July 8, 2019—Toyota has announced the third recall of its Prius hybrid models. The recall follows safety claims by Toyota's California dealer, reported Yahoo Finance.
The recall comes after one of the largest Toyota dealers in Southern California, Roger Hogan, raised safety concerns regarding inverter failures on vehicles that had received the software modification and filed a lawsuit against Toyota.
More than 20,000 Prius owners have reported electric power system failures since the last recall in 2014. The company intends to expand its electric power system recall to include Prius c models manufactured in 2018.
Reportedly, in 2014, the first recall covered 800,000 Prius Hybrids vehicles in the United States, from model years 2010-2014, for inverter transistors that would abruptly shut down cars while driving. Subsequently, a second recall was announced last October. Each recall involved software updates and detection of power failure.
The Toyota Prius hybrid system’s inverter uses high-power transistors to boost voltage from the Prius battery and convert electricity from direct current to alternative current and vice versa. The overheated inverter and burnt internal high power transistors led to a power loss in Prius cars. However, after the initial recall, Toyota responded to the issue by updating the inverter software, even though the inverter failure problem persisted. The company took an initiative to replace the damaged component under extended warranty coverage but failed to replace the inverters in all affected Prius vehicles.
