Toyota Reportedly Near Settlement with Feds Over False Disclosures Allegations

Toyota Reportedly Near Settlement with Feds Over False Disclosures Allegations The unintended acceleration lawsuits which first received national attention after a 2009 fatal crash in Southern California are still not completely behind Toyota, which has been dealing with dozens of cases from coast-to-coast from individual plaintiffs and class action suits. The latest development is a report from the Wall Street Journal saying Toyota is close to settling with federal prosecutors over allegations of false disclosures to federal regulators. This case differs from other cases related to the unintended acceleration incidents in that the settlement would be directly with federal prosecutors, rather than with individual plaintiffs or class-action suits from owners. The company has been dogged by officials from various government agencies for issues related to the unintended acceleration cases, including a $66.2 million fine from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for not reporting safety defects in a timely manner. Toyota reached a $1.1 billion settlement with owners in 2012, but lost a wrongful death case in Oklahoma in October 2013. Neither Toyota nor the Justice Department are discussing specifics of the settlement, but it's believed that it will be structured as a criminal deferred prosecution agreement, in which Toyota will be on probation for a certain number of years, and will need to fulfill terms of the agreement over that time to avoid criminal prosecution. Source: The Wall Street Journal

Report: Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche Open to Future Partnerships Although global multi-national automakers usually have substantial engineering resources and product expertise at their disposal allowing them to develop nearly any type of vehicle from scratch, sometimes it makes more sense to leverage an outside company's resources or experience to save on costs and expedite speed-to-market. The industry is full of examples of automakers collaborating on various levels from component sharing to full-fledged co-development, to simple re-badges. Reuters reports Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche said the company continues to be open to future collaborations with outside automakers. In the Reuters report, Zetsche said that in the early stages of development of the company's new front-drive platform that underpins the CLA sedan and A-Class hatchback in Europe, that the company talked with arch-rival BMW as well as Volkswagen. The company ultimately concluded there would be only marginal benefit to sharing a platform, and went with a fully in-house effort. But that doesn't mean the company is closing the door on other future tie-ups. Daimler has worked closely in the past with Mitsubishi, and in fact taking over the company's Fuso commercial truck division, and as previously noted, is currently working with Nissan-Renault on a next-generation Smart car. Daimler has also given financial backing to California-based electric startup Tesla, with the company in turn developing the battery pack for the Smart ED electric city car. Source: Reuters