Toyota's president of US operations apologised for the company's handling of safety issues on Tuesday while insisting that electronic problems did not contribute to sudden acceleration of its cars.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood argued that such a possibility could not be ruled out. Toyota's James Lentz and LaHood presented differing views in prepared testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative panel, the first of three congressional panels holding hearings on Toyota's problems.
Lentz apologised for the company's slow handling of problems in its vehicles, saying it took too long to confront the issue. "We have not lived up to the high standards our customers and the public have come to expect from Toyota," he said.
Lentz, certain to face hostile questioning from politicians, said that Toyota had poor communications within the company, with government regulators and with its customers.
At the same time, he stuck to Toyota's insistence that stuck gas pedals were caused by one of two problems - misplaced floor mats and sticking accelerator pedals.
"We are confident that no problems exist with the electric throttle control system in our vehicles," he said.
He cited "fail-safe mechanisms" in the cars were designed to shut off or reduce engine power "in the event of a system failure."
But LaHood, also to testify on Tuesday, said in his prepared testimony that the government's investigation of Toyota includes the possibility that electric problems had a role in sudden acceleration.
"We will continue to investigate all possible causes of unintended acceleration," LaHood said.
He said that the thousands of recalls by Toyota were important steps but "we don't maintain that they answer every question" about causes of sudden acceleration. Also being heard from Tuesday are drivers like Rhonda Smith, a Tennessee woman whose Toyota-made Lexus suddenly zoomed to 160k/h as she tried to get it to stop - shifting to neutral, trying to throw the car into reverse and hitting the emergency brake.
Finally, her car slowed down before she crashed.
Smith wrote down her feelings after the 2006 scare, saying she had "a near death experience, which occurred on October 12, 2006 between approximately 10:50 and 11:00 am At almost exact 10 kilometres God intervened" and slowed the car. She said that nothing she had tried had worked.
Smith's description of her nightmare ride in October 2006 will precede testimony by safety experts - and set the tone for the hearing.
Toyota executives and the secretary of transportation also will be at the witness table.
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative panel will be armed with preliminary staff findings that Toyota and the government failed to protect the public.
Toyota, which has recalled 8.5 million vehicles to fix acceleration problems in several models and braking issues in the 2010 hybrid Prius, is bringing apologies to the hearing.
"Put simply, 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," said Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc.
More than 150 Toyota dealers gathered in the Capitol on Tuesday before the hearing to lobby politicians in support of the carmaker. Many wore buttons saying, "I am Toyota in America."
"We made a choice, a conscious decision, to be part of something, rather than just submit to it," said Tammy Darvish, a Washington area dealer who helped organise the action, which Toyota also helped coordinate.
Tuesday's hearing, along with a second House hearing Wednesday, present a high bar in the company's attempts to persuade the public it cares about safety.
Toyota dealers are complaining that the besieged carmaker is being treated unfairly by the US government. Some have questioned the government's impartiality because it has invested billions in two competitors.
The US owns a majority stake in General Motors after bailing out the company last year. It also owns a smaller portion of Chrysler.
At a news conference in advance of the hearing Tuesday morning, some complained the government is picking on Toyota, even though there have been dozens of recalls of other carmakers' vehicles in the past year.
Representative Bart Stupak, a Democrat and chairman of the subcommittee, wrote Toyota that the company misled the public by failing to reveal that misplaced floor mats and sticking gas pedals accounted for only some of the acceleration problems.
He said the company resisted the possibility that electronics problems were the cause.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hear from company president Akio Toyoda, who is expected to speak to the committee and the American public through a translator.
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