Toyota Partners With Carma Project to Accelerate Vehicle Recalls
No car manufacturer likes to have to recall a model, but no manufacturer really commits to recalls quite like Toyota if they have to happen.
Carma Project, a new peer-to-peer safety platform, today launched its first-ever social and incentive-based program. It is specifically designed to accelerate consumer response to vehicle recalls, and the Carma Project is making its first steps into the world with a collaboration with Toyota to help recall vehicles equipped with the deadly Takata airbags.
The recall, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration labeled “the largest and most complex safety recall in US history,” impacts 19 different automakers. More than a dozen individuals have died and hundreds have been allegedly injured as a result of the defective airbags. By the end of 2019, more than 70 million airbags are expected to be recalled.
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Manufacturers have scrambled to raise awareness and encourage at-risk drivers to repair their airbags at dealerships, but consumer response has remained stubbornly low, as a third of affected airbags remain unrepaired.
Carmen Project aims to facilitate the recall process by alerting people of life-threatening vehicle recalls while providing incentives for individuals to share the information to their friends and family. CEO Fabio Gratton says a similar solution worked in healthcare.
“Companies struggle to identify participants for clinical trials, because they are hard to find and oftentimes ignore industry outreach,” he explains. “But a friend or family member has that trust, access, and influence to ensure that those people learn about these trials and ultimately receive those potentially life-saving medications. We’re confident that this approach will work in the automotive world, especially when combined with our incentive model.”
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