News

Japanese media condemn Toyota's handling of vehicle flaws

February 07, 2010 Edition 2

TOKYO: Japanese media criticised Toyota's president yesterday for offering a belated, unconvincing explanation for the massive car recall that has sullied the world's biggest car maker, a Japanese corporate icon.

Akio Toyoda, the founder's grandson appointed to lead Toyota Motor Corp last June, late on Friday addressed criticism that the company mishandled a crisis over sticking gas pedals.

But he stopped short of ordering a recall for Toyota's Prius hybrid for separate braking problems.

Toyoda's appearance before reporters at a company office in Nagoya made front pages of the country's leading newspapers.

"Words are not enough," the top Nikkei business daily commented. "The company's crisis management ability is being subjected to severe scrutiny."

"Too late," the nationwide Asahi newspaper said of Toyota's delayed reaction since the crisis arose on January 21 with a global recall of millions of vehicles.

"The world is watching to see how Toyota can learn from its recent failures and make safe cars."

At his first news conference since the recall of 4.5 million cars, Toyoda promised to beef up quality control and said he would head a special committee to review quality checks, go over consumer complaints and listen to outside experts to develop a fix.

Toyota's failure to stem its widening safety crisis has stunned American experts who had come to expect only streamlined efficiency from a company at the pinnacle of the global car industry.

It took prodding from the US government for Toyota to recall the vehicles, about half of them in North America, for accelerator pedals that can stick and cause sudden acceleration.

Asked if he should have acted quicker, Toyoda replied in hesitant English: "I will do my best."

The company name is spelled and pronounced differently from the founding family name because Toyota was considered to have a luckier number of brush strokes when written in Japanese.

Toyoda is the second successive Toyota president to apologise for car defects. The first, Katsuaki Watanabe, shocked a news conference in 2006, bowing low to the group before promising to improve quality.

Toyoda bowed as he greeted reporters, but not in apology. He told the hastily called news conference that the company had not decided what to do about problems with the braking system of the Prius petrol-electric hybrid. The high-mileage, low-pollution car is a leader in its field and a symbol of Toyota technology.

Prius drivers have complained of a short delay before the brakes kick in - a flaw Toyota says can be fixed with a software programming change. About 270 000 Prius cars were sold last year in Japan and the US. - Sapa-AP