Nightly News   |  February 02, 2010

As Toyota struggles, Ford, GM make gains

Toyota took a beating in sales figures, dropping 16 percent in the wake of their massive accelerator pedal recall. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

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This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: We have the latest tonight on Toyota 's massive recall. The Obama administration took a harder line with the company today. The secretary of transportation, Ray LaHood , said the government has not finished investigating possible safety defects. He also said there's a possibility the company could face a civil fine on top of the rest of it. And Toyota sales fell sharply in January; no surprise, since they stopped selling most of their popular cars due to the recall. Toyota sales officially dropped 16 percent. Ford and GM seemed to have taken advantage of that, double-digit gains for both US automakers. But Chrysler still struggled, down 8 percent, even with Toyota mostly out of the game.