By LARRY MARGASAK and KEN THOMAS
Washington (AP) -- The president of Toyota's U.S.
operations acknowledged to skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that
the company's recalls of millions of its cars may "not totally"
solve the problem of sudden and dangerous acceleration.
"We are vigilant and we continue to look for potential
causes," Toyota's James Lentz told a congressional panel.
However, he repeated his company's position that unexpected
acceleration in some of the company's most popular cars and
trucks was caused by one of two problems -- misplaced floor
mats and sticking accelerator pedals.
He insisted electronic systems connected to the gas pedal
and fuel line did not contribute to the problem, drawing sharp
criticism from lawmakers who said such a possibility should be
further explored -- and from a tearful woman driver who could
not stop her runaway Lexus.
"Shame on you, Toyota," Rhonda Smith, of Sevierville,
Tenn., said at a congressional hearing. Then she added a second
"shame on you" directed at federal highway safety regulators.
Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton cautioned his colleagues
early in the hearing against conducting a "witch hunt" and said
"We don't want to just assume automatically that Toyota has
done something wrong and has tried to cover it up." But midway
through Lentz's testimony, Barton said of Toyota's
investigation of the problems: "In my opinion, it's a sham."
Lentz said the company had not completely ruled out an
electronics malfunction and was still investigating causes of
the sudden acceleration. Still, "We have not found a
malfunction" in the electronics of any of the cars at issue, he
said.
As to Smith's harrowing story, "I'm embarrassed for what
happened," Lentz said. "I want her and her hu*****and to feel safe
about driving our products," Lentz said.
Three congressional panels are investigating Toyota's
problems, which affect a huge number of Americans. Toyota has
recalled some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide -- more than 6
million in the United States -- since last fall because of
unintended acceleration problems in multiple models and braking
issues in the Prius hybrid. It is also investigating steering
concerns in Corollas. People with Toyotas have complained of
their vehicles speeding out of control despite efforts to slow
down, sometimes resulting in deadly crashes. The government has
received complaints of 34 deaths linked to sudden acceleration
of Toyota vehicles since 2000.
Lentz, who choked up while discussing the death of his own
brother more than 20 years ago in a car accident, said he
understood the pain.
"I know what those families go through," he said.
Lentz has said in the past that he was confident Toyota's
fixes on the recalled vehicles would correct the problems.
But when pressed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., on whether the two recalls Toyota put
in place to deal with the issue would completely solve it,
Lentz replied: "Not totally."
Still, he said chances of unintended accelerations were
"very, very slim" once the recall was complete. Lentz also said
Toyota was putting in new brakes that can override the gas
pedal on almost all of its new vehicles and a majority of its
vehicles already on the road.
Meanwhile, Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who will testify
before a separate panel on Wednesday, said he took "full
responsibility" for the uncertainty felt by Toyota owners and
offered his condolences to a San Diego, Calif., family who were
killed in late August, reigniting interest in the problems.
"I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a
tragedy never happens again," Toyoda said in prepared testimony
for Wednesday's hearing to the House Government Oversight
Committee. "My name is on every car. You have my personal
commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to
restore the trust of our customers."
Lawmakers heard a brief, but riveting, description from
Smith, the Tennessee woman whose Toyota-made Lexus suddenly
zoomed to 100 miles per hour as she tried to get it to stop --
shifting to neutral, trying to throw the car into reverse and
hitting the emergency brake. Finally, her car slowed enough
that she was able to pull it off the road onto the median and
turn off the engine.
Fighting back tears, she described her nightmare ride of
October 2006, calling it "a near death experience."
"After six miles, God intervened" and slowed the car, she
said. She added that it took a long time for Toyota to respond
to her complaints.
In an often contentious full day of testimony, lawmakers
returned again and again to the question of whether electronic
malfunctions may have contributed to the speeding cars.
"We are confident that no problems exist with the electric
throttle control system in our vehicles," Lentz said. He cited
"fail-safe mechanisms" in the cars that were designed to shut
off or reduce engine power "in the event of a system failure."
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the panel in
prepared testimony that possible electronics problems were
being looked into by his agency. He said the company's recalls
were important steps but "we don't maintain that they answer
every question."
Toyota hired a consulting firm to analyze whether
electronic problems could cause unintended acceleration. The
firm, Exponent Inc., found no link between the two. But
committee investigators said the testing studied only a small
number of vehicles
Tracking down an electrical problem can be far more
difficult, expensive and time-consuming than finding a
mechanical problem. Electrical problems can have more than one
source, and they can come from inside or outside the car.
Mechanical problems often leave clues such as physical damage,
where electronic troubles can be hidden in software or leave no
trace at all.
House investigators who reviewed Toyota's customer call
database found that 70 percent of the complaints of sudden
acceleration were for vehicles that are not subject to the
recalls over floor mats or sticky pedals.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the subcommittee,
said Toyota "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."
Lentz apologized anew for the company's slow handling of
problems. "We have not lived up to the high standards our
customers and the public have come to expect from Toyota," he
said.
"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," said Lentz, president and chief operating
officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA. Inc.
Separately, among hundreds of Toyota dealers lobbying
members of Congress Tuesday, there seemed to be widespread
rancor toward a federal government they view as picking on the
automaker, at least in part because of the government's
investment of billions of dollars in General Motors and
Chrysler.
"That's hard for me as a citizen to understand why my tax
dollars are going in that direction," Paul Atkinson, a
Houston-area Toyota dealer, said at a news conference that also
served as a pep rally for the visiting dealers. "To compete
with the government as an individual entrepreneur is pretty
tough."
---
Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Stephen Manning and Tom
Raum in Washington and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to
this story.
-0- Feb/23/2010 21:04 GMT
Washington (AP) -- The president of Toyota's U.S.
operations acknowledged to skeptical lawmakers on Tuesday that
the company's recalls of millions of its cars may "not totally"
solve the problem of sudden and dangerous acceleration.
"We are vigilant and we continue to look for potential
causes," Toyota's James Lentz told a congressional panel.
However, he repeated his company's position that unexpected
acceleration in some of the company's most popular cars and
trucks was caused by one of two problems -- misplaced floor
mats and sticking accelerator pedals.
He insisted electronic systems connected to the gas pedal
and fuel line did not contribute to the problem, drawing sharp
criticism from lawmakers who said such a possibility should be
further explored -- and from a tearful woman driver who could
not stop her runaway Lexus.
"Shame on you, Toyota," Rhonda Smith, of Sevierville,
Tenn., said at a congressional hearing. Then she added a second
"shame on you" directed at federal highway safety regulators.
Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton cautioned his colleagues
early in the hearing against conducting a "witch hunt" and said
"We don't want to just assume automatically that Toyota has
done something wrong and has tried to cover it up." But midway
through Lentz's testimony, Barton said of Toyota's
investigation of the problems: "In my opinion, it's a sham."
Lentz said the company had not completely ruled out an
electronics malfunction and was still investigating causes of
the sudden acceleration. Still, "We have not found a
malfunction" in the electronics of any of the cars at issue, he
said.
As to Smith's harrowing story, "I'm embarrassed for what
happened," Lentz said. "I want her and her hu*****and to feel safe
about driving our products," Lentz said.
Three congressional panels are investigating Toyota's
problems, which affect a huge number of Americans. Toyota has
recalled some 8.5 million vehicles worldwide -- more than 6
million in the United States -- since last fall because of
unintended acceleration problems in multiple models and braking
issues in the Prius hybrid. It is also investigating steering
concerns in Corollas. People with Toyotas have complained of
their vehicles speeding out of control despite efforts to slow
down, sometimes resulting in deadly crashes. The government has
received complaints of 34 deaths linked to sudden acceleration
of Toyota vehicles since 2000.
Lentz, who choked up while discussing the death of his own
brother more than 20 years ago in a car accident, said he
understood the pain.
"I know what those families go through," he said.
Lentz has said in the past that he was confident Toyota's
fixes on the recalled vehicles would correct the problems.
But when pressed by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman
Henry Waxman, D-Calif., on whether the two recalls Toyota put
in place to deal with the issue would completely solve it,
Lentz replied: "Not totally."
Still, he said chances of unintended accelerations were
"very, very slim" once the recall was complete. Lentz also said
Toyota was putting in new brakes that can override the gas
pedal on almost all of its new vehicles and a majority of its
vehicles already on the road.
Meanwhile, Toyota president Akio Toyoda, who will testify
before a separate panel on Wednesday, said he took "full
responsibility" for the uncertainty felt by Toyota owners and
offered his condolences to a San Diego, Calif., family who were
killed in late August, reigniting interest in the problems.
"I will do everything in my power to ensure that such a
tragedy never happens again," Toyoda said in prepared testimony
for Wednesday's hearing to the House Government Oversight
Committee. "My name is on every car. You have my personal
commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to
restore the trust of our customers."
Lawmakers heard a brief, but riveting, description from
Smith, the Tennessee woman whose Toyota-made Lexus suddenly
zoomed to 100 miles per hour as she tried to get it to stop --
shifting to neutral, trying to throw the car into reverse and
hitting the emergency brake. Finally, her car slowed enough
that she was able to pull it off the road onto the median and
turn off the engine.
Fighting back tears, she described her nightmare ride of
October 2006, calling it "a near death experience."
"After six miles, God intervened" and slowed the car, she
said. She added that it took a long time for Toyota to respond
to her complaints.
In an often contentious full day of testimony, lawmakers
returned again and again to the question of whether electronic
malfunctions may have contributed to the speeding cars.
"We are confident that no problems exist with the electric
throttle control system in our vehicles," Lentz said. He cited
"fail-safe mechanisms" in the cars that were designed to shut
off or reduce engine power "in the event of a system failure."
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told the panel in
prepared testimony that possible electronics problems were
being looked into by his agency. He said the company's recalls
were important steps but "we don't maintain that they answer
every question."
Toyota hired a consulting firm to analyze whether
electronic problems could cause unintended acceleration. The
firm, Exponent Inc., found no link between the two. But
committee investigators said the testing studied only a small
number of vehicles
Tracking down an electrical problem can be far more
difficult, expensive and time-consuming than finding a
mechanical problem. Electrical problems can have more than one
source, and they can come from inside or outside the car.
Mechanical problems often leave clues such as physical damage,
where electronic troubles can be hidden in software or leave no
trace at all.
House investigators who reviewed Toyota's customer call
database found that 70 percent of the complaints of sudden
acceleration were for vehicles that are not subject to the
recalls over floor mats or sticky pedals.
Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the subcommittee,
said Toyota "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."
Lentz apologized anew for the company's slow handling of
problems. "We have not lived up to the high standards our
customers and the public have come to expect from Toyota," he
said.
"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," said Lentz, president and chief operating
officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA. Inc.
Separately, among hundreds of Toyota dealers lobbying
members of Congress Tuesday, there seemed to be widespread
rancor toward a federal government they view as picking on the
automaker, at least in part because of the government's
investment of billions of dollars in General Motors and
Chrysler.
"That's hard for me as a citizen to understand why my tax
dollars are going in that direction," Paul Atkinson, a
Houston-area Toyota dealer, said at a news conference that also
served as a pep rally for the visiting dealers. "To compete
with the government as an individual entrepreneur is pretty
tough."
---
Associated Press writers Alan Fram, Stephen Manning and Tom
Raum in Washington and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to
this story.
-0- Feb/23/2010 21:04 GMT
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