Toyota Motor Corp's president apologized on Friday for safety problems and said the automaker would bring in outside experts to review quality controls, a highly unusual action for a company that has epitomized world-beating industrial standards.
"I would like to take this opportunity to apologize from the bottom of my heart for causing many of our customers concern after the recalls across several models in several regions," Akio Toyoda, the grandson of Toyota's founder, told a news conference in Nagoya, Japan.
Toyoda's comments were his most extensive since the latest recall began in January. Toyota has issued two recalls since last November.
Investors were relieved that Toyota finally announced concrete steps to deal with the quality crisis. The company's shares, which have taken a beating recently, ended 4.1 percent higher at $74.71 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. Since January 21, Toyota has lost $30 billion or a fifth of its market value.
But in a sign the carmaker still faces serious problems, credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's put Toyota and some of its suppliers on watch for a possible downgrade. S&P cited "increased concern over the potential negative impact on Toyota's business profile of unfolding developments related to recent quality issues."
Toyoda apologized for safety problems that have left the Japanese carmaker "in crisis".
He said Toyota would strengthen its inspection process, respond faster to customer complaints and seek input from outside experts.
Toyoda also pledged to set up and oversee a quality improvement task force involving external experts monitoring quality management. It was not clear how the global quality management committee would function.
Turning to independent experts is "about as good as you can expect," said UBS analyst Philippe Houchois.
"I've seen a lot of recalls, but I don't remember seeing that step of getting an outside expert. That's quite an innovative or aggressive approach to try to solve the problem," he said.
Toyota, the world's largest automaker, has recalled more than 8 million vehicles around the world for problems with accelerators. Episodes of unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles have been linked to up to 19 crash deaths in the United States over the past decade.
Toyota is also mulling a recall of Prius, its top-selling hybrid, for a braking problem.
