In order to fight doubts about the quality or safety of its new vehicles, Toyota looks to increase the time it takes to test new models.

• In the last generation of vehicles, there were definite safety and quality issues resulting in massive recalls.
• As a result, Toyota plans to increase the length of time new car models are tested by 2-6 months.
• Toyota is trying to prevent increasing the overall time it takes to develop a vehicle, but instead shorten other parts of the process to allow for more testing time.
• The Toyota brand fell from 7th to 21st overall in its Initial Quality Survey of new vehicles last month.

Facts and Figures

• Toyota has recalled more than 8.5 million vehicles due to problems related to unintended acceleration, steering, braking, and gas-tank flaws.
• Toyota’s market share is 15.1%, down from 17% 6 months ago.

Best Quote

“As we looked at this past generation of vehicles it did seem to be all about the growth of the company, and there were lapses. We are definitely reforming the processes to be ultracareful.” – Randy Stevens, Employee at the Toyota Technical Center in Ann Arbor, MI

Tags: cars, development, engineers, quality, recall, safety, toyota