Lex专栏：召回事件令丰田雪上加霜

Is this another annus horribilis for Akio Toyoda? As president of Toyota Motor, he now has to oversee its biggest single vehicle recall to date of 7.4m vehicles because of a faulty window switch. That comes against a backdrop of falling sales in China, where tensions over islands in the East China Sea have crimped the country’s appetite for Japanese cars.

今年丰田章男(Akio Toyoda)是否又是流年不利？作为丰田汽车(Toyato Motor)的社长，丰田章男现在得要处理公司迄今为止最大规模的一次汽车召回。此次的召回量达到740万辆，原因是车窗开关存在缺陷。此次召回恰逢丰田汽车在华销量出现下滑。东中国海岛屿争端引发的紧张情绪打击了中国民众对日系车的购买意愿。

Even so, remember that the litmus test for recall costs goes something like this: is anyone dead or severely injured? Are the parts in question expensive to replace? Is this a labour-intensive exercise? The answer is no on all counts. As a result, assuming Y1,000 per car for parts and Y2,000 on labour, this round of recalls could cost Toyota a maximum of Y30bn ($380m), according to Credit Suisse estimates. That is barely 1 per cent of average annual operating costs.

即便如此，我们也不能忘记，核定召回成本需要问如下这样的问题：是否造成人员死亡或重伤？问题零部件的更换成本高不高？此次召回的人工成本高不高？这几个问题的答案无一例外都是否定的。因此，据瑞信(Credit Suisse)估算，假定每辆车的零部件更换成本为1000日元、人工成本为2000日元，那么此次召回的总成本可能不会超过300亿日元（合3.8亿美元）。这个数字也就相当于丰田年运营成本的1%。

The fallout in China, however, is a bigger problem for Toyota. Its sales there halved from a year earlier in September. This was a steeper decline than for Japanese peers as the car giant is the marque that most symbolises Japan. But then only one-tenth of Toyota’s global unit sales are in China, compared with more than a quarter for Nissan.

然而，此次召回在中国造成的负面影响对丰田而言是个更大的问题。今年9月，丰田在华汽车销量同比下降一半，降幅比其他日系车更大，这是因为丰田的汽车是最典型的日货。然而，丰田在华汽车销量仅占其全球销量的十分之一。与之形成对比的是，日产(Nissan)在华汽车销量占其全球销量的四分之一以上。

The recalls were announced after the market had closed. But investors have already knocked one-tenth off Toyota’s share price over the past few weeks for its travails in China. It now trades at 11 times forward earnings. Granted, this is a big premium to the likes of Nissan and Volkswagen, but well below Toyota’s long-term mean. Moreover, margins at the earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation level are half those of the past decade, mostly because of the strong yen (Toyota is committed to domestic production). Still, it has limited exposure to Europe and a large presence in the US, where demand has not collapsed. Mr Toyoda will recall worse years before this one.

丰田是在昨日股市收市后宣布召回消息的。然而，过去几周里，丰田的股价已因公司在华面临的困境累计下跌了十分之一。目前，丰田股票的预期市盈率为11倍。诚然，相对于日产和大众汽车(Volkswagen)等公司的市盈率而言，这个数字已经很高了，但它仍远低于丰田的长期均值。另外，丰田的税息折旧及摊销前利润率比过去十年的水平低一半，主要原因是日元走强（丰田承诺要在日本国内生产）。不过，丰田对欧洲的敞口不大，而在美国市场占有率很高（美国的汽车需求并未出现骤减）。因此，今年对丰田章男而言应该不算是最倒霉的一年。

Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析