An internal email from former Toyota Motor Sales USA group vice president and head of communications Irv Miller stating the executive’s concern about the differing ways the automaker’s North American and Japanese offices wanted to handle company’s accelerator pedal safety issues.
“I hate to break this to you but WE HAVE A tendency for MECHANICAL failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models,” Miller wrote using capital letters to Japanese executive Katsuhiko Koganei.
“We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet,” wrote Miller, who has since retired in a long-planned move. “The time to hide on this one is over.”
The email, sent on January 16, was fired off just days before Toyota met with NHTSA and agreed to recall 2.3 million cars and to suspend sales of some of its most popular models until a pedal fix was made.
“We need to come clean and I believe that Jim Lentz and Yoshi are on the way to DC for meetings with NHTSA to discuss options,” Miller wrote to Koganei, mentioning top Toyota USA executive Lentz and Yoshi Inaba, the automaker’s North American president. “We better just hope that they can get NHTSA to work with us in coming [up] with a workable solution that does not put us out of business.”
The obvious tension indicates the two different paths Toyota’s North American operations and its Japanese headquarters intended to rectify the situation.
Miller left the automaker earlier this year as part of a previously planned retirement unrelated to the automaker’s recalls.
References
1.’U.S. executive urges…’ view
