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Toyota outlines quality reforms; chief bows out of U.S. hearings

Conceding that breakneck expansion led to Toyota Motor Corp.'s current recall crisis, president Akio Toyoda outlined reforms meant to get quality back on track, including more active use of the car's so-called black box crash data recorder. Toyoda, grandson of the carmaker's founder, also indicated he won't sit before Congressional hearings into the quality lapses that have triggered recalls of more than 8.5 million vehicles since last fall. Yoshimi Inaba, the head of Toyota's U.S.

Feds researching fire risks from EV batteries, regulator says

Federal safety regulators have begun an $8.75 million study of whether lithium ion batteries in electric vehicles pose a potential fire hazard, officials said Thursday. Kevin Vincent, chief counsel of the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said researchers are looking at whether the high-voltage batteries can cause fires when they are being charged and when the vehicles are in an accident.

Karmann files for insolvency

Karmann, the century-old German coachbuilder synonymous with cabrios and the famous 1950s Karmann Ghia, has filed for insolvency. The company made the move Wednesday in Germany in response to a dramatic decline in revenue, an inability to pay for its massive layoff plan and the worldwide economic crisis. The North American operations, which make convertible tops for Detroit car companies and Volkswagen, are not affected, a spokesman said.