Toyota executives pledge cooperation while arguing that vehicles are safe

During a highly anticipated hearing marked by pointed questions from
lawmakers, Toyota executives apologized before Congress on Wednesday
for breakdowns in their company’s products.

Toyota
President and CEO Akio Toyoda, answering questions through an
interpreter, said the company was “absolutely confident” that
electronic systems were not to blame for the sudden acceleration in
vehicles that has led to massive recalls. He added that measures taken
by the company make Toyotas fit for the roads.

{mosads}“No
problem and malfunction has been identified, and therefore I am
confident there is no problem in the design of the ETC system,” Toyoda
said.

During an internationally watched hearing that dragged
into the early evening, Toyoda and North America chief Yoshimi Inaba
insisted the company accepted responsibility for its products’ “sticky
accelerator” and other problems, and expressed contrition regarding
victims injured or killed as a result of the problems.

 “Generally
speaking, whenever a problem occurs, Toyota addresses those problems in
the most genuine and sincere attitude,” Toyoda said.

Members
of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee stopped short of
raking the executives over the coals, but expressed skepticism the
company had done enough to address its product-safety issues.

“It’s
one thing to say you’re sorry,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).
“It’s another thing when it seems that time after time there are
pronouncements that problems are being addressed when it seems they’re
actually not being addressed.”

Members of the committee also pointedly questioned whether the company’s current recall was too little and too late.

Transportation
Secretary Ray LaHood struck a different pose in his testimony earlier
on Wednesday, telling lawmakers that Toyota vehicles under the recall
are “not safe.”

“I will say that if people check our website,
we have listed every Toyota that is up for recall,” he said. “I want
anybody who has one of those cars to take it to their dealer and make
sure it gets fixed.”

Members of the committee sought answers
as to when Toyota first became aware of its product malfunctions, and
how quickly it reported them to the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA), which had fielded reports of sticky
accelerators as early as 2004.

Toyoda said he first learned
of the problems in December of 2009, and that he couldn’t say for sure
what other knowledge the company had before he became president in June
2009. But the CEO and Inaba rejected claims that Toyota might have
obscured incidences of other malfunctions, maintaining that their
company’s diffuse structure made it difficult to identify systemic
problems with its vehicles.

Toyoda defended his company’s
relationship and communications with NHTSA, which has also come under
fire for its response to Toyota’s safety problems.

Inaba said
Toyota was aware of evidence of sticky accelerators a year ago in
Europe, but poor communication between different branches of the
company slowed its identification of the problem.

“We did not hide it, but it was not properly shared,” he said.

LaHood
defended NHTSA’s work in an appearance by himself before the committee,
after having pulled NHTSA Administrator David Strickland from the
hearing, a withdrawal LaHood said was due to Strickland’s
only-weeks-old tenure atop the agency.

The secretary, a
former Republican congressman from Illinois, rejected claims that NHTSA
was too slow in responding to Toyota’s problems, as well as claims that
the agency had too cozy of a relationship with the automaker, arguing
that the agency had done its best to identify safety issues in Toyota
products and that it would work “24/7” to ensure Toyotas’ safety.

Congressmen
expressed skepticism, though, about whether the company and NHTSA had
taken enough steps to address safety issues after becoming aware of the
problems.

Rep. Paul Kanjorski (Pa.), the second-ranking
Democrat on the committee, said that Toyota’s problems made the case
for U.S. tort laws, which allow consumers to recover damages from
companies whose products malfunction.

“This is a very embarrassing day for NHTSA,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.). “It’s equally an embarrassing day for Toyota.”

The
Toyota executives outlined steps they said would address safety and
quality issues going forward, including a new international quality
assurance board and measures that would facilitate greater
information-sharing about safety issues across borders.

{mosads}Toyoda
announced a new “Special Committee on Global Quality,” which he said he
would head and would first meet on March 30 of this year and feature
representation from the United States.

Inaba also admitted
the company had done a poor job of connecting the dots between safety
issues manifest in its product lines in different parts of the world.

“We
should have done a better job of sharing that cross-regional defect
information,” he said. “Going forward, what we are going to do — we are
making now one American, we call product safety executive, as part of
the global committee.”

This story was updated at 8:50 p.m.