Toyota Motor Corp. said today it will reshape or replace accelerator pedals on 3.8 million vehicles involved in the company’s largest recall ever.

The company said it will reconfigure the shape of accelerator pedals to cut down on the risk that they may be jammed in the floor mat. In addition, it will replace original equipment floor mats with redesigned mats.

The models involved are:

• 2007 to 2010 model year Camry

• 2005 to 2010 Avalon

• 2004 to 2009 Prius

• 2005 to 2010 Tacoma

• 2007 to 2010 Tundra

• 2007 to 2010 Lexus ES 350

• 2006 to 2010 Lexus IS 250

• 2006 to 2010 Lexus IS 350

In addition, Toyota will install a brake override system on the involved Camry, Avalon, and Lexus ES 350, IS 350 and IS 250 models “as an extra measure of confidence.” The system will shut off engine power if drivers press the accelerator pedal and brake pedal simultaneously.

The automaker said it will send first-class letters to owners of the Camry, ES 350, and Avalon by the end of the year. Owners of the five other models will be notified throughout 2010.

Early next year, dealers will be trained to reshape the pedal. Replacement parts shaped the same way as the reconfigured pedal will be available at dealerships in April, Toyota said. Customers who initially have their pedals reshaped may elect to have them replaced.

A former Toyota engineer who is now with automotive analysis firm Edmunds.com, said in a statement today that the solutions from the recall should work.

“Our tests have confirmed that an out of position floor mat can cause the throttle to stick because of the shape and geometry of the current gas pedal,” wrote Dan Edmunds who served as senior chassis development engineer for Toyota’s Technical Center before joining Edmunds.com as director of automotive testing in April 2006.

“Temporarily shortening and replacing the accelerator pedals are viable solutions to alleviate the problem,” Edmunds wrote.

Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker, announced the recall in late September, citing the risk that a loose floor mat could force down the accelerator, a problem suspected of causing crashes that killed five people.

Toyota has said it has confidence the problem is linked to floor mats and not a vehicle design flaw or problems related to braking, fuel or accelerator systems.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said discussions included “several vehicle-based” factors that may contribute to pedal interference and a driver’s ability to control and stop the car when the accelerator gets stuck.

Toyota has said that the cost of any related repair work have no effect on its business as the company has set aside nearly 500 billion yen ($5.6 billion) in provisions for recalls.

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. announced that the Committee of Japan Automotive Hall of Fame had awarded its Car of the Year 2009-2010 to the Insight hybrid vehicle.

The NonProfit Organization cited the following three factors in conferring the award on the Insight:
1. The strategy of affordable pricing Honda used in marketing the hybrid Insight
2. The Insight’s balance of driving performance and environmental performance
3. The balance of performance and fuel economy at cruising and higher speeds offered by Integrated Motor Assist (IMA), Honda’s original hybrid system

Designed to set the standard of compact cars for a new era, the Insight combines outstanding environmental performance based on Honda’s original hybrid system with a fun, responsive driving and an efficient, versatile packaging. In addition, pricing starts at an affordable 1,890,000 yen.

Enthusiastically received by customers, in April 2009 the Insight became the first hybrid vehicle to achieve the status of the best-selling automobile among new vehicle registrations in Japan in a calendar month.

Lexus announces today the official launch of the LFA, a two-seat supercar scheduled to go into production at the end of 2010 as the pinnacle of the Lexus “F” premium sports car series. Pre-sales start today.

Ultra-responsive and extremely stable even when taken to the edge, the LFA creates a sense of reassurance that opens up a new world of driving emotion, exhilarating the senses to move the driver in more ways than one.

The LFA combines high output, superb chassis design and meticulous aerodynamics to achieve instantaneous total-vehicle response characterized by high-rev, seamless acceleration echoed by a self-defining resonance from its 4.8-liter V10.

Only 500 units of the LFA are to be produced and sold worldwide.

A prototype of the LFA is now on display at the 41st Tokyo Motor Show, which is open to the general public from October 24 to November 4 at Makuhari Messe in Makuhari, Chiba Prefecture.

 Nissan Motor Co. plans to bring a new global small car to the United States after 2010 that will be positioned below its current entry-level product, the Nissan Versa.

Speaking at the company’s headquarters here today, officials said the U.S. market will be part of a major campaign to sell 1 million vehicles a year from a newly created low-cost “V platform.”

The small platform will yield three models: a four-door sedan, a five-door hatchback and a multipurpose vehicle. They will replace the subcompact Micra that is now sold in markets around the world other than the United States.

The European Micra is built at Nissan’s Sunderland, England, plant. It shares a platform with the Japan-market March.

Vincent Cobee, V platform manager, said the plan is Nissan’s effort to dig deeper into the small A and B segments of the auto industry, which, he said, is capturing a growing share of world vehicle sales. The new vehicle will contain a three-cylinder engine.

The current Micra is 146 inches long, almost 2 feet shorter than the 169-inch Versa.

Cobee and other project managers declined to reveal the official name of the upcoming vehicle or say when it will appear at U.S. dealerships. The new platform will be manufactured at five plants around the world, he said, launching first in Thailand in March 2010.

Cobee also declined to specify which of the three models would be offered to U.S. dealers.

Toyota Motor Corp. is ramping up its push on gasoline-electric hybrids, launching a new model in Japan and taking on up-and-coming competitor Hyundai Motor Co. in its Korean home market with its flagship Prius.

Toyota said today it aims to sell 36,000 units a year of its new Sai hybrid sedan in Japan, taking another step towards its goal of selling 1 million hybrid vehicles annually worldwide soon after 2010.The Sai sedan is the second hybrid-only model under the Toyota brand after the Prius, and is a repackaged version of the Lexus HS250h hybrid, which went on sale in June.

In an effort to alleviate losses from the yen’s rapid rise against the dollar, Honda Motor Co. may move production of the popular Fit small car to the United States.

President Takanobu Ito called the shift a “highly likely possibility.”

“Considering the foreign exchange, such a structural reform might be called for,” Ito told Automotive News in an interview today. “That is the sort of direction we are considering.”

The fuel-efficient Fit has weathered the U.S. market slump better than its bigger counterparts in Honda’s lineup. Sales of the hatchback were down 12 percent to 55,475 units for the first nine months of the year, compared with a 25 percent drop for all of American Honda’s lineup.

But all Fits are imported from Japan. And the yen’s 8 percent increase in value against the dollar since August has made their already small profit margins even smaller. A higher yen reduces the value of dollar-denominated revenues that are repatriated to Japan.

About 80 percent of the cars Honda sells in the States are made locally; the rest are imported. Ito said he wants to keep that ratio. But he wants imports to be more high-tech models such as hybrid vehicles, which require the special suppliers and manufacturing plants found in Japan.

“If we could shift this 20 percent to other, higher-value-added technologies, that would be good,” Ito said.

He did not say where in the United States the Fit might be built.

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. today announced plans to begin Japan-wide sales starting February 2010, of the Honda Bicycle Simulator developed for the purpose of traffic safety education. By safely experiencing the possible risks bicycle riders may face, users will improve their ability to predict risks and increase safety awareness. In addition, rider evaluation session which will follow the riding simulation will help users learn traffic rules and manners in an enjoyable way.

Honda will aim for widespread use of this simulator by a range of customers including public offices, law-enforcement organizations, driving schools and educational institutions which conduct bicycle safety education programs primarily for school children and senior citizens. Honda will begin accepting pre-sale orders in November of this year.

Aisin Seiki Co., the world’s fifth-largest auto parts supplier, will sell part of its brakes business to Advics Co., a joint venture Aisin helped start with Toyota Motor Corp.

As part of the deal, Aisin will transfer two brake units from Japan and the United States, along with a portion of the supplier’s plant in Kariya, Japan.

Aisin will become the latest in a string of major suppliers to unload portions of their brake units. Last month, Germany’s Robert Bosch GmbH closed the sale of its foundation brake manufacturing business to Tokyo’s Akebono Brake Industry Co. Ltd. And Michigan’s Delphi agreed in March to sell the remaining pieces of its global brake and suspension units to Chinese-owned BeijingWest Industries Co. The then-bankrupt supplier had previously arranged to unload at least seven other brake plants.Advics was formed in July 2001 through the combination of brake businesses owned by powertrain and electronics supplier Denso Corp., electronics company Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd. and Toyota. At the time, Toyota indicated that it wanted Advics, an electronic and foundation brake company, to gain scale to compete with the leading global brake suppliers.

Toyota Motor Corp. plans to start mass producing plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2012, with a projected first-year output of about 20,000 to 30,000 units.

Toyota has said it would start leasing 500 plug-in cars globally by the end of this year, primarily for government and corporate use, but has not said when it would commercialize them.

Toyota’s plug-in hybrids would fan competition against General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt plug-in, which can also be charged at home through an electric socket

GM is aiming to launch the Volt — a showcase vehicle for its effort to reinvent itself after filing for bankruptcy last month — by the end of 2010 and plans to have a total 14 hybrid models in production by 2012.

Plug-ins can be cleaner than regular hybrids as they can run purely on electricity, but the need for more batteries makes them expensive.

Toyota wants to price its plug-in hybrids at a comparable price to Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s all-electric car, which debuts this month to fleet customers in Japan at 4.59 million yen ($47,800) before government subsidies.

Toyota’s new Prius gasoline-electric hybrid costs less than half that, starting at 2.05 million yen in Japan.

Toyota’s plug-ins will be able to run 20-30 km (12.4-18.6 miles) on battery power alone at full charge, the paper said.

Toyota has said the car will be powered by lithium-ion batteries developed and produced by its joint venture with Panasonic EV Energy Co.

A Toyota spokesman said the company could not comment on future product plans.

Honda Motor Co. may fall short of its U.S. sales goal for the new Insight hybrid by a third in the model’s first year due to the recession and relatively cheap gasoline, Bloomberg reported, citing a top local executive.

“Given some dramatic change in things, I don’t think we’ll get to 90,000. At 50,000 to 60,000, we will be just fine,” Bloomberg cited American Honda Motor Executive Vice President John Mendel as saying.

Japan’s No.2 automaker has forecast annual worldwide sales of 200,000 units for the Insight, which went on sale first in Japan in February and in late March in the United States. Honda expects to sell half of that in North America.

A spokesman in Tokyo said there had been no change in Honda’s sales forecast.

But Honda CEO Takeo Fukui told Reuters last month that while response to the Insight has been good in the United States, Honda was placing priority on meeting brisk demand in the Japanese market partly due to unfavorable exchange rates.

Shares in Honda were down 1.8 percent in mixed trade for Japanese auto stocks.