Toyota has announced a 2.43 million-car global recall of the Prius hybrid. Autis, Prius and Prius+ 
hybrid cars with the 1.8-litre engine, built between October 2008 and November 2014, are affected. 

The recall covers around 1.25 million vehicles sold in Japan, 830,000 in the US, 290,000 in Europe and also in China, Africa and Oceania. 

The fault, according to Toyota, is a software issue that could cause the cars to not enter a designated failsafe mode in certain situations associated with the hybrid powertrain. Should this occur, the car could lose power and stall, although functions such as the power steering, brakes and lights would still work. 

It will take around 40 minutes to fix the cars with a software update that can be carried out at owners’ local Toyota dealer.