Monday, Thursday, Saturday: it seems like Honda cannot catch a break, just a fire. Saturday, October 6th, Honda recalled its third car of the week, the 2002-2006 CR-V so they could correct faulty automatic window switches that have been causing fires. Honda also expanded the recalls of their 2004-2005 Pilot and their 2003-2007 Accord V6 vehicles earlier this week because of headlight malfunctions. The total recalls of the week for Honda were around 1.4 million.
What is more is that Honda’s President and CEO, Takanobu Ito, has plans to double their sales by 6 million a year by 2017. They plan to expand their product to China and India as well as introducing hybrid cars to the US. However, what is concerning for them is that their older models are now being recalled.
This correlates to our last class on the design of goods and services. How can Honda execute their plan of doubling sales when their older designs are being recalled for safety issues?
The plan to expand in such a short amount of time seems to be unethical. Honda’s manufacturers and engineers are being asked to develop new products in the US and into China and India which are unchartered waters for them. This can potentially lead to more safety issues down the road if they are pushed to hurry their product along. Honda’s design process must be flawed if more than one car model is being recalled. I think that they might be removing features they deem “unnecessary” to cut their costs when in the long run those features may be what make an automatic window switch safe.
Honda is not the top leader in the automobile industry. They should be focusing on their consumers’ reactions to their recalls instead of planning an expansion. I could see Honda going ahead with their plan if they had one recall, but three recalls for safety issues is not good for their sales. Honda’s first step should be to identify the problems in their older model designs in order to prevent them in their newer ones especially since they are planning to take new products into new countries. Then see if their plan to expand in such a short amount of time is still necessary.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-auto-honda-crv-recall-20121006,0,4701403.story