When consumers purchase a Toyota, they are not simply purchasing a car, truck or van. They are placing their trust in our company.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I myself, as well as Toyota, am not perfect. I, more than anyone, wish for our customers' cars to be safe.
Buying a car used to be an experience so soul-scorching, so confidence-splattering, so existentially rattling that an entire car company was based on the promise that you wouldn't have to come in contact with it.
You want to make sure this particular car is going to please the customer and then you're going to be rewarded with something that is going to please the shareholder.
I've developed a huge regard for Toyota for its environmental awareness, for its immense commitment to research and development in this field, and for its leadership in developing hybrids which others are now following.
In the 1960s, if you introduced a new product to America, 90% of the people who viewed it for the first time believed in the corporate promise. Then 40 years later if you performed the same exercise, less than 10% of the public believed it was true. The fracturing of trust is based on the fact that the consumer has been let down.
Brands are all about trust. That trust is built in drops and lost in buckets.
It is in Toyota's DNA that mistakes made once will not be repeated.
With respect to sticking accelerator pedals, we failed to connect the dots between problems in Europe and problems in the United States because the European situation related primarily to right-hand-drive vehicles. Toyota will increase its outreach to government agencies charged with protecting the safety of motorists and passengers.
The problem with the auto industry is layered upon the lack of consumer confidence. People are not buying cars. I don't care whether they're or American cars, or international cars.
Everyone says Toyota is the best company in the world, but the customer doesn't care about the world. They care if we are the best in town, or not. That's what I want to be.