Anpanman_NZ comments

You probably will, but you won't realise you are. Just like all the other food.

Toyota and other manufacturers were missing "key parts"? Since when does every auto manufacturer have only one outlet of vendors - especially all located in Tohoku? I think they're downplaying the the high yen and struggling economy in the US. I wonder what the demand for Toyota vehicles were in the US at the time, too? I call shenanigans.

The problem is that it only takes one missing part to bring down the whole production process, so some parts exclusively manufactured in Tohoku pretty much brought down a huge percentage of vehicle production. Trust me, there are no shenanigans here.

wanderlust Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) have had the option of 100V power outlets in their cars for years!

As have Toyota (for more than 10 years in fact), the difference is that those outlets can only be used when the car is running (or for only a matter of minutes with the car off) whereas this new tech can use the Hybrid batteries to power appliances for (probably of a much greater amp rating also) for a couple of days without the car going. See borscht's great post above for the impact of this for the Tohoku area.

dcm81672 - there is no conspiracy, it would have just been the floor mat. You obviously have very, very limited knowledge about the operation of a motor vehicle if you think you need to put an accelerator pedal into a certain position to make the car go 120mph (it is mostly people like you that experience these problems because they simply do not have the knowledge to figure their way out of a fairly simply resolvable situation). The accelerator is depressed to accelerate and if it is not eased off (like in this situation were it seems an incorrect floor mat has been fitted), the vehicle will continue to accelerate.

In the past there were not enough electronics in vehicles for people to have the option to blame the car, and drivers didn't rely on all these systems and had the basic know-how to get out of a situation like a sticky accelerator or a mat over the pedal etc. (unintended acceleration has been around a long time).

If you look at the facts, ALL of the unintended acceleration complaints relate to automatic vehicles (surprising when the same fly-by-wire accelerator systems are in both manual and automatic cars), and most people that experience problems are elderly, or heading that way. It seems these days it is easier to blame the technology rather than admit fault for depressing the wrong pedal or fitting not genuine mats which foul the accelerator pedal.

In 2008 and 2009 VW had more unintended acceleration complaints per 100,000 vehicles sold in USA (as reported by the NHTSA) than Toyota did. If you are looking for a possible conspiracy you are looking in the wrong direction...

"ugly overhead cables, ugly villages and boring, boring roads"

Where I live there are some really nice country roads and there are beautiful villages and rice fields and other scenery. I find driving in Japan not too different than driving in other countries, mostly they are good considerate drivers, but as is the case anywhere in the world there are a small percentage who are bad, and those are the ones that stick in your mind.

This article should really say New Zealand, or at least Australasian!!

"I feel like a Tooheys or two" will now be "I feel like a Kirin or two" - doesn't have the same ring,

?? It will still be Tooheys, just owned by another company. On that logic you would be saying I feel like a lion nathan or two until　now.

'glad they didn't buy Broken Hill or XXXX. they did buy XXXX as it is(was) owned by lion nathan