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ToyotaShizuo Kambayashi/The Associated Press

At the height of the recall crisis that battered Toyota Motor Corp. last year, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood urged drivers to park their recalled vehicles. A year and four days later, Mr. LaHood has turned 180 degrees, revealing that he told his daughter to buy a Toyota Sienna minivan when she sought an ironclad guarantee that the company's vehicles are safe.

He told that story on Tuesday as officials from his department and NASA said the auto maker's electronic systems are not to blame for cases of sudden acceleration that led to massive recalls and the biggest crisis Toyota has faced.

"The jury is back. The verdict is in. There is no electronics-based cause for unintended high-speed acceleration in Toyota vehicles, period," Mr. LaHood told a news conference in Washington.

The U.S. government study took 10 months, considerably longer than it took for Toyota's reputation for producing high-quality cars to sustain severe damage, but much less time than it will take for the company to recover completely from the media frenzy and criticism that engulfed it last year.

"Where do I go to get my reputation back?" asked long-time industry analyst Joe Phillippi, who heads Auto Trends Consulting Inc. in Short Hills, N.J.

The cases of sudden acceleration led to some horrific crashes and have been linked to 89 deaths among Toyota owners and their families in the United States.

As a result, Toyota recalled more than eight million vehicles - including more than 200,000 in Canada - became the subject of several class-action lawsuits and congressional hearings, paid a record fine to the U.S. government and shut down most of its North American assembly plants for several weeks in January, 2009.

The cases of sudden acceleration were caused by sticky pedals or floor mats that trapped gas pedals and prevented drivers from stopping, the study by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluded.

The study examined 58 cases, excluded 18 of them, and in the remaining 40, found one instance of pedal entrapment and 39 with no cause, NHTSA deputy administrator Ron Medford said.

The most likely cause of the 39 cases was what he called "pedal misapplication" or drivers pressing the gas instead of the brakes.

Toyota began trying to rehabilitate its reputation last February, when chief executive officer Akio Toyoda travelled to Washington to answer questions from a hostile U.S. Congress and apologize several times.

But the crisis sullied Toyota's reputation and hurt sales. Its U.S. sales fell slightly in 2010 compared with an overall industry sales advance of 12 per cent in the U.S. market. The recalls also contributed to a 16-per-cent tumble in Toyota's Canadian sales last year.

The company said Tuesday that it welcomed the results of the U.S. probe. "We believe this rigorous scientific analysis by some of America's foremost engineers should further reinforce confidence in the safety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles," Steve St. Angelo, Toyota's chief quality officer for North America, said in a statement.

The crisis could, however, lead to changes that will affect all auto makers. NHTSA said it is examining three changes: making brake override systems standard on vehicles so runaway cars and trucks can be stopped; examining keyless ignition systems that prevent drivers from shutting a car off if it's out of control and installing data recorders in all vehicles so investigators can figure out what went wrong.

In addition, the government agency will conduct research on the placement and design of brake and accelerator pedals.





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