Toyota Motor’s (TM) American Depository Receipts broke a four-day run of gains as the stock fell $1.04 to $76.01 on a press release from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration this afternoon that said the NHTSA requested documents from the company relating to the exact timing of its recalls of autos in North America for safety concerns.
The three recalls were those announced September, October and January, the agency noted. According to the press release,
The probe will examine how the manufacturer learned of these defects, such as through consumer complaints or factory testing. Investigators are also looking into whether Toyota discovered the problems during pre-production or post-production of the affected vehicles.
Meantime, the Financial Times’s Bernard Simon today reports that estimates by U.S. researchers put the potential damage of class-action suits in the U.S. at $3.6 billion for Toyota.
In related news, Toyota confirmed reports earlier today that it will idle 2 U.S. plants, with a shutdown of 1 day in Georgetown, Kentucky and two weeks in San Anotonio, Texas to prevent inventory building up, according to Dow Jones’s Kate Linebaugh. The company said it might add three more days of shutdown in March and April in Kentucky.
Tonight, Toyota is expected to hold a press conference at its headquarters in Japan this evening to detail how it plans to improve reliability and quality in manufacturing and to improve disclosure about issues with cars already on the road, according to a report by Dow Jones Newswires’s Norihiko Shirouzu.
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