Toyota can’t guarantee safety fix

Under sharp and at times hostile questioning, the president of Toyota Corp.’s U.S. operations told a packed Capitol Hill hearing that even a massive recall by the world’s biggest automaker may “not totally” resolve safety problems implicated in accidents in the United States that have killed nearly three dozen people.

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. President James Lentz defended the embattled Japanese auto giant’s safety record, but conceded that the company had failed to meet its own high standards in responding to the crisis. The company was too slow to respond to the safety issues that have led at least three congressional committees to begin what is likely to be a long and exhaustive investigation, Mr. Lentz acknowledged.

TWT RELATED STORY: Hill hearings resume with expected Toyoda apology

“Put simply, it has taken us too long to come to grips with a rare but serious set of safety issues, despite all of our good-faith efforts,” Mr. Lentz told an oversight panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Mr. Lentz was in the hot seat Tuesday, but he might have been just the warm-up act.

In a rare personal appearance by a foreign chief executive, Toyota President Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company founder, will testify Wednesday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Advance copies of Mr. Toyoda’s testimony, obtained by the Associated Press, suggest he plans to make a personal apology.

“My name is on every car. You have my personal commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of our carmakers,” his submitted written statement said.

The congressional session is the latest chapter in a public relations nightmare for Toyota, whose once-unimpeachable reputation for quality, reliability and safety has been battered by a string of revelations about engineering, marketing and political missteps. The hearing was held just a day after the company revealed that federal prosecutors in New York have opened a criminal investigation into the safety problems, which have resulted in a recall of more than 6 million Toyota-made cars in the United States and 8.5 million cars worldwide.

Mr. Lentz insisted that Toyota’s engineers had identified “two specific, mechanical causes” of sudden unintended acceleration, which has been associated with at least 34 deaths, according to complaints filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

“We are confident that no problems exist with the electronic throttle control system in our vehicles,” Mr. Lentz said. “We have designed our electronic throttle control system with multiple fail-safe mechanisms to shut off or reduce engine power in the event of a system failure.”

But pressed by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman, California Democrat, on whether the company’s action would eliminate the sudden acceleration danger for drivers, Mr. Lentz replied, “Not totally.”

Still, he said, the odds of unintended accelerations were “very, very slim” in any car serviced under the recall. The company also is developing brakes that can override a stuck accelerator on all new models and a majority of those now on the road.

Many lawmakers, both Republican and Democrat, bluntly criticized Toyota’s actions.

Toyota officials “misled the American public by saying that they and other independent sources had thoroughly analyzed the electronics systems and eliminated electronics as a possible cause of sudden unintended acceleration when, in fact, the only such review was a flawed study conducted by a company retained by Toyota’s lawyers,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the oversight subcommittee.

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