WASHINGTON – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today that Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda’s visit to the United States “has been a game changer” in the automaker’s concern about the safety of its U.S. vehicles, Automotive News reported.

“Toyota became a little safety-deaf,” LaHood told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. “Things have changed.”

LaHood said safety concerns that had been voiced internally in the past by Toyota’s North American executives “might not have been heard in Japan.”

Toyoda has agreed to testify today before the House panel.

In prepared testimony released yesterday, Toyoda said, “Toyota’s priority has traditionally been the following: first, safety; second, quality, and third, volume. These priorities became confused.”

Toyoda’s testimony added: “We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today.”

LaHood has said he spoke with Toyoda in recent months to urge him to make safety a higher priority.

This phone call followed a December visit by NHTSA officials to Toyota executives in Japan to express concern that they weren’t taking complaints of unintended acceleration seriously enough. In January, NHTSA also met with Toyota managers in Washington to urge them to recall vehicles for sticky pedals.

WASHINGTON – Toyota Motor Corp. apologized for letting safety standards slip during a period of fast growth and vowed to respond more quickly to consumer complaints as two days of congressional hearings crucial to the automaker’s reputation began, Reuters reported.

“We now understand that we must think differently when investigating complaints and communicate faster, better and more effectively with our customers and our regulators,” said Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc.

Under questioning, Lentz agreed that 70 percent of complaints about unintended acceleration remained unexplained. “That is probably fair to say,” he said during a 2-hour-and-15-minute grilling from lawmakers. “There are many factors that lead to it.”

President Akio Toyoda, who will testify Wednesday, said in prepared testimony he was “deeply sorry” for accidents caused by safety problems with Toyota vehicles and detailed a set of reforms that would shift control of recall decisions away from the automaker’s Japanese headquarters.

“We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that,” Toyoda said.

Lentz echoed that in his remarks: “The company’s processes from top to bottom are being re-evaluated,” he said.

WASHINGTON – Toyota Motor Corp. apologized for letting safety standards slip during a period of fast growth and vowed to respond more quickly to consumer complaints as two days of congressional hearings crucial to the automaker’s reputation began on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

President Akio Toyoda said he was “deeply sorry” for accidents caused by safety problems with Toyota vehicles and detailed a set of reforms that would shift control of recall decisions away from the automaker’s Japanese headquarters.

The world’s largest automaker is seeking to repair damage over unintended acceleration and braking problems that have led to the recall of more than 8.5 million vehicles globally.

“We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that,” Toyoda said in written testimony for a hearing scheduled for Wednesday.

Toyota’s recent safety problems revolve around sticky accelerators, accelerators that can be pinned down by loose floor mats and a braking glitch affecting its hybrid models.

But many lawmakers, some Toyota owners and safety experts fear Toyota’s current recalls do not cover all complaints of runaway acceleration and also want reforms at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Toyota’s top-ranking U.S. executive, Jim Lentz, arrived for Tuesday’s hearing in a silver 2010 Toyota Highlander SUV, one of the vehicles subject to the sticky accelerator recall.

“We now understand that we must think differently when investigating complaints and communicate faster, better and more effectively with our customers and our regulators,” said Lentz, Toyota’s U.S. sales chief.

Under questioning, Lentz agreed that 70 percent of complaints about unintended acceleration remained unexplained. “That is probably fair to say,” he said. “There are many factors that lead to it.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he would hold Toyoda to his assurance that the carmaker is working to address all safety issues.

Toyota Motor Corp., struggling to allay customers’ concerns about the safety of their vehicles, announced Monday that it would install a brake override system in more models to ensure that drivers will be able to bring them to a halt, The Detroit News reported.

Toyota announced in November that it would install a failsafe brake override feature in more than 5 million vehicles recalled in the United States for acceleration-related issues and eventually introduce it on all new models.

The electronic system, first introduced by German luxury brands a few years ago, automatically cuts engine power if the brake and the accelerator pedals are applied simultaneously.

“Expansion of this brake override feature underscores Toyota’s commitment to building the safest and most reliable vehicles on the road, as we have for 50 years, and to ensuring that our customers have complete confidence in the vehicles they drive,” said Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.

Toyota made the announcement as Lentz and other senior executives prepare for two congressional hearings this week on the company’s recall of around 8.5 million vehicles worldwide — more than 6 million in the U.S. alone — primarily for issues related to unintended acceleration.

Toyota said vehicles that would get brake override include model year 2005-10 Tacoma pickups, 2009-10 Venza crossovers and 2008-10 Sequoia SUVs.

Toyota previously announced that the system would be installed in 2007-10 Camrys, 2005-10 Avalons, and the 2007-10 Lexus ES 350 sedan, 2006-10 IS 350 and 2006-10 IS 250 models.

The automaker said in a statement that the brake override feature was not an integral part of its recall fix, which aims to reduce the risk of gas pedal entrapment by redesigning or fixing the pedals and adjusting the floor of the car to increase the clearance.

Brake override is being offered as an extra measure of confidence for Toyota owners, the company said.

It will be installed on Tacoma and Venza models while the recall modifications are performed. Sequoia owners will be notified separately from the recall for potentially sticky pedals.

Brake override will be included in most models sold in the U.S. by the end of 2010, Toyota said.

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.

Insurance giant State Farm alerted U.S. safety regulators about reports of unintended acceleration of Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles in February 2004, a State Farm spokesman said Friday.

State Farm said it had notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration of a rise in unintended acceleration incidents in Toyotas in late 2007. But a company spokesman said a review of the data showed that State Farm first contacted NHTSA about the issue more than three years earlier, The Detroit News reported.

The latest disclosure by State Farm, the country’s largest auto insurer, is bound to turn up the pressure on NHTSA as well as Toyota over their handling of complaints from Toyota and Lexus drivers who said their vehicles could accelerate uncontrollably.

Two Congressional committees will hold hearings next week on Toyota’s recent acceleration-related recalls. State Farm has been subpoenaed to provide information.

The insurer maintains a vast trove of crash data from its customer base of more than 40 million. It also alerted federal regulators around 10 years ago of a spike in Ford Explorer rollovers.

NHTSA said Friday that when it received State Farm’s reports in February 2004 about the Toyotas, it was aware of the issue. Soon afterward, on March 3, 2004, NHTSA opened an investigation into unintended acceleration concerns in Camry and Lexus models, the agency said.

NHTSA has conducted a half dozen investigations since then. Up until November, Toyota said the problem was caused by loose mats or other materials interfering with the gas pedal.

But in November, when it recalled more than 4 million Toyota cars and trucks, it said it would redesign the pedal and introduce a brake override function to prevent unintended acceleration.

The U.S. Transportation Department is investigating the timeliness of Toyota’s response, while U.S. lawmakers are probing the responses of Toyota and NHTSA.