US House panel: Toyota misled public, dismissed electronic defects

• Source: Xinhua
• [14:41 February 23 2010]
• Comments

Toyota Motor Corp. repeatedly discounted the idea that electronic problems could be to blame for sudden acceleration incidents, and the government's response was "seriously deficient," a US House panel said in Washington on Monday.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee and its investigations subcommittee chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, outlined their preliminary findings Monday, one day ahead of a hearing on Toyota's recall of 8.5 million vehicles worldwide for sudden acceleration issues.

"Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report and made misleading public statements," the committee said in a letter to Toyota Motor Sales USA president Jim Lentz.

The committee also said the US government didn't adequately investigate.

"NHTSA's response to complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles appears to have been seriously deficient," the committee said in a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

Despite getting more than 2,600 complaints since 2000, which now allege at least 34 deaths, and conducting six separate investigations into the issue of runaway Toyota vehicles, "NHTSA conducted only one cursory investigation in 2004 into the possibility that defects in electronic controls could be responsible for these incidents," the committee said in the letter.

Toyota also rejected electronics as a problem, the committee found. "Toyota consistently dismissed the possibility that electronic failures could be responsible for incidents of sudden unintended acceleration," the committee wrote to Lentz.