Page 144 - Toyota Under Fire

THE RECALL CRISIS

one who was being bombarded with media stories about run-
away Toyotas and sticking pedals. But the most important fact
about the Prius braking complaints is the word seem. The un-
derlying issue was not a true delay in actual braking, but a delay
in the feel of the pedal. In these situations, the antilock braking
system (ABS) took over control of the braking system from the
regenerative braking system, which captures energy from brak-
ing to power the vehicle’s electric motor. This switchover to the
ABS brakes took roughly three-hundredths of a second. But
the transition also changed the feel in the brake pedal: the pedal
became momentarily “soft,” as if the brakes were not working.
There was no effect on braking ability or distance, just on the feel
of the pedal.
After the launch of the 2010 model in October 2009, Toyota
had become aware that customers did not like the way this made the
brakes feel and had changed the ABS software in the Prius on
the production line in January. Given that there was no effect
on braking ability (similar to the initial decision on sticky ped-
als), the company didn’t issue a recall or even a technical service
bulletin to correct the issue in Priuses that were already on the
road—another misstep by Toyota executives who were too far
from the gemba.
The fact that the company had changed the production soft-
ware without doing anything for people with cars on the road
was interpreted as yet another example of a company that was
hiding crucial information that could affect the safety of custom-
ers. For example, in a February 4, 2010 article that was entitled
“Software to Blame for Prius Brake Problems,” CNN reported:
“Toyota officials described the problem as a ‘disconnect’ in the ve-
hicle’s complex antilock brake system (ABS) that causes less than
a one-second lag. With the delay, a vehicle going 60 mph will

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