Toyota has announced a global recall of 1.9 million Prius hybrid cars because of a fault that could cause the vehicle to slow down suddenly, in the latest safety blow to the Japanese auto giant.
The company said on Wednesday it decided on the call-back - the biggest for the eco-friendly vehicle - after the discovery of problems with software used to control a power converter that posed a risk to drivers.
"Because, in the worst case, the car could stop while driving we do consider this a potential safety issue and that&apos;s why we are implementing this recall," a Tokyo-based company spokesman said.
No accidents have been reported as a result of the defect, the world&apos;s biggest car maker added.
In most cases the defect could set off a vehicle&apos;s warning lights and "probably" cause it to enter failsafe mode, in which the car can still be driven but with reduced power, it said.
"It would slow down, eventually to stop," a spokeswoman added.
Toyota, a leader in the production of environmentally friendly cars, said it was aware of more than 400 cases of the problem, including 300 in Japan and 90 in North America.
The recall covers about 997,000 vehicles in Japan with another 713,000 vehicles in North America. Most of the remainder are in Europe, the Middle East, and China.
The company recalled Prius models last year and in 2010 for different problems, but Wednesday&apos;s announcement marked the biggest call back for a car that Toyota has bet will lead a bigger move to green cars.
Last year Toyota&apos;s chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada challenged car makers to step up sales of hybrids in the United States, calling them "a long bridge" into future vehicles.
He was chief engineer of the Toyota team that developed the Prius, the world&apos;s first mass-produced petrol-electric hybrid car, and launched it in 1997.
The problem is the latest for Toyota and other Japanese makers that have recalled millions of vehicles in recent years, damaging their long-held reputation for quality and safety.
In October, a US court found Toyota was not to blame for a fatal crash involving claims of unintended acceleration, a case that sparked global recalls and badly dented the company&apos;s reputation. But weeks later, the car maker lost a related court case in which it was found at fault for a fatal accident.
Toyota agreed to pay about $1.1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit launched by US vehicle owners affected by the recalls.
The company did not accept blame but agreed to compensate owners of about 16.3 million vehicles who said their value had been reduced because of the recall.