Toyoda apologizes in China over recalls, vows to boost quality of cars

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BEIJING, March 1 Kyodo -
Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda apologized to Chinese consumers Monday
for its recent global recalls and vowed to regain confidence about the safety
and quality of Toyota vehicles through measures such as appointing a chief
quality officer for China, the world's largest auto market.
''I sincerely apologize to Chinese people for causing concern and trouble over
Toyota's massive recalls around the world, including in China,'' Toyoda said at
a news conference in Beijing following his U.S. congressional testimony last
week on the recalls.
Toyoda said the company has set up an internal body led by him to strengthen
global quality control in the whole process from the design and manufacturing
of vehicles to sales and maintenance services in an effort to better reflect
customers' voices.
Chief quality officers for China and other markets will take part in the global
quality committee, he said.
Toyoda told reporters at a separate briefing that he met with Chinese Commerce
Minister Chen Deming earlier Monday and briefed him about the problem.
The number of cars being recalled in China is small compared with the more than
8 million Toyota vehicles that have been recalled globally since autumn last
year.
Toyota told China in late January that it was recalling around 75,000 units of
the RAV4 sport utility vehicle manufactured and sold in China due to
potentially defective accelerator pedals.
But Toyoda said at the news conference that his first priority in the Chinese
market is to implement appropriate measures for RAV4 users as swiftly as
possible to try to regain confidence about the quality and safety of Toyota
vehicles.
Toyoda stressed that the company has found no problems with the accelerator
pedals of other models of Toyota vehicles sold in China.
Despite the recall problem, a senior Toyota executive in charge of China told
the same news conference he sees brisk growth in the Chinese market and the
automaker wants to maintain a sales target of 800,000 units in China for 2010.
Toyoda said that he flew straight to Beijing from the United States because he
wanted to explain the recalls ''directly to the people of China,'' which he
said is a very important market for Toyota.
In fact, the visit shows how seriously Toyota views the Chinese market as a
source of future growth, auto analysts said earlier.
''If Toyota can take active and suitable measures in China on time, it won't
face the same big challenges as it is facing in the U.S. because Chinese
consumers are more sensitive to the pricing, not the brand image,'' Zhang Xin,
an analyst at Guotai Junan Securities Co., was quoted as saying by the China
Daily in its Monday edition.
Toyota's global sales totaled 6.98 million units in 2009, down 13 percent from
a year earlier. Of the total, more than 3.1 million units were sold in Japan
and the United States.
But sales grew 21 percent in China to 709,000 units last year.
Toyoda arrived in Beijing on Saturday night from the United States where he met
employees of a Toyota sales subsidiary in California on Friday and visited an
assembly plant in Kentucky on Thursday after attending a hearing of a U.S.
House of Representatives committee.
At the congressional hearing Wednesday, Toyoda apologized for Toyota's global
recalls and denied any intention to cover up vehicle defects. He said the
carmaker's pursuit of rapid business growth may have led to the quality
problems.
Jia Xinguang, an independent auto industry analyst in Beijing, made the same
point, saying Toyota's quality problems ''should be attributed to its excessive
and sharp expansion in recent years.''
''And the excessive cost saving in the supply chain must have led to the lack
of quality supervision and inspection,'' Jia was quoted as saying by the China
Daily. ''Chinese automakers should learn from Toyota's current crisis when they
go about ambitiously expanding.''
In 2009, China overtook the United States as the world's largest automotive
market, with sales of new automobiles up 46 percent from a year earlier to
13.64 million units.
==Kyodo