Toyota said on Monday it had found no evidence to support a US driver's version of a widely publicized "runaway" Prius episode a week ago. At a news conference in San Diego, Toyota representatives announced the preliminary findings of its examination of the car.

Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said, "While our analysis is not finalized Toyota believes there are significant inconsistencies between the account of the event of March 8 and the findings of this investigation. As I mentioned, this self-protective system was found to be working as designed and would have easily stopped the vehicle."

Prius owner James Sikes called 911 operators last week. He said that his car sped out of control for some 20 minutes before he could bring the vehicle under control with the assistance of the California Highway Patrol. Toyota said it had found no evidence that he had been applying the brake forcefully throughout the episode as he had described.The automaker said there was no other sign of any difficulty with the Prius. U.S. safety investigators said earlier on Monday that they had found no evidence to support or disprove Sikes' version of events.

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