WASHINGTON — Toyota’s elusive president goes before a House committee on Wednesday, one day after the company’s highest ranking American executive came under blistering criticism for its response to problems with sudden unintended acceleration in its cars.

Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times
James E. Lentz III of Toyota testifying Tuesday in Washington.
The president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, will take “full responsibility” when he appears before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and, in his prepared statement, will assure lawmakers that the carmaker is moving to fix the problems and regain the trust of consumers.

“My name is on every car,” Mr. Toyoda said in the statement. “You have my personal commitment that Toyota will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of our customers.”

He will be the second Toyota executive to testify at Congressional hearings this week and his appearance comes amid reports that Japanese regulators will start an investigation of 38 reports of unintended acceleration in the last three years.

On Tuesday in Washington, James E. Lentz III, the president of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., came under sharp criticism from lawmakers who chastised the automaker for ignoring its customers. While Mr. Lentz told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that Toyota was rushing to repair the more than six million vehicles in the United States recalled because of sudden unintended acceleration, he also said that the prescribed repairs might “not totally” solve the problem.

This month, dealers began repairing the pedals on cars involved in one of two recalls, using a remedy that Mr. Lentz had previously said would resolve the issue.

But in response to a question Tuesday by the energy committee chairman, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, Mr. Lentz said that Toyota was still examining the sudden acceleration problem, including the possibility that the electronics system might be at fault — something the company had previously denied was the case.

While Toyota has found no evidence of an electronics problem at this point, Mr. Lentz said, “we continue to look for potential causes.”

Like Mr. Lentz did on Tuesday, Mr. Toyoda is expected to tell lawmakers that Toyota has made changes so that it responds more quickly to customer complaints. And in doing so, he will admit that the company had put growth ahead of quality.

“We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization,” Mr. Toyoda said in his prepared testimony. “I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced.”

But it may be difficult for Mr. Toyoda to satisfy lawmakers who are angry about the delay in Toyota’s response to complaints from customers, as well past decisions by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to not vigorously pursue company recalls.

“We’re going to want to see if they live up to even what they’re saying in their commercials right now, which is that good companies fix their mistakes; great companies learn from them,” Representative Darrell E. Issa of California, the ranking Republican on the oversight committee, said Wednesday during an interview on CBS’s “The Early Show.”

Mr. Issa also said that the safety agency bears some of the fault because of its close relationship to the industry. “We need to evaluate how prepared regulators are to discover and correct safety defects and to ensure industry is as responsive and transparent as possible,” he said.

As Mr. Toyoda prepares to testify, Reuters reported that Japan’s transport minister, Seiji Maehara, had said that regulators would take a fresh look into acceleration issues, in part because of heightened media coverage over the carmaker’s global recall of 8.5 million vehicles.

Including other automakers, the regulator has received 134 complaints over the last three years, he said. “The number of complaints about Toyota cars is not out of proportion to its share of the overall number of vehicles registered,” Mr. Maehara said, according to Reuters. “But given the ongoing issue, we would like to investigate Toyota cars.”

In his testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Lentz told the committee that Toyota was installing a new brake system that can override a surging gas pedal on almost all its new vehicles and most of those already on the road.

Mr. Waxman, while criticizing Toyota’s response to the recall, told Mr. Lentz: “We need to be sure that you’re doing a full and adequate analysis of something you’ve denied, but that other witnesses have shown us is very possible.”
In his testimony on Tuesday, Mr. Lentz told the committee that Toyota was installing a new brake system that can override a surging gas pedal on almost all its new vehicles and most of those already on the road.

Mr. Waxman, while criticizing Toyota’s response to the recall, told Mr. Lentz: “We need to be sure that you’re doing a full and adequate analysis of something you’ve denied, but that other witnesses have shown us is very possible.”

Mr. Lentz’s disclosure about the uncertainty of the fix came during a day that regularly turned emotional, as when Rhonda Smith, a Lexus owner whose car was involved in a sudden acceleration incident told her story. Mr. Lentz himself spoke in a choked voice when he discussed losing his brother in a car accident more than 20 years ago.

In the future, Mr. Lentz said, an employee from North America would participate on a new committee that the company is forming to examine quality issues. “We didn’t have that before,” Mr. Lentz said.

The transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, was also questioned committee members who were critical of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“There needs to be fundamental reform at N.H.T.S.A.,” Mr. Waxman said. “As I look at the record, it’s not a happy one. It’s not a successful one.”

Mr. LaHood, a former Republican representative from Illinois, sidestepped questions about whether his predecessors had been lax. He vowed his agency would “get into the weeds” and investigate complaints that the computerized electronic systems were involved.

Mr. LaHood said the department, which has 125 engineers to perform investigations, had found no evidence of electronic systems problems with Toyota cars and believed that floor mats and sticky pedals posed the greatest threat.

Mr. LaHood defended the work of government investigators, but he stopped short of saying that the recent recalls would solve the entire acceleration problem in Toyota cars.

“We stand ready to ensure prompt action on any additional defects that we have reason to believe are present,” Mr. LaHood said.

Witnesses who spoke before Mr. Lentz described how an electronic problem could have caused cars to surge unexpectedly.

Mrs. Smith, who paused to wipe away tears, told of the harrowing moments of Oct. 12, 2006, when her Lexus sedan sped out of control at 100 miles an hour.

Mrs. Smith told the energy committee that she furiously pushed buttons, shifted gears, and slammed on the brakes as she tried to stop the vehicle. Six miles later, she finally brought it to a halt.

Mrs. Smith told the committee that she felt that Toyota’s response to her complaint was “a farce.” She said a company technician told her he was not able to replicate the episode and suggested that it was caused by pressing on the brakes while the tires were spinning.

“Of course we were insulted, and furious, over being called liars,” Mrs. Smith said.

Later, Mr. Lentz said he was “embarrassed about what happened” to the Smiths. “We’re going to go down and get that car and see what happened,” he said.

Asked why Toyota had moved away from a business model that prized quality and openness, Mr. Lentz offered a simple explanation: “We lost sight of our customers.”

“We outgrew our engineering resource,” he said. “We’re suffering from that today.”

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