Toyota announced a global recall of 6.4 million vehicles on Wednesday shortly after General Motors' recall of 6.3 million vehicles, which has turned into a public relations crisis for the auto industry, according to Boston's NPR News Station.
Industry experts say more recalls are likely for a variety of reasons, including software-related glitches, modular manufacturing processes and, perhaps most of all, mounting fear among other automakers that they may be next, according to Boston NPR's Here and Now with Robin Young Jeremy Hobson.
Todd Turner, a consultant at Car Concepts in Thousand Oaks, California, says automakers like Toyota are being proactive to avoid a scandal similar to GM's, NPR reported.
"When everyone sees the results of a recall that has been delayed, I think people go back through their processes and ask, 'Is this something we should address or we'll have egg on our face?'" he says, according to NPR.
In a different climate, Turner says, the issues Toyota addressed in its latest recall would have been handled with a Technical Service Bulletin, a more low-key communication that alerts car owners about potential issues with their vehicles, according to NPR.
"I think they're being overly cautious," Turner says of Toyota, NPR reported.
In 2012, a year in which 45% more cars were recalled than sold in the U.S., 68.2% of recalls were initiated by automakers, rather than consumer complaints, according to NPR. GM is another story and Turner thinks there will be more recall announcements to come.
"There will be an ongoing slew of recalls from them," Turner says, NPR reported. "They went a very long period of time without any recalls. That's not typical of the business and not typical of GM's history."
While the public climate may be prompting some proactive recalls, Roger Lanctot, associate director of Strategy Analytics, blames onboard software and algorithms related to airbag deployment, according to NPR.
Lanctot points out that GM, Nissan, Toyota and Chrysler, among others, have instituted recalls related to the technology over the last two years, NPR reported.
"This is just the beginning of software recalls," Lanctot says, according to NPR. "In the past it was all about mechanical failures."
Despite the recent wave of recalls, Turner doesn't think 2014 will break 2004's record of 30.8 million, and he adds that there's nothing unusual about recalls, either, NPR reported.
"They all do it," he says, according to NPR. "Even Mercedes has recalls," but this does not mean cars are less safer than in the past.
The number of annual motor vehicle traffic fatalities fell 8% this past decade, versus the previous one, according to the NHTSA, NPR reported.
