DETROIT - Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda says the company will work harder to connect with buyers and listen to their concerns.
To illustrate his point, Toyoda held up three rice balls, known in Japanese as onigiri, at a roundtable media interview at the North American International Auto Show on Monday.
Two of the balls were made and sold at a convenience store. The third -- a larger, heartier, more appetizing looking snack -- was homemade. All were good, he said. The convenience store rice balls were safe, healthy, and tasty. But the homemade one was made with love.
"We are going to put heart and soul into our vehicles just like a mother makes onigiri,'" Toyoda said in his first-ever appearance at the auto show.
Toyota is still recovering from the sudden-acceleration recalls in late 2009 and 2010, which resulted in the company recalling more than 10 million vehicles to fix sticky acceleration pedals and to replace floor mats that could make a car speed out of control.
In an attempt to be more in tune with the U.S. market and with the media, Toyoda made his first trip to the Detroit auto show.
Earlier in the day, Toyota unveiled three versions of its new Prius family of cars: a plug-in version that can go about 21 kilometres on battery power alone and is expected to go on sale this spring; the Prius V, which is aimed at families and can seat five people and will go on sale late this summer; and smaller car called the Prius C which could go on sale in early 2012.
Bob Carter, vice-president and general manager of the Toyota division, said his company predicts U.S. gasoline prices will go up to about US$3.50 to $4 a U.S. gallon (3.78 litres) this year, which would be good timing to begin rolling out an expanded lineup of hybrid cars. When gas prices peaked around the same price in the summer of 2008, Prius sales soared.
That price per gallon "is the tipping point where buyer behaviour changes dramatically," Carter said.
