Toyota yesterday announced a safety recall of about 1.5 million vehicles worldwide to fix a brake fluid leak that it warned can gradually diminish braking performance in the cars.
The world’s largest auto maker, which was battered by a global safety crisis earlier this year, said it would voluntarily recall 740,000 cars in the US and almost 600,000 in Japan to fix the problem.
It was also recalling 50,000 autos in Europe, 60,000 in China, 30,000 in Australia and 50,000 in other Asian nations, a Toyota spokesman in Japan said.
He said that no accidents had been linked to the defect.
Toyota is recalling the cars to repair a flaw in which “a small amount of the brake fluid could slowly leak from the brake master cylinder,” which would lead the brake warning lamp to illuminate, the company said.
If at this point the brake fluid is not replaced, “the driver will begin to notice a spongy or soft brake pedal feel and braking performance may gradually decline,” Toyota USA said in a statement.
The autos affected are the 2005 and 2006 models of the Avalon, the 2004 through 2006 non-hybrid models of the Highlander, the Lexus RX330, and the 2006 Lexus GS300, IS250 and IS350 vehicles, Toyota USA said in a statement.
US owners of the affected vehicles would be notified by early next month, it said.
In Japan, Toyota announced it would recall more than 600,000 cars spanning 13 models, including the Crown, Mark X, Lexus IS and GS, according to filings submitted with the transport ministry.
While in 11 of the models Toyota will fix defects in fuel pump wires and brake master cylinders, the total also includes more than 1,800 units of its Voxy and Noah models affected by a speedometer defect.
The latest moves by the auto giant come after a series of mass recalls of about 10 million vehicles worldwide announced late last year and early this year undermined Toyota’s once stellar reputation.
It led to US congressional investigations and a record US$16.4 million fine to settle claims it hid gas pedal defects blamed for dozens of deaths.
Since then Toyota has seen its US market share shrink by 1.4 points to 15.2 percent for the first nine months of this year.
Toyota said earlier this month it had completed more than 5 million repairs on US vehicles affected by the series of recalls.
Toyota said about 80 percent of the 2.3 million US vehicles affected by the “sticky pedal” defect had been repaired, while 86 percent of the 148,000 Prius and Lexus vehicles recalled for braking problems had also been fixed.
Despite its woes, Toyota, a global leader in green car technology, said last week that its Prius gasoline-electric hybrid, launched in 1997, had topped the 2 million sales mark by the end of last month.
Its popularity has continued, despite Toyota last year recalling 437,000 Prius and other hybrid vehicles to repair a flaw in the braking system.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”