Toyota Extends Recalls to Hybrids to Repair Brakes

Toyota Extends Recalls to Hybrids to Repair Brakes (Update2)
By Yuki Hagiwara and Makiko Kitamura


Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Toyota Motor Corp. will recall 437,000 hybrid cars globally to fix faulty braking systems on four models, including the Prius, adding to almost 8 million vehicles the company is repairing for separate defects.

The world’s biggest carmaker will halt sales of SAI and Lexus HS250h sedans and Prius plug-in hybrids, said President Akio Toyoda, speaking at a Tokyo press conference.

The action threatens to further tarnish Toyota’s reputation as a leader in gasoline-electric hybrids, a technology it plans to offer on all models. Toyota, grappling with its worst recall crisis, has lost about $31 billion in market value since Jan. 21, when it began taking back millions of vehicles for defects linked to unintended acceleration.

“The Prius is synonymous with hybrids and therefore, given the scale, the recalls can erode consumers’ trust in these cars,” said Tatsuya Mizuno, director of Mizuno Credit Advisory in Tokyo. “The damage to Toyota is huge as the Prius was such a high profile model.” .............(more)

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