Three times a year recall, what happened to TNGA?
Yes, Toyota, which has been following the TNGA Fengchao concept in recent years, has recently announced a large-scale recall again. You know, this is the third large-scale recall this year. Behind the hot sales of models, is the spirit of craftsmanship dependent?
Let's take a look back at Toyota's three large-scale recalls this year. The first recall, which occurred in June this year, involved more than 200,000 vehicles, including the Corolla and Highlander.
Reasons for the recall - the manufacturing deviation of the internal components of the high-pressure fuel pump, etc., resulting in some components not being fully compacted, there is a possibility of fuel leakage during use, and the risk of fire will increase in extreme cases.
The second recall, immediately followed by July this year, also involved more than 200,000 vehicles, involving models such as Corolla Dual Engine and Ralink Dual Engine.
Reason for the recall - adaptive cruise system, due to the imperfect program of the brake control computer, in part of the speed range, the brake lights will not be lit when the system performs a slight brake, which does not meet the requirements of the relevant national mandatory technical standards, and in extreme cases, it is possible to cause rear-end rear-end collisions.
The third time, just a few days ago, involved up to 900,000 vehicles, involving models such as Willanda, C-HR, Camry, Yize, and Asia Dragon.
Reason for the recall - for the internal components of the engine exhaust gas recirculation valve, it may be corroded by the higher concentration of chlorine in the fuel, resulting in poor valve body movement, which may cause the engine to run poorly, and in extreme cases, the vehicle will even be turned off at low speed.
So, what exactly is TNGA?
Toyota New Global Architecture, the official Chinese translation of the Concept of Fengchao, was officially launched in April 2018. It is a holistic (or structural) innovation program. The plan begins with changes to the vehicle's infrastructure, including a redesign of the powertrain and chassis. Domestically, Toyota China officials have interpreted the focus of the TNGA architecture as "cool from the past", "different driving fun" and "different safety".
Simple understanding is an all-round improvement in design, control and safety. In the past three years, Toyota has indeed become better-looking and younger; and the high rigidity body structure design has made its model crash test performance improve a lot, and the safety has been enhanced; each model has generally become lower in center of gravity and wider in the wheelbase, which has also brought better handling; but the increasingly frequent recall of popular models with good sales, its safety, the quality of the whole vehicle, may really need to be drawn a big question mark.
In today's increasingly competitive automotive industry, it can be said that it is a normal behavior of a company to reduce costs by improving the versatility of the parts of various models of the brand. However, when TNGA appeared, it did not bring a full range of improvements to each new model as imagined, but the recall incident became more and more frequent. Not only this year, but last year, Toyota also recalled nearly 400,000 vehicles in China and 3 million vehicles worldwide due to fuel pump problems.
For the overall control of parts suppliers, for the quality of their own vehicles before leaving the factory, is it because of the improvement of profits, consumers have always been good impression and tolerance, and really become more and more careless? The so-called "lean production" leads the entire automotive industry chain, and I don't know if it can stand up? For the sake of sales, the TNGA that was painstakingly introduced will also be gone.
Oh, and yes, 2020 is Toyota's best sales year in China to date, with 1.977 million units sold.
The golden sign of "not bad" is becoming dimmed in the recall again and again. I hope that Toyota really has to be careful, while reducing the growth rate of costs, the quality is also raised!