Mar 10 2010
Runaway Prius Ruins Toyota’s Party
Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse for Toyota, on Monday a 61 year old driver in California underwent the harrowing experience of his Prius hybrid accelerating uncontrollably and nearly crashing.
According to reports, the driver called 911 and got a police officer to drive next to him, calling out instructions on the patrol car’s speaker. The Prius finally slowed down after several attempts to shut the engine off, slam the car in neutral and smash the breaks to the floor. Whew…that was close!
It is beyond ironic that this incident occurred just a few days after Toyota held a very public — and rather defensive — press conference to denounce certain media organizations for their misleading reports on Toyota’s technical recall fixes. To a degree, Toyota had a point in this instance. They criticized ABC and its correspondent Brian Ross for showing a manufactured clip of his Toyota revving out of control, when in fact the car was really standing still. Ross is infamous for making stuff up so it’s only fair that Toyota called him on it.
That said, I still believe Toyota needs to be very careful right now about going on the offensive. It makes them look like they are still trying to hide something. And, the media have already reported quite a bit of evidence that showed pretty conclusively that Toyota was trying to hide (or at least downplay) its unintended acceleration problems for some time.
Of course, the fact that a Prius suddenly accelerated out of control just a few days after Toyota’s big press event, just underscores the riskiness of Toyota’s PR strategy.
Stay tuned. This story is far from over.
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