TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda added 437,000 Priuses and other 2010 gasoline-electric hybrid cars to his company's list of mechanical remediation subjects Feb. 9.
Toyoda announced in a headquarters press conference that his company found a software problem in the current year hybrids affecting its Antilock Brake System. The ABS computers delay their braking activity when pressed under cold and/or bumpy road conditions.
Although the brief delay does not cause brake failure, he said Toyota is shipping out new software packages to its worldwide dealers. Some of those North American and Japanese dealerships are currently working triple shifts in correcting an accelerator pedal part problem that caused sticking or response delays.
The models affected are 2010 Priuses and Lexus HS250h luxury sedans built in North America and Japan in addition to the for-Japan-market-only Sai cars. Toyoda added that Japanese Sai and Lexus HS250h production has halted until all new software packages are distributed.
The 437,000 Priuses, HS250hs and Sais bring the worldwide count of Toyotas affected by the two recall campaigns to over 4.6 million. The figure does not include another million cars and trucks that were recalled after floor mats on six lines were found to be jamming accelerator pedals Sept. 29.
Toyoda, 53, became Toyota's president and CEO Jan. 1, 2009 - the same year it ended General Motors' 78-year reign as the world's largest car maker. The grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, however, has had to preside over three recall campaigns that may have seriously dented Toyota's reliability image.
"I don't see Toyota as an infallible company," said Toyoda. "We'll face up to the facts and correct the problem, putting customers' safety and convenience first."
The hybrid recall includes 133,000 U.S.-Built Priuses and 14,500 Lexus HS250hs.
Both the United States' National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration and State Farm Insurance said that they had received about 200 complaints from 2010 Prius owners about the momentary braking loss. This loss happens under braking while going over a pothole, bump or rough road surface.
An ABS system involves computer software activating a braking pulsation in place of the driver having to pump the brakes. The same software allows regenerative braking, where the surplus energy is returned back into the electrical system. This energy-saving feature is found not only in the gasoline-electric Prius hybrid but in some of last year's F1 racing cars and many passenger rail cars.
Feb. 16 Speedway School Opening Postponed
NEWARK - Newark Public Schools confirmed Feb. 9 that the new Speedway Elementary School at 710 South Orange Avenue will not open Feb. 16 as announced last month.
Newark Superintendent of Schools Dr. Clifford Janey, speaking before some 60 people, said that he is listening to concerns from parents and neighbors.
Meanwhile, discussion is underway between the district and the New Jersey School Development Authority. Those talks, which would hopefully resolve the status of a proposed pedestrian bridge over South Orange Avenue, may determine when the new building will open this year.
The postponement means that the new school is being finished with a temporary certificate of occupancy. The state Department of Community Affairs was to issue a permanent CO Jan. 28.
The bridge would allow students to cross the avenue and access Essex County's Vailsburg Park. The park is seen as a substitute for a playground for older grammar school students: a playground has been built for Kindergarten and Pre-K children.
United Parents Network activist Donna Jackson also brought concerns about the bridge before the Essex County Board of Freeholders Feb. 4. Jackson said that he had scheduled a walking demonstration before the new school 3 to 5 p.m. Feb. 9.
Black Loyalists Recalled in Maplewood
MAPLEWOOD - Dr. John McLaughlin enlightened and entertained Memorial Hall attendees with a discussion on the 2,500 "Black Loyalists" who left the United States with British sympathizers after the Revolutionary War at the Maplewood Main Library Feb. 3.
McLaughlin, of Millburn, explained that British generals offered full rights and land in Nova Scotia to African-Americans who escaped their enslavement and sided with The Crown in the American Revolution's later years. Those who escaped helped the British army by enlisting or supplying their craftsman skills or congregated in New York City while waiting for the generals to ship them to Atlantic Canada.
The British effectively lost the revolution, however, when Gen. Lord Charles Cornwallis surrendered to the Continental Army Oct. 19, 1781. Slave owners along the East Coast pressed Gen. George Washington to demand the slaves' return. Washington and his British counterparts agreed to hear each African American's case in a New York hearing.
"Reading the hearing's proceedings is heartbreaking," said McLaughlin. "Many of the Black Loyalists were illiterate and had to put their case - their lives - into a single paragraph. There was no legal aid or public defenders, so they usually had to do it by themselves."
Those who won their case eventually settled near Shelburne, N.S. in 1787. They and similar African Americans took up a similar British offer during The War of 1812 formed the basis of African-American descended communities there, in New Brunswick, London and Sierra Leone.
"The 2,500 who took up the generals' offer went with some 35,000 British Loyalists," said McLaughlin. "Some of those white loyalists, however, brought their slaves with them. Nova Scotia had both enslaved and freed Africans until the British Empire abolished slavery in 1837."
Subscribe to this comment's feed
