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WASHINGTON - On the eve of a hearing on Toyota Motor Corp. quality issues, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman issued a double blast at the automaker and its U.S. highway safety regulator, Automotive News reported.
Waxman, D-Calif., said that Toyota documents given to the committee suggest that the automaker has consistently dismissed the possibility that electronic controls could cause unwanted acceleration.
He also said that Toyota's most recent test of electronic interference appears flawed and that the company issued misleading statements about the adequacy of its recent recalls.
"Our preliminary assessment is that Toyota resisted the possibility that electronic defects could cause safety concerns, relied on a flawed engineering report, and made misleading public statements concerning the adequacy of recent recalls to address the risk of sudden unintended acceleration," he said in a letter today to Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.
The letter was co-signed by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., chairman of the committee's oversight panel.
The committee found that Toyota customer-complaint operators identified floor mats or gas pedals as the cause of only 16 percent of the unintended acceleration reports, the letter said.
In addition, the two recent Toyota recalls have been inadequate, it said. About 70 percent of the acceleration complaints to Toyota have involved vehicles that weren't recalled in October or January, according to the letter.
In a separate letter, Waxman also criticized the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's responses to consumer complaints of unwanted acceleration in Toyota vehicles.
The agency also lacks the expertise to evaluate defects in electronic controls, it said.
"NHTSA has lacked the expertise needed to address this serious defect and has conducted only cursory and ineffective investigations," the letter said.
Lentz and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood are scheduled to appear tomorrow at the committee hearing.
Waxman's letters told them that they should be prepared to address these issues at the hearing.
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