Recently, according to overseas media reports, Toyota Motor announced to the outside world: "Under the premise of not affecting the performance and safety of the vehicle, it will use scratches or defective parts to manufacture cars." Toyota hopes to use this initiative to alleviate the rising costs caused by the shortage of chips and raw materials.
According to the official interpretation, the so-called defective parts do not represent defective products, but are limited to slightly worn or scratched parts, in the past, such "defective parts" were directly scrapped.
For this decision, Takefumi Shiga, chief head of Toyota's research and development program, said bluntly: "It takes a lot of courage. ”
As we all know, since the beginning of this year, the shortage of automotive chips has exploded, and many automakers have announced production cuts or production suspensions, including Toyota.
Toyota Motor's global production in September was reduced from 900,000 units to 540,000 units due to a shortage of parts due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia, and a total of 27 production lines at 14 plants in Japan ceased operations in October. It can be seen that the impact of production capacity problems on Toyota Motor has been quite serious.
Toyota made this decision and made it public, frankly, it is true that as its chief executive said, "it takes a lot of courage", after all, Toyota's brand image has always been reliable and stable, and the uncertainty caused by the use of defective parts may really hurt its bones.
Of course, as a consumer, there must be a hundred people who are reluctant to accept such a situation, after all, no one will like a defective car. But then again, if you are clearly informed when buying a car where the vehicle is flawed, and give the corresponding price concessions, I believe that many people will still choose to accept.