Toyota shares move up on Toyoda apology

Shares in Toyota Motor Corp ruled higher with the head of the world's largest automaker making a public apology for safety problems. He said the company would bring in outside experts to review quality controls.

However, the company's stock in Tokyo registered only modest gains in comparison with a 4 per cent jump for its US-listed shares on Friday following the news conference by Toyota president Akio Toyoda. The stock has lost a fifth of its value over the past two weeks.

Toyota, which recalled more than 8 million vehicles around the world because of problems related to unintended acceleration, has also decided to recall its new Prius hybrid in Japan in a bid to fix a braking software glitch, according sources.

The company is also reportedly considering a recall of its Sai and Lexus gasoline-electric hybrid models that use the same brake system as the Prius, according to the Nikkei business daily's website.

A Toyota spokesman merely said the company was also looking at the Sai and Lexus HS250h and declined to comment further.

The Sai sedan is the second hybrid-only model under the Toyota brand and the HS250h being the automaker's first dedicated hybrid model under the premium Lexus brand.
 
According to the company, as at the end of December, it had sold 15,500 HS250h cars in Japan and overseas, since it was released in July. Sales of Sai, which was released in Japan in December, had clocked 3,800 units in the first month of its sales.
 
The recall over brake problems of 2010 Prius hybrid in both the US and Japan would affect more than 270,000 vehicles, according to sources familiar with the matter. The move would affect about 100,000 units in the US and around 170,000 units in Japan.
 
Dealers in Japan who have already been notified of the recall will start undertaking repairs after Toyota reports it to the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry. Sources say this is likely to happen early this week.

Toyota officials had earlier emphasised that the problem with the Prius brakes not working properly at times did not involve serious defects and that the company had sought to fix them on a voluntary basis under what goes by the name of a "service campaign."