Posted by: Anthony Lim

Posted by: Anthony Lim

Photography: Kunal Khadse

Techno-banter

Before we get into the thick of things, a case must be made for the hybrid hype that happens to be the Prius' single largest USP. The new 3rd gen Prius comes with a revamped version of Toyota's much touted "Hybrid Synergy Drive". The system basically involves a conventional 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol engine, one electric motor to move the wheels and another motor that takes care only of charging the car's batteries. Electric motors offer significantly higher moving force for the same amount of energy spent, so when the car needs to dish out high torque - in slow moving traffic for example - the motor drives the wheels. At easier cruising speeds when the car has its momentum to support its motion, the petrol engine comes into play so that battery charge is not wasted. The switching and splitting of power between the petrol engine and the electric motor takes place electronically and reaches the wheels through a continuously variable automatic gearbox, which makes sure that the power delivery is smooth and consistent.

The Drive

The difference in the driving experience of the Prius begins right from stepping into the car. An RFD controlled keyless-entry ensures that there are no keyholes to fill, and the push button start activates all systems with a welcome green glow from the futuristic centre console on the dashboard. The car is running, they say, but one would feel nothing since take off from standstill is handled exclusively by the battery-powered electric motors. The noiseless motion of the car in fact needs some getting used to for drivers brought up on a staple diet of engine vibes, but take off is smooth and hassle free.

Stomp the throttle though, and the petrol engine comes alive and even though the revs don't climb drastically thanks to the CVT transmission, the car propels forward with enough punch for quick overtakes. The Prius in fact recorded fantastic results in our acceleration runs - 100 km/h from standstill came in a little more than 10 seconds - a figure at par with most 2.5-litre sedans. Ride quality is supple and comfortable but road noise percolates with little hindrance into the cabin, which could be irritating especially on concrete surfaces.

The Prius does offer very generous space on the inside and top-notch fit and finish with the interiors. The graphic information display on the centre console is a great way of knowing exactly how green your drive is and how well the hybrid system works - a sweet way of staying entertained and looking smarter than you are before your kids by teaching them a thing or two about the science behind the motion. I loved the bright blue drive selector which adds an important dash of visual zing to the innards of the Prius.

Apart from the acceleration however, the drive experience remains somewhat disconnected overall, with precious little feedback from the suspension, the steering or even the brakes. That being said, the Prius always has the ability to pop the 'not-a-driver's-car' statement in its defense and remains a fantastic and practical family car, but we think that is somewhat unfair to the fence sitters who won't mind a green car as long it is involving.

Of Sense and Sensibility

Alright then, I haven't burnt as much fuel as I normally do with a day's drive, it has been a decent driving experience (if not psychotically jolly), and since the air is a teeny tiny bit cleaner than it would've been otherwise, so should be my conscience. The truck ahead however is billowing thick black smoke like a house on fire - to misuse the idiom - and a massive smirk climbs on to my face. No cynicism here, complete respect for the people who choose to do their bit for the environment, but seriously, we are still a few years away from being a green driving nation - step out on any street and you shall see proof.

We must also consider the fact that while the Prius remains a phenomenally fuel efficient car for its size, space and performance. It returned an overall fuel efficiency of 13.2 kmpl in our tests - encouraging but modern conventional fuel-powered engines are almost at par with its levels of emissions and economy. For the sizeable price of Rs 26 lakh ex-showroom, you may get a car that has technology like no other, but the real-world gains are small. But we haven?t yet spoken about the image makeover this car can offer.

In terms of capabilities the Prius already has the Honda Civic Hybrid to contend with, but on the price entry-level German luxury sedans like the Mercedes-Benz C-Class and the BMW 3-series remain more natural rivals - Teutons that have found enough favour in the metros to almost be labeled as 'common'. For the corporate head honchos or budding tycoons who wish project a difference in approach and also grab brownie points at the golf course, the eco-friendly Toyota starts making perfect sense. That is a niche that few would willfully deny, and that's precisely the space where the Prius must begin its green campaign.

Photography: Kunal Khadse

The Toyota Prius has landed on Indian shores waving the eco-friendly flag. It may be the first word in hybrid cars internationally, but does it really have a place in the Indian automotive scenario? Sopan Sharma hugs trees for a day

Related Links

Toyota Gets Ready to Shift to A Higher Gear Delivery of Prius begins by March end

I love our planet and like most of us, hate the climbing heat from our carbon emitting lifestyles. Unfortunately, I love being at the wheel much more, and an afternoon at the garage is preferred over an evening in the park. New propaganda flaming petrol-heads has seen the light in the last few years however, and while IC engines have grown progressively cleaner there is just one real way of showing that you are true-blue-green - the sort that uses only paper bags and has a compost heap in his backyard. It is called a hybrid vehicle, and the best seller of the lot has just made its debut in India.

Some may say that Toyota has lost its sporty edge of late, but whatever it has lost in terms of making erstwhile scorchers like the Supra and the Celica, it has made up for by making increasingly user-friendly, refined and reliable cars. If it had not, it wouldn't be the world's biggest car maker with such fierce consistency. Logical then, that when the world had just begun to see eco-friendly back in 1997, Toyota had already cooked up the solution, sold it and taken home the profits. It was called the Prius, and was the world's first mass-produced hybrid car, since it made use of both petrol and electricity to push itself around. And now it is coming to India with the third avatar of its green crusader - the Prius.

Design Dissection

Like most Toyota products, the design approach is on the conservative side, which is welcome for a change on a 'car of the future' like the Prius where it is just too easy to go ultra-radical and create a design inspired from a spaceship. The approach has worked well for Toyota consistently in the past - the non-threatening and civil countenance only widening the appeal of its products. The Prius is no different.

Despite its no-nonsense design, the Prius comes across as a remarkably elegant and more importantly, one of the most identifiable designs on the street. The tall bumper and the absence of a large grille thanks to lower cooling requirements make for a very tidy front. The short and sweetly creased hood stays far from being ungainly, and flows smoothly into the swooping silhouette of the roofline. At the rear, the sweet beak spoiler sets the car apart from almost any other hatchback in the market, and the large tail lamp cluster spreads very well to complete the view.

Apart from being aesthetically non-controversial, the design of the Prius has a lot of technology riding behind itself. The exterior is a fantastic study in the art of aerodynamics - reduced drag principles applied here not for performance but for green gains. Directing airflow away from frontal surfaces is a big pro, and smart touches like the hidden diffuser at the rear guide the wind around the car in a most unobtrusive manner. Thanks to all the smartly contoured nooks and crannies, the car returns with a class busting drag co-efficient as low as 0.25. To do that without making the car look like a scalpel is certainly no mean feat, and the fact that it still remains easy and pleasant on the eye means high marks for the design.

KUCHING, April 9 — UMW Toyota Motor Sdn Bhd has sold 21,017 units of Toyota vehicles for the first quarter of this year, up 22 per cent from the same period last year.

Its president Kuah Kock Heng said in the same period last year, the company sold a total of 17,200 units despite the challenging year for the auto industry and based on the current figures, it was likely to hit the sales target for this year.

“With this positive momentum, I am confident of achieving our target of 88,000 units or 16.0 per cent market share,” he said at a media reception here today.

Last year, the company sold more than 82,000 units with a market share of 15.4 per cent and it has been the number one for the non-national vehicles segment for the past 20 years.

For Sarawak, Kuah said the state continued to be an important market as it contributed 10 per cent or 8,300 units of the total Toyota vehicles sold in the country last year.

“The Toyota Hilux remains the number one contributor to Toyota sales with 3,248 units or 40 per cent of total sales in Sarawak,” he said, adding that based on the selling trend this year, the Hilux would again be the top-selling model in Sarawak, followed by passengers cars like Vios, Camry and Corolla as well as multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs) like Avanza, Innova and Fortuner.

“For the first quarter of this year, we have delivered 968 units on Sarawak roads. This is a 35 per cent increase compared to 715 units in the same period last year,” Kuah said.

“Currently, we are looking at network expansion in Sarawak to enhance sales and after-sales facilities to cater the needs of our customers. Right now, upgrading projects are in progress at our outlets in Kuching and Miri,” he said.

Asked to elaborate on the network expansion programme in Sarawak, Kuah said it would also involve relocating some of the branches which are considered small.

The company has branches in Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu and Miri with sales, service and spare parts facilities as well as five dealers operating statewide. — Bernama

TOKYO, April 15 —Toyota Motor Corp today denied a Kyodo News agency report that it will voluntarily recall the Lexus GX460 sport utility vehicle, sold in North America, Russia and the Middle East.

“We are in the process of testing whether there is anything wrong with the model,” spokeswoman Ririko Takeuchi said.

“At this point there is no discussion about a voluntary recall.”

Toyota has stopped sales of the model, launched late last year, after Consumer Reports magazine warned against buying it, calling it a “safety risk”. — Reuters

The Toyota logo is seen on a wheel of a vehicle inside a showroom in Taipei, Taiwan. — Reuters pic

The recalls cover minivans sold in several cold weather US states and Canada due to potential corrosion from long-term exposure to road salt that could in the worst case, cause the spare tyre to separate from the vehicle, Toyota said.

All told, the recalls cover some 600,000 two-wheel drive Sienna minivans from the 1998 to 2010 model years sold or registered in certain cold weather US states and 270,000 of the same vehicles in Canada.

The recalls are the latest in a string that has marred Toyota’s reputation for quality. On Tuesday, Toyota halted sales of its Lexus GX 460 luxury SUV after Consumer Reports said its handling in certain curves posed a “safety risk.”

The automaker has not yet decided whether it would have to recall the Lexus GX 460, but has said its engineers duplicated the results of Consumer Reports’ tests.

For the recalls announced yesterday, Toyota said the Sienna minivans should be inspected by dealers while Toyota develops a remedy. They said in the recalls that a cable holding the spare tire in place could fail due to corrosion.

US owners outside the cold weather states will receive a separate notice and may have their vehicles inspected and repaired if necessary at no charge as well, Toyota said.

The US recall covers the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin and West Virginia. — Reuters

Posted by: Anthony Lim

TOKYO, March 15 — Toyota Motor Corp has slashed production of the Prius hybrid model by 10 per cent from March due to a slowdown in sales from a peak last year, a source at a group company told Reuters today.

Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, had been building a combined 50,000 Priuses a month on average at two Japanese factories since the third-generation model debuted last May.

That will drop to about 45,000 units from March, the source said, declining to be identified because Toyota does not make those production plans public.

Global sales of the Prius continue to grow from the year before, but in February dropped about 40 per cent in the United States compared with a peak in October.

The third-generation Prius has topped Japan’s best-selling chart for the past nine months thanks to generous subsidies and tax incentives on fuel-efficient models. Customers placing an order today still wait more than three months for delivery, but that is down from eight months at the time of launch — Reuters

WASHINGTON, March 16 — Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it had found no evidence to support the driver’s account of a widely publicised “runaway” Prius incident in California.

The report had threatened to overshadow Toyota’s attempts to restart sales after a punishing series of recalls.

US safety investigators said separately that they had yet to pinpoint any evidence to support or disprove the claim that a 2008 Prius sped out of control near San Diego a week ago.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration engineers drove the hybrid in an effort to recreate the episode reported by the driver, James Sikes, but were unable to do so, the agency said in its first statement on a hurried and high-profile analysis.

“We would caution people that our work continues and that we may never know exactly what happened with this car,” NHTSA said.

Sikes, 61, had reported in a call to emergency telephone operators that his Prius was racing out of control for some 20 minutes before he could slow down the vehicle and bring it to a safe stop with coaching from a California Highway Patrol officer who pulled alongside him.

But Toyota said it had found no evidence that Sikes had been applying the brake forcefully as he had claimed and said he should have been able to stop the Prius by doing so, or by shifting into neutral or turning off the electronic power switch.

The March 8 incident came at a crucial time for Toyota.

The automaker has been struggling for almost two months to reassure a jittery public it has turned a corner in dealing with safety issues that sparked a recall of 8.5 million vehicles worldwide.

Although Toyota’s March US sales have been up sharply because of cash rebates and zero-per cent financing offers, some analysts have said the long-term commercial damage from the automaker’s safety crisis remains harder to assess.

Scrutiny of the Prius, a vehicle the automaker considers its most important, has also raised the stakes for the automaker in ongoing US regulatory and congressional investigations of unintended acceleration.

Toyota plans to cut output of the Prius by 10 per cent starting this month due to a sales slowdown, a source with knowledge of the plans told Reuters.

The 2010 Prius was the subject of a February recall for braking problems, and the 2004 to 2009 model-year Prius hybrids were included in an October recall for loose floor mats.

But the San Diego case was the first to trigger a federal examination of the Prius for unintended acceleration, something US consumers have complained about in a range of other Toyota models, including its top-selling Camry.

‘THE HUNT FOR THE GHOST’

California police have said they had no reason to doubt Sikes based on the burning brakes in his car and observations of the officer who helped him.

Toyota, which convened a news conference in San Diego to question Sikes’ account of events, declined to comment directly on whether Sikes might have misled investigators.

But Toyota said an examination of his Prius showed that the car was being driven with the brakes lightly and repeatedly applied — some 250 times over the period of the incident.

The brake override in the Prius would have cut engine power to the vehicle had the driver applied “moderate to heavy” pressure on the brake pedal as Sikes had claimed, it said.

Sikes could not be reached for comment. The San Diego-based law firm representing him said it would not comment until NHTSA had completed its investigation.

Toyota has said it has not been able to identify a cause for cases of unintended acceleration consumers have reported beyond ill-fitting floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals. The automaker has recalled more than 6 million vehicles in the United States for that pair of problems since October.

Commentators have focused on the prospect that drivers could be making mistakes — hitting the accelerator instead of the brake — or that Toyota vehicles could be subject to a software glitch or other problem that is hard to replicate.

Toyota said again on Monday that there is no evidence for that latter possibility — a hypothesis that some critics have dubbed “the ghost in the machine.”

“The hunt for the ghost seems to ignore or fly in the face of known facts,” Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said outside a San Diego sports stadium where the automaker demonstrated the safety systems on the Prius for reporters.

“There’s no evidence that the system heals itself mysteriously,” Michels said.

Kelley Blue Book analyst James Bell said Toyota needed to do more than discredit one report of unintended acceleration to reassure consumers. “Until they have a more definitive answer, the elephant stays in the room,” Bell said in an email.

RECALLS HURTING IMAGE

ALG, a Santa Barbara, Calif-based firm that tracks vehicle resale values, said Toyota’s recalls had damaged the brand. It said its survey of consumer attitudes showed Toyota had dropped to No. 6 from No. 1 in perceived quality.

In response to weaker demand, Toyota will probably need to extend aggressive discounts through June, ALG said.

Sikes had told police and reporters he was driving the car on a freeway when it unexpectedly surged forward and reached speeds exceeding 90 miles per hour.

Two NHTSA investigators joined Toyota experts to examine his Prius, including an on-board diagnostic system designed to record information about the car’s various systems.

NHTSA has been criticised by Congress for not aggressively investigating complaints against Toyota.

Authorities believe floor mat problems in Toyota and Lexus vehicles are linked to five US crash deaths since 2007. Another 47 crash fatalities reports over the past decade have been reported due to unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles, according to NHTSA.

There are 59 reports of fatalities linked to episodes of unintended acceleration for other automakers over the same period, NHTSA says. — Reuters

TORONTO, March 17 — Canadian lawmakers accused Toyota Motor Corp executives yesterday of waiting too long to inform the government of problems with faulty accelerators in some of the company’s vehicles.

Separately, Canada’s transport minister said his department would conduct an investigation into Toyota’s actions, and would consider making disclosure laws tougher if necessary.

Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, recalled more than 8 million vehicles in late January, 270,000 of them in Canada, over problems with sticky gas pedals and with floor mats that interfere with gas pedals and could cause unintended acceleration.

“Many Canadians have wondered whether their vehicles are safe, and we regret this has caused our customers both anxiety and inconvenience,” said Yoichi Tomihara, chief executive of Toyota Canada Inc.

The company told Transport Canada of the problems with the sticky pedals on January 21, the same day it announced the recall. On January 26, it temporary halted the production of eight of its most popular models in North America as it worked on a fix.

The lawmakers wanted to know why Toyota, which said it knew of the problems in October and began working with pedal supplier CTS Corp on a redesign later in the year, waited so long to inform the government.

“OK, you’ve got a serious safety problem, you’re already talking with your supplier about redesigning the faulty gas pedal, and nobody told Transport Canada or NHTSA (US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) for that matter, until after a recall was issued on January 21. That’s what you are telling us,” said Jeff Watson, a member of Parliament from the governing Conservative Party.

INVESTIGATION FORTHCOMING

Stephen Beatty, managing director of Toyota Canada, said that the problem was first identified in Europe, and that Toyota’s engineering department in Japan was in charge of dealing with CTS. He added that the company had to make sure it properly identified the problem before classifying it as a defect and informing the government.

He said the company is not obligated to tell the government of any complaints, only of defects, and it takes time to figure out whether a defect exists.

“Once we have identified a problem, we send it to Japan for review by engineering, and they come back to us with a report. As soon as we have that, we trigger (a recall).”

Transport Minister John Baird told reporters after the hearing that his department would look into whether or not Toyota sat on critical information too long and would also look at making the laws for disclosure tougher.

“If we have to raise the bar, make the law tougher with respect to disclosure, that’s something we’re prepared to do,” he said.

“What my department will do, based on the testimony they heard today and based on the work that they’ve done in the last six months, is investigate Toyota.”

In his testimony, Beatty said about 60 per cent of the 270,000 affected vehicles in Canada have been fixed and that the company is encouraging individuals to bring their cars to their dealers to have the work done if they haven’t already.

He said that there have been no instances in Canada of vehicles that have had the accelerator pedal fix being brought back with same problem.

When asked if there was something he would do differently in handling the problem, Beatty said he should have started the public information campaign around the pedal problem several days earlier, when the first recall message was sent to Transport Canada.

PASSING THE BUCK

The two-hour hearing was more staid than the US Senate hearing with Toyota in February, where voices were raised and tears were shed, but some MPs were clearly rankled.

“We’ve just been given a little bit of a demonstration of somebody passing the buck,” said opposition Liberal MP Joe Volpe at the end of the hearing.

“I’m absolutely flabbergasted ... Mr. Beatty says the government never asked us for any information, so we’re not obliged to give it, and the government says, well you guys are at fault, you should have given us the information because we needed it in order to provide safety and security.”

During the hearing, Yoshi Inaba, president and chief operating officer, Toyota Motor North America, said that the company was doing all it could to comply with government requests for information in Canada and the United States.

Toyota Canada employs about 7,000 people and has the capability to produce more than 420,000 vehicles a year. About 75 per cent of the vehicles it makes in Canada are exported to the United States. — Reuters

Legal action could cost Toyota over US$10 billion. — Reuters pic

Using federal racketeering laws to amend the consumer class-action complaints, which have grown in number to more than 80 suits in at least 40 states, exposes Toyota to much greater potential liability.

Under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisation Act, a commercial enterprise can be found liable for triple the damages for any harm caused by its fraudulent activities.

As a result, litigation that originally stood to reap more than US$2 billion (RM6.8 billion) in damages for Toyota owners could end up costing the cash-rich Japanese automaker in excess of US$10 billion, said Tim Howard, lead counsel for a team of law firms handling about half the cases.

Each of the revised lawsuits is “a much more robust and thorough complaint than the first rounds because of how the evidence has evolved since then,” Howard said.

A Toyota spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment yesterday. The automaker has declined to comment on pending litigation to date.

The updated complaints draw on numerous documents and congressional testimony by Toyota executives to make the case that the company was aware of unintended acceleration problems in its vehicles for several years, even as it continued to promote defective cars as safe and reliable.

One suit in Florida cites a technical service bulletin it says the automaker issued in August 2002 “concerning an engine surge or acceleration problem with the new 2002 Camry, with the solution to recalibrate the Engine Control Module.”

Toyota has insisted that electronics have nothing to do with sudden, unintended acceleration in its vehicles, pointing instead to entrapment of the gas pedal by ill-fitting floor mats or sticky gas pedals themselves.

Those two problems were singled out for correction in recalls of more than 8 million Toyota vehicles to date, the largest such action ever taken by the automaker.

The consumer lawsuits assert that Toyota’s alleged concealment of defects in its vehicles while advertising them as safe constitutes criminal fraud and thus falls under the definition of “racketeering activity.”

Howard said his consortium of law firms had updated existing consumer cases in eight states as of Tuesday, and filings were planned in at last 12 more by week’s end.

All those and others around the country are to be consolidated into a single class action in the next couple of months, following a hearing before a panel of judges set for next Thursday in US District Court in San Diego.

Litigation against Toyota has mounted quickly in the weeks since the recalls began for a problem linked to more than 50 crash deaths in Toyota and Lexus vehicles under investigation over the past decade.

Lawsuits related to injuries and deaths are the most obvious cases being brought against Toyota, and a class-action suit was filed in Los Angeles last month on behalf of US shareholders accusing Toyota of misleading investors.

The consumer class actions are based on the premise that the resale value of Toyotas has dropped substantially as a result of the company’s safety crisis.

Major automobile valuation services have downgraded the resale value of Toyotas, Howard said.

Toyota has long boasted one of the industry’s highest resale values for its vehicles, one of the major factors in its success in the US market. — Reuters

Nearly 1.2 million Corolla and Matrix models are affected by a stalling problem. — Reuters pic

In a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Toyota said it wanted to meet US officials to discuss an early-stage investigation of the stalling problem.

“Toyota does not believe that the alleged defect creates an unreasonable risk to motor vehicle safety,” Toyota’s regulatory affairs manager Chris Santucci said in the letter.

The letter was dated March 2 and available on the NHTSA Web site yesterday.

The discussion of the engine stalling problem comes at a time when Toyota’s safety record is under intense scrutiny. The automaker has recalled some 8.5 million vehicles this year, mostly for accelerator-related problems.

US safety regulators and members of three congressional panels have criticised the Japanese automaker for moving too slowly to address consumer complaints of unintended acceleration and other safety concerns.

NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation of Corolla stalling complaints in November 2009.

The agency said then that it had received 26 complaints of engines stalling in Toyota Corolla and Matrix models because of failures in the engine control modules.

US safety regulators said drivers reported the stalls happened “randomly” and some had occurred in highway driving or when drivers were passing through intersections.

Toyota said it did not believe that drivers would have any “prior warning” that the engine was about to stall because of a glitch with the engine’s electronic control unit, or ECU.

But Santucci said Toyota had concluded it would be better for the engine to stall out then “become damaged or dangerous,” putting it at risk of “catastrophic failures” or “fire.”

“Toyota would like to meet with the agency to discuss this issue,” Santucci said in the letter.

Toyota said it believed that the engine control unit could malfunction because of a crack in soldered joints in the unit or because of an electrical short. Both conditions could cause the engine to shut down without warning or fail to start, the automaker said.

The stalling problem affects 1.19 million Corolla and Matrix models from the 2005, 2006 and 2007 model years, Toyota said. — Reuters

Members of the media gather around a 2008 Toyota Prius in a stadium parking lot in San Diego, California. - Reuters pic

The Toyota brand slipped two notches from 2009 to the sixth spot in the JD Power and Associates Vehicle Dependability Study, which tallies vehicle dependability based on problems reported in the first three years of ownership.

Toyota still was the highest-ranking mainstream brand, with four models placed among the most dependable in their segments, including the top-selling Prius hybrid.

Toyota’s Lexus luxury brand tied with General Motors Co’s Buick for the third place. Lexus had been No 3 in the 2009 key quality ratings, losing the top spot for the first time since the once-dominant luxury line became part of the closely watched study.

The results come at a critical time for the world’s top automaker, which is struggling to regain consumer trust after a damaging series of recalls that has tarnished its once-sterling reputation for quality and reliability.

Porsche and Ford Motor Co’s Lincoln won the top two rankings in the study. Ford’s Mercury nameplate ranked fifth, behind Buick and Lexus.

Honda Motor Co’s mainstream Honda line and the blue oval Ford nameplate followed Toyota in the list.

The JD Power rankings are closely watched by automakers since they are seen as a key indicator of the resale value of vehicles and customer loyalty.

The study is based on responses from more than 52,000 owners of 2007 model-year vehicles and was fielded between October and December. Toyota launched the first of its recalls over unintended acceleration in late November.

Ford, the only major US automaker not to restructure under bankruptcy in 2009, outperformed rivals with all of its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands placed in the top 10 of the list.

Lincoln showed the most significant improvement in quality, climbing six positions from 2009.

The study also showed that seven of the 10 models with the lowest incidence of problems in the industry are from GM and Ford.

GM’s Cadillac DTS luxury sedan had the fewest problems, with 76 issues per 100 vehicles, compared with the industry average of 155 problems. That marked the first time in more than a decade that a domestic model has scored the least number of problems in the study.

JD Power said that for several brands including Cadillac, Ford, Hyundai, Lincoln and Mercury, consumer perceptions have not kept pace with their actual performance.

“It takes considerable time to positively change consumer perceptions of quality and dependability — sometimes a decade or more — so it is vital for manufacturers to continually improve quality and also to convince consumers of these gains,” said David Sargeant, vice president of research at JD Power.

Chrysler LLC, which emerged from bankruptcy in June under the management of Fiat, saw all of its Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands ranked below average in the study.

Chrysler was placed 20th, Dodge 28th and Jeep 34th in the study, which ranks 37 major nameplates. — Reuters

TOKYO, March 23 — Toyota Motor Corp has lifted its global production plans by 1 pe rcent to 7.57 million vehicles for 2010, anticipating better demand in Japan and other Asian markets, a source at a group company said today.

The world’s biggest automaker had told its suppliers in December that it planned to produce 7.49 million vehicles in the 2010 calendar year, but will notify them of the latest revision later today, the source told Reuters, declining to be identified because Toyota does not make those plans public.

Fuelled by subsidy-led demand for fuel-efficient cars in Japan, Toyota lifted its domestic production plan by 40,000 units, the source said.

In North America, its biggest market, a recall-driven production and sales suspension prompted Toyota to lower plans by 60,000 units, but that would be more than offset by an upward revision of 100,000 units in non-Japan markets, the person said.

The new output figure, which excludes minivehicle unit Daihatsu Motor Co and truck maker Hino Motors Ltd, would represent a 19 per cent jump from 2009.

Toyota, like the rest of the industry, is counting on double-digit sales rises in China and India to make up for an expected fall in European car demand after government subsidies run out. — Reuters

Akio Toyoda (left) with Yoshimi Inaba (right), President and COO of Toyota Motor North America, testifies in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb 24. – Reuters pic

Toyoda, peppered with questions about the recall debacle that has rocked Toyota’s reputation, told lawmakers he was “deeply sorry” for accidents and injuries involving Toyota cars. He said the company had lost its way during a period of fast growth but vowed to steer it back to the values that made it a watchword for quality.

Cheered by Toyota plant workers and dealers at an event organised by the automaker on Wednesday evening, Toyoda broke into tears under a giant display bearing the name of the company that his legendary grandfather founded.

“I believe that Toyota has always worked for the benefit of the United States,” Toyoda said. “I tried to convey that message from the heart, but whether it was broadly understood or not, I don’t know.”

He also offered a sober assessment of the challenges still ahead: “We at Toyota are at a crossroad. We need to rethink everything about our operation.”

Toyoda’s appearance in Washington marked a dramatic peak in a safety crisis that broke a month ago with a series of recalls over unintended acceleration and braking problems that now include more than 8.5 million vehicles globally.

The costs of the recall are set to grow with an agreement with New York state to speed customer repairs and provide alternative transportation, a pact likely to expand to other states.

Toyoda’s efforts to reassure US officials and consumers were undercut by a confrontation over a 2009 memo in which Toyota boasts of saving $100 million by persuading safety regulators to accept a relatively cheap recall of floor mats implicated in the unintended acceleration.

US Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who preceded Toyoda before the committee, simply labelled recalled Toyota vehicles as “not safe.”

LaHood also repeated a criticism he had leveled before, saying Toyota had become “a little safety deaf” until US regulators took the extraordinary step of dispatching a team to the automaker’s headquarters at the end of 2009.

ELECTRONICS PROBED

Dressed in a gray, pinstriped suit, Toyoda said he, more than anyone, wanted Toyota cars to be safe. “My name is on every car,” Toyoda said in English before using a translator to answer questions.

But Toyoda rejected the possibility that some of the acceleration problems are in the electronics rather than the recalled sticky accelerator mechanisms and floor mats that can trap the accelerator pedal.

“I’m absolutely confident that there is no problem with the electronic throttle system,” Toyoda told the committee.

Nevertheless, Toyota has hired outside consultancy Exponent Inc to research the electronic throttle, and lawmakers returned frequently to consumer complaints and some safety experts’ concerns about the throttles.

Ohio Democrat Marcy Kaptur was one of the few lawmakers to prick Toyoda’s grim-faced composure.

Waving a book celebrating Toyota’s commitment to quality, she said she was not satisfied with his testimony. “I don’t think it reflected adequate remorse for those who died.”

The exchange appeared to move Toyoda. “I came here from Japan to speak to the people of the world,” he responded. “I’m trying to speak from my heart, but I understand the criticism that my explanation does not go far enough.”

Chris Gidez, director of risk management and crisis communications at Hill & Knowlton, said Toyoda gets points for coming from Japan to testify and judgments will not be made in just one hearing. “This is going to be a marathon for Toyota.”

FIVE DEATHS

The unintended acceleration problems have been linked to five US deaths, with 29 other fatality reports being examined by US authorities.

Representative Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, warned Toyoda that his company would have to pay for the deaths and injuries as US lawsuits mount.

“You will be called upon to pay compensation,” Kanjorski said.

Mark Saylor, an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer, was killed last August, along with three members of his family, when the Toyota Lexus sedan he was driving sped out of control. The accident sparked the recent recalls.

Oversight panel chairman Edolphus Towns and other lawmakers blasted Toyota for the July 2009 memo boasting of limiting a 2007 recall of floor mats that were later implicated in that fatal accident.

The memo obtained by congressional investigators appears to be a briefing for Toyota’s North American President Yoshi Inaba, and prepared by Toyota’s Washington D.C. staff.

Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican, called it an embarrassing day for regulators and for Toyota.

“I’m embarrassed for you, sir,” Mica told Inaba, who was testifying with Toyoda. “I’m embarrassed for the thousands of Americans who work at 10 plants across the United States.”

Inaba said he could not recall discussing the memo at a meeting held about two weeks after he took over Toyota’s US operations. He later added that the memo did not present Toyota’s guiding principles or beliefs.

In a further embarrassment, both Toyoda and Inaba were forced to admit that they were unaware of key pieces of information that might have helped the automaker respond faster to safety concerns.

Inaba, who was brought back out of retirement by Toyoda to head US operations in June, said he had not been aware that Toyota’s European operations had identified the same problem with sticky accelerator pedals a year before the US recall.

Toyoda said had not been briefed in any detail on a key meeting between Toyota safety executives and US regulators in December 2009 where officials have said they hammered home the message that the automaker was moving too slowly.

Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, said Toyota appeared to suffer from “extraordinary compartmentalisation,” a criticism echoed by other lawmakers in two days of hearings.

CRIMINAL PROBE

Toyota now faces a criminal investigation and a securities probe in the United States as well as unresolved questions about hundreds of incidents of unintended acceleration reported by consumers.

The FBI raided the Detroit operations of three Japanese suppliers of electronic components to the auto industry on Wednesday, but a person familiar with the investigation said the raids were unrelated to the Toyota recalls.

In his statement to the committee, Toyoda extended his condolences to the Saylor family and said he was “deeply sorry” that the company had allowed quality standards to slip during a period of fast growth over the past decade.

Toyota has promised internal reforms, including a new committee on safety chaired by Toyoda himself.

The crisis has shattered confidence in the world’s largest automaker, whose vehicles have long been known for their reliability and high resale value.

At a Feb 3 congressional hearing, LaHood had advised owners of recalled Toyotas to stop driving their cars. He later told reporters he had misspoken.

LaHood reiterated on Wednesday that Toyota owners should take their vehicles to dealers to make sure they are repaired.

He also repeated promises that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would thoroughly investigate the possibility of electronic problems causing unintended acceleration.

The stoic composure of Toyoda and Inaba contrasted with LaHood who was at times irritated and combative.

When Californian Democrat Judy Chu asked whether NHTSA had ceased to be a watchdog and instead become a lapdog of the auto industry, LaHood bristled.

“On my watch, we’ve been a lapdog for nobody,” he boomed.

Toyoda, who took just a few questions from reporters, only appeared to relax at the evening rally organised for Toyota dealers and workers.

One woman who works in a Toyota plant in Alabama, building engines, asked what she could do to help the company in its crisis.

“Let’s make a better car,” Toyoda said, breaking into English. – Reuters

Toyota Motor Corporation President and CEO Akio Toyoda (R) shakes hand with employees at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, Feb 25, 2010. – Reuters pic

“Your presence there gave me strength,” Toyoda said to workers, some of whom were among hundreds of employees, dealers and others who traveled to the nation’s capital to bolster Toyota and him personally during hearings into recalls and other safety questions engulfing the company founded by his grandfather.

“It inspired me,” Toyoda said at the Georgetown facility before expressing thanks “from the bottom of my heart.”

Clad in a red sweater with a Toyota logo, Toyoda talked and shook hands with workers on the assembly line.

Earlier, Toyoda met in Washington for 30 minutes with LaHood, the Obama administration’s top transportation official who testified along with the executive on Wednesday before the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“They had a cordial and open discussion,” Toyota said in a statement.

“He (Toyoda) reiterated his focus on putting customers first and making sure that going forward the company will do all it can to further improve communications and work more closely with the department,” Toyota said.

A LaHood aide characterised the first face-to-face meeting as productive.

The two spoke earlier in the month when LaHood, who has called Toyota Motor “a little safety deaf,” phoned Toyoda to convey his concerns.

Toyoda told lawmakers on Wednesday that he took personal responsibility for the crisis.

LaHood has said he would hold Toyoda to his pledge to take US safety concerns seriously.

Toyota has recalled more than 6 million cars and trucks in the US in recent months for loose floor mats that can jam the accelerator and for gas pedals that will not spring back as designed.

Regulators believe floor mats are linked to at least five US crash deaths, with 29 other consumer reports under review alleging fatalities associated with unintended acceleration.

US regulators and Toyota also are looking into whether there are problems with electronic throttles. Toyota has said those systems are sound, and NHTSA found no problems in previous reviews.

But Congress has questioned whether regulators probed hard enough on unintended acceleration over the years and whether NHTSA has the expertise to handle investigations into the sophisticated electronic systems equipped in today’s vehicles.

Separately on Thursday, the Senate Commerce Committee released its witness list for next Tuesday’s hearing focusing on Toyota recalls with special emphasis on the role of regulators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Toyota North America President Yoshimi Inaba and LaHood will highlight testimony. Senators also will hear from Toyota’s executive vice president for quality control, Shinichi Sasaki, and David Strickland, NHTSA administrator.

Inaba also testified alongside Toyoda at the House Oversight and Government Reform hearing. – Reuters