September 2011 Archives

This doesn't end the litigation and liability. There are probably many more years and dollars to go before Toyota gets past this issue.

(Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge dismissed on Thursday the first scheduled bellwether case in nationwide litigation alleging Toyota Motor Corp made defective vehicles that accelerated unexpectedly.

In the ruling, Judge James Selna said his court lacked jurisdiction over the case, and that the proper forum for it is Utah state court. Selna's court, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Santa Ana, is overseeing hundreds of lawsuits against Toyota for alleged safety defects.

Read more on Toyota.

This is great news that, if true, would mean more good paying production jobs in our country. However, why wouldn't Toyota move that production to a lower cost country like China?

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp is considering shifting production of South Korea-bound Camry autos to the United States from Japan to help lower export costs of the sedan, the Nikkei business daily reported on Monday.

Read more about Toyota's Camry production.

14 Stories of aerospace muscle in Falls Church, Va.

This is a strange one, but Toyota gets props for creativity.

(TheCarConnection.com) Toyota's "Your Other You" ad campaign for the 2009 Matrix was supposed to capitalize on the "punking" trend popular at the time. But when a woman got unknowingly dragged into the mix, things went off the rails. Now she's seeking $10 million in damages from Toyota, the company's ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and roughly 50 individuals associated with the campaign.

In the summer of 2008, Amber Duick began receiving emails from a man called Sebastian Bowler, who appeared to be a thuggish, beer-chugging, British soccer fan. In the emails, Bowler told Duick that he was driving across the U.S. and needed to lay low at her place for a while, following some "unpleasantness" at a motel that involved the smashing of a TV. He told Duick that he'd arrive in a couple of days and made it clear that he had her home address. Duick subsequently received an email from the manager of the aforementioned motel, along with an invoice for the television, arguing that she was responsible for the cost.

Read more on Toyota.

Toyota sees fuel efficiency and the gee-whiz effect of hybrid technology as its saving grace.

(Bloomberg) By choosing the Prius ahead of the Corolla and Camry sedans that enabled Toyota to become global No. 1 by 2008, President Akio Toyoda is staking the future of Japan Inc. on hybrid technology as the solution to the nation's worst disaster since World War II and the company's initial indifference to customer complaints that prompted its biggest recall.

Read more on Toyota.

You're guess is as good as mine.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s announcement this week that it would no longer export Camrys from Japan to the U.S. market gave me a private chuckle.

Why now, for heaven's sake? Why bother now?

Read more on Toyota.

Attacking government regulations is a major Republican talking point, made especially potent after Ronald Reagan's frequent attacks on government institutions.
So it's notable when a major military contractor like Northrop Grumman, that benefits particularly from Republican policies, makes a pitch for more regulation.

(Reuters) - Northrop Grumman Corp's chief executive is making a rare request: more regulation from Washington.

Wes Bush said the threat from cyber attacks has become so intense and so wide that it requires a federal solution.

"This is something you often don't hear from industry, but I think you probably need more of a regulatory perspective brought to this," Bush told the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington on Wednesday.

Read more about Northrop.

with the climate taking increasingly scary turns because of various factors including cyclical events and global warming, NASA's new satellite will help make better long-term climate predictions.

Raytheon in El Segundo is responsible for a key climate sensor in the NASA spacecraft.

Here's a Raytheon-produced video.