And The Hits Keep Coming

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The Lexus GX 460 has been the latest PR debacle for Toyota (Toyota).

It's been all over the news: Last week the Lexus GX 460 was given the extremely rare "do not buy" rating by Consumer Reports. On the heels of Toyota's PR disaster surrounding recalls over cases of unintended acceleration, the once-esteemed carmaker has stepped in it again.

Toyota's response was typical: A calculated surprise that betrayed a more general confusion. The initial statement offered to the media read, in part, "Lexus' extensive vehicle testing provides a good indication of how our vehicles perform and we are confident that the GX meets our high safety standards." This textbook case of corporate blah-blah-blah was followed up with a promise to retest all its SUV's and Crossovers, while its PR staff worked overtime giving reporters vague answers to questions about the situation, most of which boiled down to, "We don't know."

Frankly, from someone who watches marketing and PR responses as carefully as I do, this was a bigger train wreck than the problem itself. Toyota did manage an admission by the end of the week and we can consider this a step in the right direction -- at least the company seems to have learned something from the $16.375 million fine levied earlier this month by the NHTSA, punishment for its failure to notify the agency of "sticky pedal" defects. A recall of the GX was then issued on Monday, and regardless of the alacrity displayed by the engineering side of the business, I still think Toyota hasn't mastered the art of professional crisis management as well as it should by now.

I have written a few times in this blog about steps that could be taken by Toyota to mitigate these issues before they spiral out of control. I keep watching to see if its response strategy will improve, yet I'm still waiting. Toyota and Lexus still have the same, lame Facebook pages that boast over 160,000 aggregate fans, but are rarely updated -- a missed opportunity. The Toyota Twitter account has gone from 18,000 followers last month to just over 20,000 as of today, but by comparison Ford has nearly 30,000, and Southwest Airlines blows them out of the sky at 1,000,000. Toyota does have information on the recall on its Web sites and seem to make it easy to contact the company with questions or issues, but this is pretty basic stuff. Where's the real outreach to a public that has grown legitimately skeptical?

If Toyota simply asked for people's thoughts, ideas on how to better engage with them and re-assure them -- even if it decides not to take the advice -- I think the company would be well on their way to shedding some of their cold, closed, uncaring, image. I hope they are at least tracking public reaction via social listening tools, a simple first step towards being proactive.

As part of my current work as a marketing consultant I meet with agencies and vendors that work for Toyota. Just the other day I was with such an agency that serves some of Toyota's markets outside of the U.S. In discussing this issue with them, I kept coming back to, "Why are they not being radically transparent?"

The response from the agency was that the powers that be in Japan do not allow U.S. management to do so. Certainly, I can understand the legal implications of providing too much information. These days it seems like everyone is suing Toyota. But I still believe that the long-term cost of all this ill will is going to be far more expensive than a little more transparency, even if that may result in a few more short-term dollars spent in settlements.

"Radical transparency" means going above and beyond the expected levels of communication and response, in a way that is audacious and shocking in its clarity. For instance, a couple of years ago, Jet Blue found itself in the hot seat for stranding flyers on one of its planes for an obscene amount of time. It responded in a way that was so out of character for corporations that the reconciliation effort spawned huge positive sentiment, overshadowing the initial consumer anger. First Jet Blue published a full-page letter of apology in major newspapers taking complete responsibility without trying to offer excuses. They it committed to drastic improvements and backed it up with something they called the "Jet Blue Customer Bill of Rights." Then it began to publish regular results on its improvements and setbacks. Good or bad, we knew it was trying, knew how and what it was doing to improve, and as customers we felt kept in the loop.

I witnessed this issue first-hand a decade ago. The Ford Explorer tire debacle began while I was at Ford and I watched it unfold. Ford struggled with these same issues of transparency, and that situation wasn't even as cut-and-dry as what Toyota has been dealing with, as Firestone was seen as at least equally culpable. It's no secret that Explorer sales have struggled each year since the crisis.

Today we live in a world where opinions flow instantly and can gain a volume and intensity that's downright dangerous, much more so than Ford experienced in 2000. Social networking platforms like Twitter have forever changed the rules for crisis management. In the situation Toyota -- and now its revered Lexus brand -- faces, where the blame is clear and concern is valid, there's no reason to think things will wind up any differently. I just hope that someone in Japan realizes that protecting its closed-off culture in a world that's embraced open, radical transparency will never inspire or engender trust. But then again, should yet another disaster come their way, perhaps the third time will be the charm.

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Smarter Vehicles Coming Soon That Talk and Avoid Crashes

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Ford's intelligent vehicle technology safety system (YouTube).

The auto industry is moving closer to deploying technology into vehicles that could go a long way to making vehicle crashes, at least serious ones, mostly a thing of the past. That's right. The industry that fought against making seat belts standard, is marching toward creating the ultimate safe car without the hammer of regulation coming down on it.

Automotive technology has advanced so rapidly in the last decade that, every time something new comes along, it seems like "the future" becomes a lot less distant.

And many of these technologies were once regarded as so futuristic that they seemed like something out of science fiction.

One of those formerly-"science-fiction" technologies presently in development does indeed seem like something we would have seen in "Blade Runner."

In this case, we're talking about an advanced "intelligent vehicle" safety system that would essentially allow vehicles to "talk" to each other. Car makers have been working on the system for about decade, but engineers say that they could be introduced into production models as early as 2015. Although, it's also possible that it could be more like 2020.

Still, it's a fascinating advance, and one that holds great promise for other related technologies that would benefit drivers immeasurably.

In the last few months, Ford and General Motors have held public demonstrations of these intelligent-vehicle systems in action.

In late January, Ford conducted a demonstration in Washington for journalists and Department of Transportation staffers. And GM's Electronic Networked Vehicle concepts made their North American public debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, also in January, after spending six months being big attractions at the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai.

And the development of this technology is a team effort, with several carmakers joining forces to shepherd it along. Presently, Ford, GM, Honda, Mercedes, Toyota, Nissan, VW/Audi and Hyundai-Kia are members of a consortium that has set up shop in suburban Detroit, sharing offices, labs and a few garages for their testing. The consortium – dubbed Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnerships (CAMP) -- is funded in part by the Department of Transportation.

As part of the CAMP project, each of the eight carmakers in the consortium will build eight new vehicles equipped with this technology. And another 2,000 vehicles on the road will be retrofitted with the system as part of a test program that will also be partly funded by the DOT.

The intelligent vehicles will essentially use advanced WiFi signals and GPS systems that will send out multiple messages per second to "warn" other drivers – or, the vehicles themselves – of a potential crash. The messages transmit data about the vehicle's location, speed, brakes, steering and other key data that would help the vehicles avoid a collision.

In these intelligent vehicles, the first line of warning would alert the driver. But if the driver does not respond, the system would actually "take over" and apply brakes, or adjust the vehicle's direction.

Primarily, the intelligent-vehicle technology will focus on avoiding collisions by preventing a vehicle from changing lanes, coming up too fast behind a stalled vehicle, or entering an intersection if the light has turned red – or if another driver has run a red light or stop sign.

When the carmakers first began working on the system, the Federal Communications Commission allocated "a specific advanced radio-frequency spectrum for the system to use" explains Mike Shulman, technical leader for Ford Research and Advanced Engineering. "That's a big deal, because spectrum is very valuable.

"When we started, our thinking was, 'Let's take a look at this and understand how it would work," says Shulman. "At first, we sent out small packets of data to see how it would be received at the other end, and were very encouraged by the results, so we began to build up more advanced applications."

The way it works, says Shulman, is that one intelligent-vehicle system sends out info to other vehicles – and even to traffic-signal systems – that say "here's where I am, here's where I'm going, here's how fast I'm going. And, at the same time, your vehicle is receiving similar messages from other vehicles all around you."

Currently, many vehicles are equipped with crash-avoidance technologies that rely on radar systems that are either situated in the front or back of the vehicle.

But the intelligent-vehicle technology has an advantage over radar, says Shulman, in that "it provides 360-degree coverage – it delivers much more information than radar, which is better at measuring distance and velocity. Plus, the cost is relatively low, because it's built off of existing WiFi and GPS technologies."

The system will also detect conditions in problematic situations, like along a curvy road, when a driver cannot visibly detect an oncoming car, or communicate to other drivers that there is black ice on the road.

Working in conjunction with other carmakers is a key, says John Capp, GM's director of safety innovation and active safety – and chairman of the CAMP consortium.

"Obviously, there are many different cars out on the roads, made by different manufacturers, so for this to work, we have to develop it together, to make sure that a General Motors vehicle can communicate with a Ford, or a Toyota can communicate with a Honda, and so on," says Camp.

When this technology first makes it into production models, "we'll have a situation where some models will have it, and some won't," says Camp. "So, at the beginning, it's going to be more of an alert-and-warning system – getting information to the driver so he can take whatever action he needs to in order to avoid a crash.

"Then, as it's introduced into more and more vehicles, the system will become more involved in electronically controlling the vehicle's steering, braking, and speed."

In an effort to throw a spotlight on the new technology, the carmakers will hold driving clinics this summer, to give consumers a "hands-on' experience with the vehicles.

"We're looking forward to that," says Camp. "We're eager to get people into these intelligent vehicles, so everyone can see them operate in a real-world situation, on real roads – and so that drivers can see how valuable this kind of safety technology can be."

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