Toyota's Lentz Admits Slow Response on Safety Issues, Promises Improvement
By Michelle Krebs February 23, 2010Toyota's top U.S. sales executive will tell Congressmen Tuesday that the automaker was too 
slow to act on safety issues, was poor at communicating but will do better in the future.
"It has taken us too long to come to grips with a rare but serious set of safety issues, despite all of our good faith efforts," Jim Lentz, Toyota Motor Sales president and COO will tell the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. His statement, to be read to the committee, was released by Toyota Tuesday morning.
Lentz said the automaker's slow reaction has been "compounded by poor communications both within our company and with regulators and consumers."
Lentz will attempt to head off grilling by Congressmen who most certainly will ask why did it take so long for Toyota to address safety isues.
Lentz said in the case of vehicles recalled for floormats that can entrap the gas pedal, Toyota "focused too narrowly on the technical issues without taking full account of the way customers used our vehicles."
In the case of the recall covering vehicles with potentially sticky accelerators, Lentz said Toyota "failed to promtply analyze and respond to information emerging from Eurpe and in the United States."
Both issues have the potential to lead to unintended acceleration.
Lentz said Toyota is "confident" it has come up with are "effective and durable." He said Toyota also is confident that no problems exist with the electronic throttle control, which some customers and experts have suspected is the culprit.
In addition, Lentz reiterated that Toyota Motor Co. President Akio Toyoda, who personally will testify before the House Oversight committee on Wednesday, will lead a "top-to-bottom review" of Toyota's quality-control systems and will install quality control officers in each region. In addition, Toyota will install brake-override systems in all of its vehicles as another safety measure against unintended acceleration, he said.
"We acknowledge these mistakes, we apologize for them and we have learned from them," Lentz said. "We now understand we must think differently when investigint complains, and communicat faster, better and more effictively withour customers an dour regulators."
"Nothing matters more to Toyota then the safety and reliability of the vehicles our customers drive," he added. "We fully intend to produce even safer, high quality vehicles in the future, even as we pave the way with the next generation hybrid and electric vehicles that our society needs." -- Michelle Krebs, Senior Analyst and Editor at Large
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Amazing how a company that prides itself on efficient management and swift communication can be so bad at both.
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