<div id="subtitle">Toyota to recall 50,000 Prius cars in Europe, part of global recall, to fix brake software</div><div><p>Toyota in Europe is no where near the hot-selling carmaker it is in the United States. But the troubled auto maker's miseries have hit home there with the recall of the Prius, which has become something of an icon in environment-conscious Europe.</p><p>Toyota is recalling some 50,000 Prius cars in Europe to modify the software for the antilock brake system, part of a wider global recall and the latest in a string of embarrassing safety lapses at the world's largest automaker.</p><p>Among those that will be fixed is the third-generation Prius on order for Italian businessman Claudio Botta — which is probably already en route from production in Japan.</p><p>Botta heard about the recall, but isn't bothered. His car will be fixed before he even picks it up, and he's a returning loyal customer. This will be his second Prius: he's selling a 2008 model, not subject to the recall, for euro15,900.</p><p>"It is something that can happen," said Botta, who drives about 60 kilometers (40 miles) a day for work in the northern Italian city of Bergamo and feels perfectly safe transporting his young son in his off-hours. He's still sold on the reasons he bought the Prius in the first place: the eco-friendly electric engine.</p><p>"I am a person who pays attention to the environmental impact," Botta said.</p><p>But European consumer groups are watching the recall carefully, mindful that it is the second by Toyota in as many weeks and because consumers in Europe may be more complacent.</p><p>Toyota on Jan. 29 issued another much bigger recall in Europe for eight models that have a faulty accelerator, affecting up to 1.8 million cars, — but that action lagged one for the same issue in the United States by a week.</p><p>The Italian consumer group Codacons is alertly monitoring to Toyota's response — and has a new tool that may help it respond if they find it is lacking. Since Jan. 1, Italians can join in class action suits for the first time, thanks to new legislation.</p><p>"We reserve the right to take collective action. We invite consumers to inform us to determine the dimensions of the problem" said Codacons vice president Gianluca Di Ascenzo.</p><p>So far no serious accidents with any Toyota models involved in the two recalls have been reported in Italy — or Europe for that matter — but Di Ascenzo said drivers' fears, and not just physical suffering, could also form the basis of a class action suit.</p><p>"The damages could be enormous. So far, the only damage Toyota has suffered is to its image and in market losses on the stock exchange," Di Ascenzo said.</p><p>Di Ascenzo also noted that the European Commissions consumer alert put up the consumer warning about the initial Toyota recall only last Friday — a week after Toyota itself had already issued its own European recall.</p><p>The information flow to consumers may have been slower in the Toyota case because the automaker is Japanese, and without a direct government counterpart in Europe like continental competitors like Fiat, Renault or Volkswagen. By comparison, Di Ascenzo said the Italian government was very quick to disseminate information last fall when Fiat recalled 500,000 Punto and Grande Punto's for problems with the steering.</p><p>"In the case of Toyota, information has come mostly from the media," he said.</p><p>The alert is meant to be a government to government market surveillance alert based on information provided by manufacturers, not a first-alert system aimed directly at consumers, said Ton van Lierop, a European Commission spokesman. It does set parameters when a manufacturer must initiate a recall.</p><p>A group of experts discussed the system at a regular meeting on Monday but made no specific recommendations.</p><p>"The technical standards are there, there is nothing that needs to be changed," van Lierop said.</p><p>Toyota said it is investigating whether accidents have been caused by the braking issue on the third-generation Prius has been reported in Europe, but the automaker is not aware of any. The cars have been on sale in Europe since June, with 29,100 sold last year in Europe. In the case of the sticky accelerator pedal, Toyota in Europe received 26 reports of problems since December 2008, mostly in the right-hand drive countries of Britain and Ireland — but so far there are no reports of accidents, said spokesman Etienne Plas.</p><p>Tom Pakenham, the chief executive of greentomatocars, a London-based environmentally-friendly taxi service, said 27 of his vehicles were third generation Priuses. He said the recall would have no impact on the firm's operations and wouldn't cost the business anything, as the update takes only about half an hour.</p><p>"We have noticed this kind of sensation, if the car is in a certain condition," Pakenham said. "If the driver brakes while traveling slowly on an uneven service, the braking feels a little uneven."</p><p>But he said that no one flagged that as an issue until Toyota's problems came out in the media.</p><p>"It's a fraction of a second — we thought nothing of it," he said, adding that all his drivers were perfectly comfortable driving the cars.</p><p>"We've done more than a quarter million miles in them," he said, adding that the Prius issues seemed to have been blown out of proportion. "It's been reported so negatively, and unfairly really."</p><p>____</p><p>Associated Press writers Raphael G. Satter in London and Aoife White in Brussels contributed to this report.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=68762356&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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