TOKYO
Toyota's president emerged from seclusion yesterday to apologize and discuss criticism that the automaker mishandled a crisis over sticking gas pedals. Yet he stopped short of ordering a recall for the company's iconic Prius hybrid for braking problems.
Akio Toyoda, appointed to the top job at Toyota Motor Corp. last June, promised to beef up quality control, saying, "We are facing a crisis."
Toyoda, grandson of the company's founder, said he personally would head a special committee to review checks within the company, go over consumer complaints and listen to outside experts to come up with a fix.
"I apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the concern that we have given to so many customers," said Toyoda, speaking at his first news conference since the Jan. 21 global recall of 4.5 million vehicles.
Toyota's failure to stem its widening safety crisis has stunned consumers and experts who had come to expect only streamlined efficiency from a company at the pinnacle of the global auto industry.
"Toyota needs to be more assertive in terms of providing consumers comfort that the immediate problem is being addressed ... and that it can deal with these crises," said Sherman Abe, a business professor at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.
It took prodding from the U.S. government for Toyota to recall the vehicles, about half of them in North America, for gas pedals that can stick and cause uncontrolled acceleration.
Asked if he should have acted more quickly, Toyoda replied in hesitant English: "I will do my best."
Toyoda was the second successive Toyota president to offer an apology for defects in the company's cars. The first, Katsuaki Watanabe, shocked a news conference in 2006, bowing low to the group before promising to improve quality.
Toyoda bowed as he greeted reporters, but not in apology. He told the hastily called news conference that the company had not decided what to do about problems in the braking system of the Prius gas-electric hybrid. The fuel-efficient, low-pollution car is a leader in its field and a symbol of Toyota technology.
Toyoda and Shinichi Sasaki, who oversees quality control, offered no new explanations for the braking problem.
Prius drivers in Japan and the U.S. have complained of a short delay before the brakes kick in -- a flaw Toyota says can be fixed with a software programming change. The lag occurs as the car is switching between brakes for the gas engine and the electric motor -- a process that is key to the hybrid's increased mileage.
Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said yesterday that the company continues to weigh options on how to handle repair of the problem, and it is communicating with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The options include a service campaign in which Toyota would notify owners to bring their cars in for repairs, or a full-fledged safety recall. Michels said he could not say when Toyota would make a decision.
The automaker said it fixed the programming glitch in Prius models that went on sale since last month, but has done nothing on 270,000 Prius cars sold last year in Japan and the U.S.
The lack of action has raised questions about whether there is a bigger problem.
Sasaki denied any cover-up.
"We have nothing to hide. We have just been investigating," he said.
Sasaki said that complaints were climbing by the day. The company was checking into them, one by one, and test-driving customers' cars that had developed problems, he said. But he appeared to view the problem as minor, occurring only at slow speeds.
"We don't see it as critical because if you push on it a bit, then the car will stop," he said of the brake pedal.
Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Tokyo, said that Toyota may be trying to avoid the large costs involved with a recall. The automaker has already said that repairs for the gas pedal recall and lost sales will cost it $2 billion.
"Toyota is saying ... there is no real problem yet also announced they fixed the problem as of January," he said. "Odd, given that there is no problem to fix."
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