendous blow to their image."

So what do you think? Can Toyota regain the trust of its consumers? Or is this one car wreck we're going to just keep watching?

Writer: Maurice Scarborough

Producer: Brent Davidson