By Alan Ohnsman and Jeff Plungis March 19 (Bloomberg) — Toyota Motor Corp. asked U.S. broadcaster ABC News to retract and apologize for an “irresponsible” report it aired last month suggesting electronics as the cause of sudden acceleration in its cars. The world’s largest automaker is working to repair its reputation after recalling 8 million vehicles worldwide to fix defects linked to bursts of speed. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said yesterday that evidence from a Toyota Prius involved in a Harrison, New York, crash tied to unintended acceleration found no sign the car’s brakes had been applied. Toyota has said accelerators that stick or snag on floor mats are at fault in sudden acceleration, with no evidence of failures in the electronic-control systems of its cars and trucks. An ABC News report on Feb. 22 challenged that assumption, and the network in a response to Toyota defended its right to air the report. The network owned by Walt Disney Co. “relentlessly promoted” a view that electronics in Toyota and Lexus models were a cause of sudden-acceleration complaints, without providing “credible scientific evidence,” Christopher Reynolds , Toyota’s U.S. general counsel, said in a March 11 letter to ABC News President David Westin . “Toyota deserves a public retraction and formal apology from ABC News for your irresponsible broadcast,” Reynolds said in the four-page letter, reported yesterday by the Web site gawker.com. ‘Legitimate, Newsworthy’ ABC News’s report on the design of Toyota electronic throttle controls was “legitimate and newsworthy,” John Zucker , ABC Inc. senior vice president of law & regulation, said yesterday in a three-page letter to Reynolds. Toyota was contacted on Feb. 22, before the broadcast for a response to be included in the report, and didn’t respond, Zucker said. ABC News had included a fabricated video image of a car tachometer in the broadcast “to create the false and misleading impression with viewers of a dangerous and uncontrolled acceleration,” Reynolds wrote. The original video image was deemed difficult for viewers to observe because of the car’s motion, Zucker responded. Using a different shot was an “editorial error,” and a re-edited video has been posted to the abcnews.com Web site, he said. “The larger point, however, is that the use of the video shot was not intended to, and did not, materially mislead the public,” Zucker said. “ABC News intends to continue to cover the issues surrounding reports of unintended acceleration by Toyota vehicles.” Harrison Accident Toyota City, Japan-based Toyota faces more than 100 class- action and individual lawsuits from customers related to vehicle defects. Toyota’s American depositary receipts, each equal to two ordinary shares, fell 49 cents to $78.81 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have lost $25.2 billion in market value since Toyota announced a recall on Jan. 21. In the suburban New York crash on March 9, a 2005 Prius sped out of control before hitting a stone wall. The Prius’s diagnostic recorder indicated the car’s accelerator was engaged, NHTSA said in the e-mailed statement. “Information retrieved from the vehicle’s onboard computer systems indicated there was no application of the brakes and the throttle was fully open,” the Washington-based auto safety agency said in the statement. “Any release of information regarding an investigation that’s not complete or without consulting local investigating authorities is irresponsible,” said Captain Anthony Marraccini, head of the Harrison police department. Gilbert’s Test The information mentioned by NHTSA is “just one snapshot,” Marraccini said. Harrison police are still meeting with Toyota to analyze the data and is using the Rockville, Maryland, office of RTI International, a forensic engineering company, to help assess the crash, he said. Toyota told reporters March 8 that Southern Illinois University professor David Gilbert ’s test, featured in the ABC broadcast, altered a circuit in a way that couldn’t occur in everyday driving, so it couldn’t be used as evidence of sudden acceleration. Toyota Motor Sales vice president of corporate communications, Mike Michels , said at the time that the company wasn’t planning legal action against ABC. Reynolds couldn’t be immediately reached for comment yesterday. The automaker “reserves the right to take any and every appropriate step to protect and defend the reputation of our company and its products from irresponsible and inaccurate claims,” Reynolds wrote in the letter, which was copied to Disney Chief Executive Officer Robert Iger . Gilbert testified before a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on Feb. 23 that he had isolated weaknesses in Toyota’s electronic throttle system not found in units from other automakers. Toyota engineers and those from the firm it hired to assess its electronics, Exponent Inc., used Gilbert’s technique to induce engine-revving in vehicles from General Motors Co., Daimler AG and Chrysler Group LLC at the March 8 demonstration. To contact the reporters on this story: Alan Ohnsman in Los Angeles at aohnsman@bloomberg.net ; Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net
