OTTAWA -- Toyota Canada Inc. officials were under attack on Tuesday from federal MPs for their failure to notify regulators about safety issues regarding its accelerator pedal when the car maker first became aware of the flaw.
The company received its first complaint of unintended acceleration in late October, but MPs wanted to know why the world's No. 1 car maker didn't notify Transport Canada and Toyota owners until January, after it issued a recall for Canadian cars.
"We know you are trying to protect your business. That's your culture. But we are trying to protect consumers," said Mario Laframboise, a Bloc Quebecois MP.
But Toyota Canada shot back, saying the company moves faster on possible safety defects, and recalls, than its U.S.-based competitors. Further, it needed to investigate the complaint to see if it had merit -- and if so, have a solution ready to deploy.
"You may want to go back and do some research so you can benchmark our performance," Stephen Beatty, managing director of Toyota Canada, said in response to harsh questioning by Conservative MPs.
The company kicked off its opening statement to the Parliamentary hearing by expressing "regret" for any "anxiety" that its worldwide recall of vehicles, and reiterated that the safety of its products is of the "upmost" importance.
Company executives added that, in retrospect, they probably should have warned the public and stakeholders sooner about possible design flaws.
They acknowledged Canadian regulators had recently received 17 complaints regarding Toyota vehicles -- but only one of those was related to unintended acceleration. Further, a review of its Canadian models, with all-weather floor mats built specifically for this market, did not share some of the same potential flaws as Toyota's U.S. models.
Still, "we have 100% on the remedies for the floor mat and pedal assemblies," Mr. Beatty said, adding nearly two-thirds of recalled Canadian cars have been repaired.
MPs on Parliament Hill have finally got around to questioning Toyota executives about the safety of their vehicles -- nearly a month after U.S. legislators on Capitol Hill heard from the car maker's chief executive, Akio Toyoda, who flew to Washington from Tokyo for hearings.
Over a quarter of million Toyota-made vehicles, or 270,000, were recalled across Canada – a.nd eight million worldwide -- in an effort to address issues leading to unintended acceleration.
The Japanese car maker, No. 1 worldwide, has blamed sticky accelerators and floor mats for the cases of unintended acceleration. When he appeared before U.S. legislators, Mr. Toyoda apologized, and acknowledged the company's rapid expansion in recent years might have affected the quality of its vehicles.
As a precautionary measure, Toyota temporarily halted production of eight models in Canada and the United States as it searched for a solution to the accelerator glitch. Production has since resumed.
Last week, senior Transport Canada officials told the House of Commons that it received 17 complaints regarding unexplained acceleration issues in its vehicles in the years before the company began a major series of safety recalls. The officials said there was no evidence suggesting the need for a recall prior to the autumn of 2009.
Mr. Beatty said only one of those complaints, involving a 2006 Camry, was linked to an unintended surge in acceleration. The company investigated, and discovered evidence that eventually led to a recall in Canada.
"We had no intention of holding back information from regulators," Mr. Beatty said.
Jeff Watson, a Conservative MP from Essex-Windsor, questioned why Toyota first discussed problems regarding its pedal with its pedal supplier before disclosing with Transport Canada. Toyota first learned of a possible regarding its pedals in late October.
"There was a serious safety problem, and you are talking to [the supplier] about a redesign but no one told Transport Canada until after the recall [in January]?," a frustrated Mr. Watson told Toyota officials.
Mr. Beatty later explained the potential pedal problem in Canada was due to wear and condensation, and the company could not "trigger" a response before it had "a solution it could deploy".
The acceleration cases have caused a public relations nightmare for Toyota. Last week, just as the car maker had appeared to put the worst behind it, a California driver claimed his Toyota Prius raced out of control on a California highway. But both Toyota and U.S. regulators said they found no evidence to support the driver's claims.
Car analysts 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 has said there is no evidence for that latter possibility -- a hypothesis that some critics have dubbed "the ghost in the machine".
That point was reiterated Tuesday by Mr. Beatty.
Financial Post
