persuasive speech on Toyota recall?
Posted by adminApr 30
For my college speech class I’ve been assigned to give a 7-9 minute persuasive speech regarding the recalls Toyota has issued in the past several months. I am reasonably good at writing speeches, but for this one I’m not sure what to argue for/against/about. Any suggestions?? I have plenty of information I’m just not sure what my argument should be!
5 comments
Comment by Thomas E on April 30, 2010 at 8:13 am
Who is going to be GRADING your speech? If you have a liberal and (anti corporation anti business professor) – of course you argue that Toyota is a huge corp. that is trying to maximize its profits by skimping on quality and avoiding the cost of recalls. They are also hiding evidence and not informing the US federal government in a timely manner.
If you have a more conservative pro business professor (unlikely??) then you argue that Toyota is a very efficient and strong corporation that has contributed thousands of jobs to the economy and has forged ahead with tremendous strides in technology and manufacturing efficiency. In doing so they have 20 million (or more) vehicles (US) in operation. when there are that many of anything in use something is bound to go wrong. Humans make parts and humans make vehicles. Humans make mistakes. In the case of unintended acceleration it is so hard to investigate and confirm. Most of the cases are simply driver error or mis-perception or outright fabrications – or a mechanism to reduce personal guilt (for an accident). Sorting that out from an actual mechanical defect and determining a trend is not as easy as everyone makes it sound. So – stop everyone piling on Toyota and let them proceed with replacing parts and making things right. When you are dealing with millions of vehicles there are limits to factory capacity and dealer manpower availability that is finite. Give them some more time to complete the process that is in place and ongoing.
Comment by . on April 30, 2010 at 8:13 am
how lahood and the media created a big hype because of the Toyota recall.
Comment by American Idle on April 30, 2010 at 8:13 am
I just did a research paper on this.
I argued against toyota. It’s easier.
My argument was that the problem itself was being blown out of proportion. It’s Toyota’s policies, secrecy, and avoiding a recall that is the problem. I mentioned that the NHTSA first started investigations in 2004, but were limited to incidents of unintended acceleration that lasted 1 second or less, the regulators that halted the investigations were later hired by Toyota, they had an internal document bragging about saving $100 million by only replacing the floor mats, not gas pedals in 2007, and their reluctance to recall until the NHTSA threatened them. Even their president admitted they let quality slip as they set their sights on GM. I even mentioned they’ve had previous issues they’ve tried to sweep under and hide, such as buying back 800,000 Tacomas because of severe frame rust in 2008, or in 2007 a class action lawsuit forced them to replace sludge damaged engines in 3.5 million cars.
If you want sources, email me and I’ll give you the articles I used, or anything else you want
Comment by don r on April 30, 2010 at 8:13 am
There’s a lot to read about it. College means spend time in the library reading and studying. Shurely you can read enough to come up with a 7 minute talk. If you feel lost find the reference librarian and you will be put on track- that’s a promise.
Comment by Ryan M on April 30, 2010 at 8:13 am
Consumers should know facts about vehicle reliability, and not rely on advertisements or a few opinions. I think it was on Yahoo! that I saw a study of brands of cars that were PERCEIVED as reliable, and it was quite different from the facts, which are linked below. Many people PERCEIVE Mercury as being bad, which is strange, because they’ve ranked at the top of JD Power’s long term reliability survey very consistently, even as high as #2. Earlier this year, Toyota sales took a noticeable dive, which illustrates that quality is the primary factor for many people who purchase a Toyota, but Toyota isn’t the most reliable automaker. American companies would do much better against the competition if consumers were aware of this.