By Sneha Shankar - Toyota Motors (TYO:7203) announced on Wednesday that it will recall 2.1 million vehicles worldwide due to a software problem found in the Prius, RAV4, Tacoma and Lexus models.
In a company statement, the Japanese automaker said that it will recall 1.9 million Prius cars made between 2010 and 2014, and also recall 260,000 other vehicles sold in the U.S., including the 2012 RAV4, the 2012 and 2013 models of its Tacoma pick-up trucks, and Lexus RX350 crossovers from 2012 and 2013.
The company said in the statement that it will update the software on these cars, which according to the current settings, may “result in higher thermal stress in certain transistors.” This would lead to the cars stopping suddenly due to a loss of power. The latest recall will be the third one for Prius, with the previous one occurring last June for problems in its brake accumulator.
The company said that no reports or complaints have been received of accidents or injuries associated with these problems, adding that the owners of the affected vehicles would get a software update free-of-charge.
According to a news report by CBS, Toyota’s recalls have affected more than 14 million vehicles since 2009 for problems related to floor mats, gas pedals and brakes. Last month, the world’s best-selling automaker had recalled its popular models, Camry and Corolla, stating that about 30,000 vehicles had faulty or malfunctioning seats.
The latest recall will affect 997,000 vehicles in Japan, 713,000 vehicles in North America, and 130,000 vehicles in Europe, a Daily Mail news report said, citing a company statement.
In the second half of 2012, the automaker had issued two multi-million vehicle recalls with one involving as many as 7.4 million vehicles due to glitches in their power window switches, which was a potential fire hazard. This was the second largest recall since Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) recalled 8 million vehicles in 1996, according to the Daily Mail.
Toyota has been trying to resolve legal issues related to the problem of unintended acceleration in its cars and has spent billions of dollars to settle lawsuits over the company’s way of handling recalls in 2009 and 2010.