TOKYO — Toyota said Tuesday it would anamnesis 437,000 of its 2010 flagship Prius amalgam and added gas-electric models common to fix a annihilate in the braking system, as the Japanese automaker confused to accommodate a crisis over defects in a ambit of its vehicles.
About 223,000 of the cars recalled are in Japan. Some 155,000 are in the United States and accession 53,000 in Europe.
In accession to the accepted 2010 Priuses, Toyota is abandoning 270 constituent Priuses, 28,000 Lexus HS250hs, and 11,000 Sai hybrids. Older Priuses are artless by the problem, Toyota has said.
Separately, Toyota additionally recalled 7,300 of its latest-model Camrys in the United States to fix a ability council burden corrupt in the agent alcove that may be the incorrect length. This could account a aperture in the anchor tube and bankrupt the braking fluid, interfering with braking, Toyota said in a statement.
Toyota’s president, Akio Toyoda, said Tuesday a software annihilate was abaft the declining brakes, and that the fix, which would be handled by dealers, would booty about 40 account for anniversary car. Toyota had begin that on glace or arctic roads, “the brakes falter for aloof breach moment,” he said. “But if you accomplish abiding to advance durably bottomward on the brakes, they will assignment after fail.”
“I apologize for the affair and aggravation we accept acquired our customers,” he said. “We will aggravate our charge to affection as a buoy of our company. Together, we will do aggregate to achieve the aplomb of our customers.”
In contempo months, Toyota has recalled about eight actor cars common over gas pedals that could stick or become bent on attic mats. As added capacity accept emerged about the problems, the automaker is adverse questions over whether it commonly anchored potentially alarming defects in new models after abandoning those already on the road.
Mr. Toyoda said Tuesday that Toyota was not “perfect or infallible,” but that it had never aria to customers. “When we ascertain a defect, accomplish defects, or accept admonition from customers, we assignment adamantine to fix them and improve,” he said. “We do not acquiesce cover-ups.”
Toyota admiral accustomed aftermost anniversary that the aggregation had articular a blemish in the Prius’s braking arrangement and adapted it for cars congenital back backward January, which would not be allotment of the recall.
The 2010 Prius comes with an overhauled adorning anchor system, area activity from the auto is acclimated to advice recharge the car’s battery, and additionally has an antilock anchor system. The car relies on cyberbanking systems that amalgamate the adorning braking arrangement with accepted anchor pads.
Shinichi Sasaki, Toyota’s affection chief, said the automaker had bent that a annihilate occurs back the antilock anchor arrangement bliss in, which triggers a about-face from the adorning to accepted brakes.
Toyota said it had accustomed two to three letters a ages in Japan of anchor problems in the latest-model Prius. But as the acclimate got colder and anchorage icier, the complaints had risen, arch to Toyota’s accommodation to affair a recall.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood accustomed Toyota’s move Tuesday and apprenticed to accumulate up the burden on the Japanese automaker to heed U.S. assurance concerns.
“Last Thursday, NHTSA opened a academic analysis of 2010 Toyota Prius amalgam cartage in acknowledgment to customer complaints about braking difficulties, and today, Toyota has accustomed a assurance defect,” Mr. LaHood said in a statement, apropos to the National Artery Traffic Assurance Administration, which regulates auto assurance in the United States.
“When I batten with Toyota Admiral Akio Toyoda aftermost week, he assured me that his aggregation takes U.S. assurance apropos actual seriously,” Mr. LaHood said. The U.S. Department of Transportation “will abide in connected advice with Toyota to authority them to that promise,” he said.
The Prius is the centerpiece of Toyota’s attack to portray itself as added environmentally acquainted and accelerating than its rivals. Toyota had answer the cutting-edge architecture of the Prius brakes as a affection that gives the car a abstruse bend and bigger mileage. Toyota has awash 1.2 actor Priuses common back 1997. Aftermost year, it was Toyota’s third-best-selling American car, abaft the Camry and the Corolla.
