A DOCUMENT claiming Toyota saved more than $100 million by getting US regulators to agree a cheap fix for unintended acceleration problems raised pressure on the company’s president as he arrived in Washington to prepare for a grilling from congress.
Separately, two leading US congressmen said Toyota “consistently dismissed” the possibility that electronics flaws caused unintended acceleration in its vehicles, and made misleading statements on the adequacy of recalls.
“Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report, and made misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls,” House energy and commerce committee chairman Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak, head of a subcommittee, said in a letter to US sales unit president Jim Lentz.
The lawmakers also called US regulators’ response to complaints “seriously deficient”.
The revelations came as Toyota acknowledged it had received a subpoena from a US federal grand jury over its handling of safety problems with its cars in a development that opens the door to criminal prosecution and hefty fines for the Japanese company.
The world’s biggest carmaker also said it had received a subpoena from the Los Angeles office of the US Securities and Exchange Commission asking it to produce documents relating to “unintended acceleration of Toyota vehicles and the company’s disclosure policy and practices”.
Toyota has recalled over 8.5 million vehicles globally in recent months for problems including sticky accelerators, accelerators that can be pinned down by loose floormats and a braking glitch affecting its hybrid models.
Regulators believe five deaths are associated with floor mats and are reviewing up to 29 other fatality reports to see if they are related to unintended acceleration.
A 2009 internal document turned over to lawmakers and made available yesterday shows Toyota’s Washington DC staff trumpeting savings of more than $100 million by convincing regulators to end a 2007 investigation of sudden acceleration complaints with a relatively cheap floormat recall. – (Reuters/Bloomberg/ Financial Times Limited)
