Page 202 - Toyota Under Fire

RESPONSE AND THE ROAD TO RECOVER Y

throttle control and engine control module systems to debunk
the claims that were being made. Williamsen, who had previously
repaired cars for a living, oversaw technical training for Lexus, in-
cluding training mechanics at dealerships. Over the Thanksgiv-
ing holiday that year, he developed a presentation on Toyota’s
ETC, illustrating its many fail-safe mechanisms. However, senior
managers in Japan, who were insulated from the brewing storm,
didn’t make vetting and approving the presentation a priority. It
was not until the congressional hearings that a green light was
given to release a set of public communications about Toyota’s
vehicle electronics.
It was a trying time for senior executives and managers in
North America, who were dealing with customers, the media,
and the NHTSA, who had one set of assumptions about the
current situation, and executives in Japan, who had an entirely
different set of assumptions. It was similarly frustrating and con-
fusing for the customers, the media, and the NHTSA. Why was
Toyota so slow to respond? When pressed for immediate answers
to questions, Toyota employees in the United States often had to
forward those inquiries to Japan and wait either for information
or for approval of their intended message. This disconnect was
perhaps captured most starkly in the heated Irv Miller e-mail dis-
cussed in Chapter 3 when TMC was hesitant to issue a detailed
public release. As Irv Miller further explained: “We [TMS] had
been in the box for some time on some key issues and had spent
time putting together a draft press release. And basically I was
trying to get [Koganei, and indirectly TMC] . . . to understand
that our experience plus TMS being on the ground should be the
critical factor here.”
The mismatch between the perceptions of the current situ-
ation held in North America and Japan could be attributed to

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