Toyota’s Pedal Problem Impacts PSA

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Toyota's Safety Crisis

VIENNA – PSA Peugeot Citroen is recalling 97,000 Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1 small cars as a result of Toyota Motor Corp.’s defective-pedal problem.

The PSA cars share their platform with the Toyota Aygo, and all three are manufactured at the Toyota Peugeot Citroen Automobile Czech s.r.o. joint venture plant in Kolin, Czech Republic.

Toyota announced Friday it would recall up to 1.8 million cars across Europe, including all Aygos produced between February 2005, the month TPCA launched production, and August 2009.

The Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1 models used the same potentially faulty accelerator pedals as the Toyota cars. However, while Toyota’s recall is covering all Aygos made during the 55-month period, PSA is calling back only selected versions that represent less than 10% of total production.

Toyota said Friday there is no need to suspend output in Europe because it already has changed the parts in the models now being produced.

Theoretically, each of the three brands should receive a similar number of cars from the Czech plant. In 2008, TPCA produced slightly more than 108,000 units for each brand.

The Czech JV plant built 116,073 Peugeot 107s last year.

But last year, Peugeot and Citroen were able to sell more minicars than Toyota. The total figure of 332,489 cars built in 2009, up 2.5% from 2008, includes 116,073 Peugeot 107s, 116,057 Citroen C1s and 100,359 Toyota Aygos.

TPCA benefited from scrapping bonuses introduced in several European countries last year. In 2009, TPCA was one of a few European car plants to work at peak capacity all year despite the economic crisis.

Toyota and PSA now are considering a capacity increase at TPCA, though space constraints present some challenges.

“It won't be so easy, but it's under study,” Andrea Formica, senior vice president-sales, marketing, product planning and communications at Toyota Motor Europe NV/SA, tells Wards. “We have room to increase capacity at TPCA.”

Toyota expects the downsizing trend will continue. “There will be even more potential in the small-car segment in future,” Formica says.