Recently Toyota Motor launched its new Hybrid car Prius in India and instead of gathering appreciations, feeling of discontent has been felt among the buyers with over 100 complaints reported in the U.S and Japan regarding the brakes of the new car Toyota Prius. Consequently the sales of the Japanese company are going down in US market after numerous cars have been recalled to fix the gas pedal which stays in the depressed position once pressed.
When tragedy strikes , it could strike anyone, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak also faced the same problem with the defective accelerator when his car sped-up while running in the cruising condition, to which he said the car might not be facing problem with a defective accelerator but it might have something to do with the software. He added the problem might be related to random acceleration issues resulting in a Global recall covering over 8 million vehicles.
The Japanese Gas electric hybrid which were rolled out of the plants for sale in Japan and US , in May 2009 are not a part of recalled cars. And the recall covers 4.5 million models released before May extending from China to Europe. The 100 complaints were reported at the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the brakes of the Prius new model. The complaints made involving the new Prius models were the ones which are manufactured in Japan and the ministry has ordered the No.1 Automaker to investigate the complaints and fix them.
Ririko Takeuchi , a spokesperson from the company has said serious investigation is being carried off since the company received complaints in North America and in Japan and as a result of this tragedy Toyota’s shares have fallen by 5.7% to 3,400yen approximately 38$ with the major investors dumping their stocks of the Prius. It also left the benchmark Nikkei stock rose increased by just 3% to10,404.33 due to the Prius recall.
