Toyota Profits Hit The Skids - Down 47% For Quarter

Bad news is profits are down. Great news is that still profitable, in spite of the Unintended Acceleration fiasco (AKA "Audi Part II"). That takes some doing.

This is more of a factor of the Yen no longer being controlled by the government. For decades the government controlled the Yen and made Japanese products less expensive. Now the WTO forced a change and the Japanese are caught in a situation where they are now selling too cheaply to make a profit.

Currently Japanese controlled yen no longer a factor and American brands thriving looks like with fair play a long time ago things would have been different.

Funny when I think about it ... the whole recall crisis pops into the collective consciousness about the same time the US government bails out the Detroit 3 ...

Im not sure what you are thinking but those cars killed people, Toyota is being investigated for hiding evidence of even more wrong doing all they had to do is come clean but they did not. The US government did not design Toyota cars.

Actually those people killed those people. If your car starts to go on its own the first instinct should not be the BRAKES. Neutral disengages the engine from the transmission.

I see it all the time on snow/ice. You are approaching spots on the road that may be patchy with the stuff, so what do people do. Brake. Then they wonder how they lost control of the car or got hit from behind. Shifting the weight of the car forward and slowing down the wheels does not help on slippery roads like that. Your better off simply letting off the gas and coasting over the area making little to no corrections in the wheel.

You can't protect people from themselves. Stupid is as stupid does.

agent009: a testament to toyota buyers. smart money is moving en mass to hyundai.

it's not so simple as a marginally stronger yen. this is, in large part, the result of the need for massive incentives and free financing. as toyota has just increased incentives further in the US, this does not bode well for next quarter's profits.

deboost without argument = you have no facts with which to argue

What a hoot. The Recall King can cut the costs of most everything except its lousy attitude toward customers. As the focus shifts to Toyota's credibility, right on for more investigations and lawsuits involving such things as delays in reporting steering rod defects. My latest blog post addresses the recent appointment of a special counsel to determine if Toyota concealed evidence in a Texas case: http://uc2.blogspot.com/2011/02/special-counsel-to-see-if-toyota-hid.html