It's part of an all-out drive by the world's biggest auto manufacturer to redeem its once unassailable brand - hit anew on Tuesday as Toyota's global recall ballooned to 8.5 million cars and trucks. The day's safety recall of 440,000 of its flagship Prius and other hybrids, plus a Tokyo news conference where the company's president read a statement in English pledging to "regain the confidence of our customers," underscored a determination to keep buyers' faith from sinking to unrecoverable depths.

In Washington, facing congressional inquiries and government investigations, Toyota through its lawyers and lobbyists is working full-speed to salvage its reputation. The confidential strategy - Toyota will say little publicly about its efforts - includes efforts to sway upcoming hearings on Capitol Hill and is based on experiences by companies that have survived similar consumer and political crises - and those that haven't.

"They're probing us. 'What are you going to ask us, where are you going with this whole thing?'" said Stupak, who is chairman of a House subcommittee looking into Toyota's problems.

Rough headlines for Toyota continued Tuesday. In other developments:

• State Farm, the largest U.S. auto insurer, said it had informed federal regulators late in 2007 about growing reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyotas. That disclosure raised new questions about whether the government missed clues about problems.
• Congressional investigators cited growing evidence that not all the causes of Toyota's acceleration problems have been identified. A staff memo from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which had planned an oversight hearing for Wednesday, said there was substantial evidence that remedies such as redesigned floor mats have failed to solve problems. The hearing was postponed until Feb. 24 due to snow in Washington.
• Federal safety officials said they were examining complaints from Toyota Corolla owners about steering problems.

The automaker says the problem occurs in transition between two braking systems and at no time are drivers without brakes.

The decision to fix the 2010 model cars came after a test driver for Consumer Reports magazine experienced the problem as he was driving a Fusion Hybrid.

Deep says Ford will notify the car owners to bring their cars in for a software fix. He said there is no safety problem with the cars. The automaker called the repairs a "customer satisfaction program" and said it was not a full-fledged recall. Deep said Ford reported the problems to a U.S. safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The move comes on the same day that NHTSA began an evaluation of braking problems on the 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid. With the Prius, antilock brakes can fail momentarily while the car transitions between its gasoline and electric motors.

Ford told dealers about a fix on Thursday. They already had the software to repair it in case it came up, Deep said.

The cars were built before Oct. 17, 2009. For models built after that date, Ford fixed the software at the factory to change the feel of the pedal, Deep said.

Deep said Ford had received a small number of customer complaints. There has been one crash and no injuries due to the problem, he said.

NHTSA has received only one complaint, according to Deep.

Last month, U.S. sales of cars and light trucks to consumers rose 6 percent from a year earlier, thanks to increases in fleet sales and strong demand for newly redesigned vehicles such as the Hyundai Tucson SUV and Buick LaCrosse sedan. Big winners included General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Co., which all posted double-digit sales increases.

But Toyota's sales slipped 16 percent, and they could fall further as its sales stoppage drags into February. It was the first time since February 1998 that Toyota's monthly U.S. sales fell below 100,000 vehicles, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank.

Toyota announced a recall of eight models, including the Camry, on Jan. 21 and halted sales of those models five days later because the accelerator pedals could stick and cause a crash The recall has affected a total of 2.3 million vehicles in the U.S. Besides the Camry, the other models in the recall include Corolla and Avalon cars, the Matrix hatchback, the Tundra pickup, the Sequoia SUV and the RAV4 and Highlander.

Bob Carter, Toyota's group vice president and general manager, said the suspended models amount to 60 percent of Toyota dealers' inventory. All eight saw sales declines. In December, most of them saw increases. The hybrid Prius, which wasn't affected in the recall, posted a 13 percent gain.

Toyota's pain wasn't a gain for other automakers. They saw more Toyota owners browsing in their showrooms but few sales despite incentives offered by GM, Ford and some New York-area Honda dealers.

Ken Czubay, Ford Motor Co.'s vice president of sales, said Toyota's actions may have hurt overall sales because consumers and dealers were unsure of the value of Toyota trade-ins.

"There was a tremendous amount of uncertainty. I don't think the month enjoyed its normal pickup on the last weekend," Czubay said.

John McEleney, who operates a Toyota dealership in Clinton, Iowa, expected January sales to be up 40 percent over last year until the automaker halted them. Now, January sales will be up 10 percent at the most, said McEleney, who is also president of the National Automobile Dealers Association.

"It died off last week because of the stop sale," he said. "It comes at a tough time for dealers coming out of the recession."

Carter said Tuesday that parts to fix the recalled vehicles are on their way to Toyota dealerships. Customers will also start receiving notices this week, staggered over time, about where and when they can have their vehicles repaired.

Carter emphasized that dealers would repair customer vehicles first and only then repair new vehicles on their lots. Dealers can resume selling vehicles affected by the recall, but he had no estimate for when that would be.

A stripped-down econobox, Escort had just two selling points: its relatively high mileage and its low price.

That formula fit virtually all the small cars sold here over the decades and, with rare exception, subcompact and smaller products were seen as something to be tolerated rather than aspired to. So, why is Ford betting big on the all-new Focus, the latest heir to the old Escort?

"There is an opportunity in small cars," that GM hopes to exploit, says the automaker's Chairman and Acting CEO, Ed Whitacre.

Rising fuel prices certainly feed the interest in small cars. Whitacre's predecessor, Fritz Henderson, revealed that GM's operating assumption is that gasoline will eventually level off at somewhere around $4 a gallon and encourage consumers to downsize.

That's certainly happened in Europe, where motorists now pay as much as $8 a gallon and the Ford Focus is billed as a "family sedan," rather than an entry-level offering. But the version offered to consumers in London, Paris and Berlin is a far more stylish vehicle, and much more lavishly equipped. Or, at least it has been.

A prototype of what is billed by its makers as the world's first practical flying car took to the air 27 times in a series of test flights during the spring of 2009. The engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who built the Terrafugia Transition prefer to call their flying car a roadable aircraft -- an airplane that can be driven to and from the airport and parked in a garage.

The two-seat contraption transitions between car and plane in just 30 seconds by folding up or extending its wings. It can fly 450 miles at 115 miles per hour on a single tank of unleaded gasoline and drive at highway speeds. The team is currently working on a second-stage prototype that should be available for flight in 2011.