Public relations is often a dark art, frequently seeking to pour oil on troubled waters where quite often those choppy seas are the real story.
So just what is going on with Toyota in the US? Reports are swirling indicating driver error was to blame for some unintended acceleration citing that age old caveat – “people familiar with the findings.”
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Well, those findings certainly haven’t been released by the NHTSA, so someone either leaked them or er, there’s something else at play.
The NHTSA didn’t mince its words on the subject, though, and it clearly had no doubt where the driver error story had come from.
“That story was planted by Toyota,” an NHTSA spokeswoman in Washington told just-auto. “Toyota is the source – yes we know that for definite.”
The NHTSA is clearly irked by what it sees as premature reports concerning the accelerator problem that has caused Toyota so much grief both in the showroom and on newspaper front pages.
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By GlobalDataBut, to cite the manufacturer directly as planting the story in US media, well, that’s quite something!
For its part, Toyota Motor Europe cautiously accepted that some conversations had taken place with the investigation bodies but declined to be drawn any further.
Whatever the outcome, the automaker appears to have tweaked the NHTSA’s nose.
It’s just another chapter in this extraordinary story that shows no sign of running out of steam, despite Toyota’s best efforts.
