Bloomberg.com reported flaws linked to unintended acceleration, specifically, floor mates at risk of jamming accelerators and sticky gas pedals sparked the recall. Toyota paid $48.8 million in fines and the company president, along with other officials, was called before Congress.

According to Bloomberg, the panel reported Toyota “erred too much on the side of global centralization and needs to shift the balance somewhat toward greater local authority and control.” The flaws “hindered information sharing and contributed to miscommunication” and “delayed response time to quality and safety issues.”

Toyota’s operations in North America are divided into units responsible for sales, engineering and manufacturing; therefore, the panel concluded the company would benefit from a unified structure and greater local authority to make decisions.

The report highlighted Toyota’s disregard for vehicle complaints from outside sources. According to the advisors, the company initially treated consumer complaints about unintended acceleration “with a degree of skepticism and defensiveness.” Bloomberg reported Toyota “does not appear to treat feedback from external sources, including customers, independent rating agencies and regulators, the same way.”

Adviser’s emphasized examination of complaints is critical. “There are sometimes very important signals in all those noisy data,” stated panel member, Brian O’Neill.

Panel advisers noted Toyota also lacked a direct chain of managers responsible for safety issues. Toyoda said the recommendations have resulted in “meaningful steps” to Toyota’s North American operations more autonomy and make the company ever more focused on safety, reported Bloomberg.

The panel discovered several issues with Toyota’s operations; however, the review did not include evidence of any additional causes for unintended acceleration in Toyota and Lexus vehicles.

Although the panel did not identify additional causes for unintended acceleration, panel member Brian O’Neill said, “There’s still a serious debate as to whether these [electrical faults] were serious safety problems.”

In February, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration terminated an investigation of Toyota models after NASA said it found no electronic causes of unintended acceleration during a 10-month review.

Sean Kane, president of Safety Research & Strategies, said the NASA report showed “deficiencies” in Toyota’s vehicle electronics, reported Bloomberg. In an email, Kane stated, “NASA identified numerous failures in Toyota electronic that could lead to unwanted acceleration.”

The panel did not identify any problems “related to Toyota’s ability to fully integrate electronics and software or its methods for ensuring that changes in software don’t cause unintended consequences,” says Bloomberg.

The company’s oversight of suppliers and other prevalent issues will be studied by the panel for at least one more year, said Slater.

The U.S. Lexus recall includes the following models: 2006-07 GS 300 and GS 350, 2006-09 IS 250, and 2006-08 IS 350. According to Toyota, insufficient tightening of the fuel pressure sensor, which is connected to some engine fuel delivery pipes that have nickel-phosphorus plating, may cause the pressure sensor to loosen. This could cause fuel to leak past a gasket that’s used in the connection between the sensor and the fuel delivery pipe. It could also leak through the threaded part of the sensor.

To fix the problem, Lexus dealers will inspect cars for fuel leakage. If no leakage is found, they will tighten the fuel pressure sensor. However, if a leak is found, the gasket between the sensor and fuel delivery pipe will be replaced and the sensor will be tightened. There will be no charge for this, Toyota said.

The problem also affects 1.3 million vehicles in Japan and 10,000 in Europe.

Toyota maintains that so far, it has not received any reports of accidents due to this vehicle defect. It has, however, received 75 complaints of problems from North America and 140 in Japan.

The other recalls involve a bad fuel line that can crack and affects 141,000 vehicles, mostly models sold in Europe and New Zealand.

The newly-revealed grand jury investigation is just the latest headache for Toyota this year. Since last November, Toyota has recalled about 8.5 million vehicles worldwide to resolve the floor-mat interference and sticking pedal problems that may lead to incidents of unintended acceleration. Some vehicles are subject to both recalls. Complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) attribute 93 deaths to sudden acceleration of a Toyota vehicle.

Earlier this year, Toyota agreed to pay a record $16.375 million fine levied by the NHTSA for concealing information related to a January recall of 2.3 million vehicles for sticky accelerator pedals. The company also faces more than 200 lawsuits resulting from the sticky accelerator and floor mat recalls.

According to The New York Times, Toyota had already received two other subpoenas this year, one from a grand jury in February for documents related to sudden acceleration and braking and one from the Michigan attorney general in March for information on recalls.

As we’ve reported previously, the NHTSA is already investigating a 2005 recall which involved defective steering rods. Toyota waited 11 months to issue a US recall, after it had already done so for trucks in Japan. The recall in Japan took place in October 2004; the US recall, involving 977,839 similar vehicles, took place September 2005. In 2004, Toyota told US regulators the problems were limited to vehicles in Japan.

Under US law, carmakers have five days to report safety problems to regulators.

Although it has not yet determined the timing, the NHTSA has reports of three deaths and seven injuries linked to the faulty steering rods on 4Runner SUVs and T100 and Hi Lux compact pickups, which involve 1989 to 1998 models.

It was not clear what defects, models or production years the grand jury was investigating, The Times said.

Since last November, Toyota has recalled about 8.5 million vehicles worldwide to resolve the floor-mat interference and sticking pedal problems that may lead to incidents of unintended acceleration. Some vehicles are subject to both recalls. Complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) attribute 93 deaths to sudden acceleration of a Toyota vehicle.

Earlier this year, Toyota agreed to pay a record $16.375 million fine levied by the NHTSA for concealing information related to a January recall of 2.3 million vehicles for sticky accelerator pedals. The company also faces more than 200 lawsuits resulting from the sticky accelerator and floor mat recalls.

The Wall Street Journal had written that a NHTSA analysis of dozens of data recorders from Toyota vehicles involved in sudden acceleration crashes had revealed that the “throttles were wide open and the brakes weren’t engaged at the time of the crash,” suggesting that the driver was hitting the gas pedal by mistake instead of the brake. The report cited anonymous sources.

ABC News is reporting that both the NHTSA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) are refuting the Journal article. A top DOT official told the network that the Journal piece was “completely unsourced and misleading,” and that “no information in that article came from NHTSA.”

“Engineers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are continuing to investigate the possible causes of sudden acceleration, along with the National Academy of Sciences and NASA,” said DOT spokesperson Olivia Alair told ABC News. “We will follow the facts and inform the public when our investigation comes to an end.”

According to the Web site Just-Auto.com, a spokesperson for NHTSA pointed to Toyota itself as the source of the article, which was published Tuesday.

“That story was planted by Toyota,” the NHTSA spokesperson told just-auto. “Toyota is the source – yes we know that for definite.”

The $16.375 million fine would be the largest civil penalty ever issued to an automaker by the government. Toyota has two weeks to contest the penalty.

“We now have proof that Toyota failed to live up to its legal obligations,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “Worse yet, they knowingly hid a dangerous defect for months from U.S. officials and did not take action to protect millions of drivers and their families. For those reasons, we are seeking the maximum penalty possible under current laws.”

Auto manufacturers are legally obligated to notify the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) within five business days if they determine that a safety defect exists.

According to the Department of Transportation , the NHTSA learned through documents obtained from Toyota that the company knew of the sticky pedal defect since at least September 29, 2009. That day, Toyota issued repair procedures to their distributors in 31 European countries and Canada to address complaints of sticky accelerator pedals, sudden increases in engine RPM, and sudden vehicle acceleration. The documents also show that Toyota was aware that consumers in the U.S. were experiencing the same problems, the statement said.

According to a Reuters report, the (NHTSA) has worked with NASA in the past on studies of electronic stability control and airbags. Officials with the NHTSA said nine NASA scientists would bring expertise in electronics, eletromagnetic interference, software integrity and complex problem solving to the Toyota review. The agency expects the review to be completed by late summer, Reuters said. After that, the agency would then determine whether a formal investigation of Toyota throttles is warranted. If that happens, a recall could ultimately be issued.

The NHTSA has also tapped the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council to lead a study of unintended acceleration across the auto industry. That review is expected to take 18 months.

Since last fall, Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for problems involving sudden acceleration. Toyota and the NHTSA have blamed the speed control issues on defective floor mats and faulty accelerator pedals, but some experts suspect that problems with the vehicles’ electronic throttle control system could really be behind the problems. Such suspicions have increased recently, as dozens of Toyota owners whose vehicles underwent recall repairs have recently complained that their vehicles are still experiencing problems with unintended acceleration.

Two years before Toyota issued a recall of defective floor mats implicated in incidents of sudden, unintended acceleration, the automaker warned its dealers of the dangers. Unfortunately, no one in the American driving public ever got this information.

Critics of Toyota and the auto industry in general claim that the issuance of a technical service bulletin is often a recall in all but name, and they are seeking reform. Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety. told Reuters that his organization supports efforts to make technical service bulletins available to consumers. An official with the Consumers Union also told Reuters that the organization would back a review of disclosure standards as part of an effort to reform the system.

According to Reuters, a technical service bulletin about faulty floor mats was issued in September 2007 to about 1,500 Toyota and Lexus dealers. “If the floor mat is NOT properly placed and secured, it could slip and interfere with the movement of the pedals during driving and may cause an accident,” the bulletin said. “NEVER install more than one floor mat at a time in the driver’s seating position.”

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was seemingly satisfied with the 2007 bulletin approach, even though in a meeting that year, officials had concluded that consumers were warning of “extremely dangerous safety” risks from “floor mat interference” in Toyota. According to Reuters, just over two weeks after Toyota sent its first floor mat bulletin to dealers, the agency closed its investigation with only a limited public warning.

In September 2007, Reuters said, under pressure from federal regulators, Toyota did issue a recall for 55,000 all-weather floor mats on the Camry and the Camry-derived Lexus ES 350. But company staff would later boast that narrow recall had saved it $100 million.

In April 2008, a second technical bulletin was issued warning that improperly installed floor mats could cause crashes in the Camry, Corolla, Matrix, Sienna, Tundra, Sequoia and Land Cruiser.

Both of the bulletins went to the NHTSA, but according to Reuters, they were much more strongly worded than anything consumers received. For example, in September 2007, the NHTSA issued a “consumer advisory” urging Camry and the Lexus ES 350 owners to swap out recalled all-weather floor mats for new ones and to make sure that they were secured to keep from slipping forward and “causing the vehicle to accelerate uncontrollably.” The agency also “strongly urged” drivers of the popular Prius hybrid and Avalon sedan to make sure that their floor mats were set up properly.

But nothing in the advisory warned of the risk of crashes, or made mention of other Toyota and Lexus vehicles with the same issue. According to Reuters, the wording of the NHTSA advisory was negotiated with and approved by Toyota.

According to a report in USA Today, a federal law adopted in 2000 known as Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act. It makes individuals who intentionally mislead federal regulators about safety defects subject to possible criminal fines and even prison.

Already, Toyota has been served with a subpoena last month by a New York grand jury looking into sudden acceleration problems, as well as problems with brakes on Prius and Lexus hybrids. The grand jury investigation is a signal that a criminal probe is underway, USA Today said.

Since last fall, Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for problems involving sudden acceleration. Toyota has blamed the speed control issues on defective floor mats and faulty accelerator pedals, but some experts suspect that problems with the vehicles’ electronic throttle control system could really be behind the problems. Such suspicions have increased recently, as dozens of Toyota owners whose vehicles underwent recall repairs have recently complained that their vehicles are still experiencing problems with unintended acceleration.

Last week, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee held a hearing into Toyota’s recent recalls and safety problems. Inaba, as well as Toyota president Akio Toyoda, both testified during the proceeding.

The documents Towns refers to in his letter were obtained under subpoena from Dimitrios Biller. Biller was Managing Counsel in the Product Liability Group of Toyota Motor Sales, USA (TMS), from April 2003 to September 2007. According to Rep. Towns’ letter, Biller led the defense of some of the largest tort cases filed against Toyota, including “rollover” cases involving seriously injured victims.

As we’ve reported previously, Biller filed his own lawsuit against Toyota in July, claiming Toyota conspired to withhold evidence in the rollover cases and forced him to resign when he told the company it had a legal duty to release evidence to plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Among the documents Biller supplied to the committee is an e-mail he wrote in which he agreed to a $1.5 million settlement in 2006 to avoid disclosure in a roll-over case. He also warned that the company needed to keep better track of cases of unintended acceleration.

The committee’s review of Biller’s documents also revealed multiple references to secret “Books of Knowledge” that were kept in electronic form, in which Toyota engineers kept their design and testing data across all vehicle lines and for all vehicle parts, Towns’ letter said. Towns purports that his committee now has evidence that Toyota entered into multi-million dollar settlements in lawsuits where they feared that the plaintiff’s lawyer was getting close to discovering the existence of the “Books of Knowledge.”

Towns has asked Inaba to review Biller’s records and provide a response to his allegations by noon on Friday, March 12, 2010.

According to The Washington Post, members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee – one of three congressional committees investigating the Toyota debacle – faulted the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for conducting “cursory and ineffective” investigations of Toyota defects.

Rather than floor mats and accelerator pedals, the lawmakers believe the unintended acceleration issue stems from a problem with the vehicles’ electronic throttle control system. In letters to James E. Lentz, President of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. and Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) assert thatin June 2004, the automaker and NHTSA officials discussed a chart showing that Toyota Camrys with new electronic throttles had 400 percent more complaints regarding “vehicle speed.” Among other things, the letters point out that approximately 70 percent of the sudden unintended acceleration events in Toyota’s customer database involved vehicles that are not subject to recalls.

The letter also claims that, based on a preliminary review of NHTSA documents, it appears that NHTSA lacks the expertise needed to evaluate defects in vehicle electronic controls, and its response to complaints of sudden unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles appears to have been seriously deficient. Among other things, NHTSA officials told investigators that the agency doesn’t employ any electrical engineers or software engineers.

Since September, Toyota has recalled nearly 8 million vehicles worldwide for issues involving unintended acceleration. As we’ve reported previously, the NHTSA has now received more than 2,000 complaints of sudden, unintended acceleration with Toyota and Lexus vehicles that involve 34 deaths and hundreds of accidents since 2000. Toyota has blamed the problems on faulty floor mats and defective accelerator pedals.