US safety regulators are satisfied with a Toyota Motor Corp plan for fixing an accelerator problem that is part of a widening global recall and unprecedented sales and production halt, a government official said on Saturday.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) engineers have reviewed Toyota’s proposal for preventing gas pedals in eight models from sticking and have raised no objections, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has yet to be publicly announced.
Toyota has issued a series of recent recalls covering 5.6 million vehicles in the US because of sudden acceleration in some vehicles. It is the largest ever recall for Toyota and among the biggest for an automaker in US history.
The problem has affected popular selling Toyota cars, as well as its luxury Lexus models and is suspected of causing crashes that led to 19 fatalities over the past decade, government officials have said.
Nearly 2 million vehicles have also been recalled in Europe.
PSA Peugeot Citroen said on Saturday it would recall 100,000 Peugeot 107 and Citroen C1 models made at a factory in the Czech Republic where the French group and Toyota jointly make cars.
Some 75,000 Toyota vehicles have been recalled in China.
Most of the vehicles recalled in the US were singled out over concerns that gas pedals could get jammed on floor mats. Toyota is modifying gas pedals, redesigning floor mats and taking other steps to address that issue.
The subject of the fix reviewed by NHTSA this week and expected to be announced by Toyota within days covers more than 2 million vehicles equipped with gas pedals that may not spring back as designed.
Meanwhile, Japanese media yesterday urged domestic automakers to restore their reputation for “quality and safety” following Toyota’s massive recall.
“The ‘myth of quality’ at a crossroads,” a headline in the business daily Nikkei said a day after Honda joined Toyota in recalling cars worldwide as it cited a potential fire risk linked to a window switch problem.
“Japanese automakers should keep in mind that quality and safety form the foundations of public trust in the Japanese way of manufacturing,” major daily the Yomiuri Shimbun said in an editorial.
Media blamed the rash of recalls largely on standardized use of parts in different models and in different countries for cost-cutting purposes.
“It is necessary to fully examine whether [Toyota] has been lax in designing and quality control,” said another major daily, the Mainichi Shimbun.
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