NEW YORK, Nov. 18, 2009 (Kyodo News International) -- Not a single model from Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE:TM) , the world's biggest automaker by sales, features in the 2010 list of top-rated vehicles for highway safety, according to an annual industry report released Wednesday.
Toyota had a strong showing in 2009 with 11 models, but didn't make the cut of 27 top-rated vehicles for 2010, said the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
The institute said the latest survey included a roof-strength test for the first time to measure protection in rollover crashes, which kill more than 9,000 people each year.
Toyota downplayed the result of the survey. In a statement, the Japanese carmaker said the report is misleading because the safety institute tested roof strength for only three of 38 Toyota models.
Safety concerns regarding Toyota cars have made headlines since a problem with the gas pedal in certain models surfaced in the United States in September.
The addition of the roof-strength assessment has cut the number of top-rated cars for safety in the annual list to 27 from a record 94 in 2009, the institute said.
With the addition, ''our crash test results now cover all four of the most common kinds of crashes,'' institute President Adrian Lund said in a statement, referring to front, side and rear crashes as well as rollovers.
Ford Motor Co. had the largest number of models named in the 2010 safety list with six, followed by five models each for Volkswagen AG and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. Four models from Chrysler Group LLC and two from General Motors Co. were also listed.
