Toyota (TM) To Announce Testing And Disclosure Changes

Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) will host a news conference at the auto manufacturer's Tokyo office to announce plans to increase product testing and disclosure of changes being made to cars that are already on the market.

One of the issues Toyota Motor Corp. is looking into is how an operational change that began at the end of the 1990's and lasted until the early 2,000's might have contributed the company's recent recall woes.

At that time, Toyota Motor Corp. began cutting steps out of its development process in an attempt to save time and cut costs.

The company began to depend more on computer generated testing and less on testing of actual physical prototypes. It is thought that this may have been a major contributor to the problems that have been appearing in many of Toyota's vehicles.

Another change Toyota is considering is how to disclose information regarding incremental changes to existing vehicles.

In the past, most of these changes were not announced to the public. Instead, the changes would be made when customers brought vehicles into dealerships for routine maintenance.

Last week, the CEO of AutoNation Inc. (NYSE: AN), America's largest auto retailer, said that his company had noticed that its dealerships selling rival brands such as Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F), Honda Motor Co. (NYSE: HMC), Nissan, and Hyundai have all benefited from Toyota's bad press.

Toyota's recalls have generated so much negative press that the United States Congress is looking into the matter, with Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda planning a trip to the U.S.