Akio Toyoda, who is the grandson of Toyota’s founder Kiichiro Toyoda, apologised for the mass global recall of their cars due to faulty accelerator and brake pedal issues. The recall has affected almost 8 million cars worldwide.

"I would like to take this opportunity to apologise from the bottom of my heart for causing many of our customers concern after the recalls across several models in several regions," he was quoted as saying, "Believe me, Toyota cars are safe."

Public confidence in Toyota has plummeted since the problem was announced a few weeks ago, and Toyota’s stock value has lost about US$30 billion since the start of the crisis. Almost 8 million vehicles have been recalled due to the faulty accelerator problem that has resulted in 19 deaths in the US so far.