Do You Actually Believe Toyota??

[charlestudor2005]

Toyota has been running this ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TkL5xydbd0) on TV for some time now.

Now, Toyota makes the statement, "we're currently spending over $1 million per hour to enhance the technology and safety of our vehicles."

Now, I find that statement kind of hard to believe.

For instance, in FY 2009, Toyota's gross income was $20.68 Billion. At that "over $1 million" per hour rate, Toyota is spending 40% of gross income on tech/safety.

Are these credible figures?

[Marcus Aurelius]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

Toyota has been running this ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TkL5xydbd0) on TV for some time now.

Now, Toyota makes the statement, "we're currently spending over $1 million per hour to enhance the technology and safety of our vehicles."

Now, I find that statement kind of hard to believe.

For instance, in FY 2009, Toyota's gross income was $20.68 Billion. At that "over $1 million" per hour rate, Toyota is spending 40% of gross income on tech/safety.

Are these credible figures?

They probably meant to say Pesos.

[GneissGuy]

Well, are they talking 24/7 or 40 hour work weeks?

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by GneissGuy

Well, are they talking 24/7 or 40 hour work weeks?

Good question! I just assumed 24/7 because there was no limitation on the statement. (But, on the other hand, I figured it was a trick statement with lots of caveats.)

[atlcomedy]

I totally believe it. They are aren't talking about "fixing the recalls" or expenses directly related to recent problems. They make a pretty broad statement, that basically refers to all R&D expense. So $8.7B on a sales base of $200B+ or ~4-5% of sales in R&D? Probably about right....

[pyramider]

So what, GM stated they paid the TARP money back to the government.

It just depends on how the company wants to spin it.

[WTF]

I believe people will believe what they wanna believe.....the truth is rarely a consideration!

[Guest112113-3]

If we are going to address questions like the above then the next one would be:

"Do you think the Government could fix the blowout in the Gulf"

I could see O'Bama now swimming in his wet suit one mile underwater with a roll of duck tape to wrap around the wellhead and BOP's, expecting to seal the flow...

[Ansley]

Originally Posted by Woody of TX

I could see O'Bama now swimming in his wet suit one mile underwater with a roll of duck tape to wrap around the wellhead and BOP's, expecting to seal the flow...

Well yes... it is a known fact that duck tape is able to fix pretty much anything.

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by Woody of TX

If we are going to address questions like the above then the next one would be:

"Do you think the Government could fix the blowout in the Gulf"

I could see O'Bama now swimming in his wet suit one mile underwater with a roll of duck tape to wrap around the wellhead and BOP's, expecting to seal the flow...

I didn't know he was Irish. The Birthers missed this one.

As for the Gulf, the only way to throw enough gov't money at it is for Obama to declare it a disaster which releases disaster funding. I strongly suspect this will happen, though. They are already comparing the gov't response to Katrina. And if you think Katrina was expensive, wait til you see this cleanup.

[pyramider]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

I didn't know he was Irish. The Birthers missed this one.

[TexTushHog]

As someone who fights the auto companies in product liability law suits, and as someone who engages in "pencil whipping" folks in terms to putting the best spin on any given damages picture in any given law suit, I have two comments.

First, they're not spending $8+ billion on R&D, much less on safety. Second, I'm sure that there is some calculation that backs up their add, no matter how thin the support behind the calculation. Toyota does have a formidable engineering force. They are not like a U.S. auto manufacturer. But they're not spending that much.

[Guest050715-1]

If they’ve shut down any assembly lines, then it is true. Shutting down an assembly line or bottleneck workcenter is the equivalent of shutting down that line’s portion of the factory’s direct and indirect costs. I doubt they did that though. They probably just re-tooled the lines for different products.

I find it absolutely AMAZING that Toyota, since they invented JIT manufacturing, didn’t catch this in the course of their ordinary QC. Obviously, there had to be a few problems trickle in the eventually fell outside the acceptable failure rate bandwidth. But what the hell, money is money. Right? Wasn’t $565k per day operating expenses excuse enough for BP to over look a few lil’ ole data points submitted by engineer tweekers?

[atlcomedy]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

As someone who fights the auto companies in product liability law suits, and as someone who engages in "pencil whipping" folks in terms to putting the best spin on any given damages picture in any given law suit, I have two comments.

First, they're not spending $8+ billion on R&D, much less on safety. Second, I'm sure that there is some calculation that backs up their add, no matter how thin the support behind the calculation. Toyota does have a formidable engineering force. They are not like a U.S. auto manufacturer. But they're not spending that much.

I hate to go all WTF on you and add a link for support, but:

http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/In..._1000-2009.pdf

(see page 6) BTW it took about a minute to find this....

I really pity your clients....they ought to form a class and sue you

[Guest112113-3]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

I didn't know he was Irish. The Birthers missed this one.

Good one!