U.S. lawsuit claims Toyota hid defect evidence

Toyota executives have been visiting dealers across the United States this week in a bid to focus attention on a campaign of aggressive discounts credited with sending sales sharply higher in March.

Toyota Senior Vice President for U.S. sales, Don Esmond, told Reuters on Friday that the automaker's U.S. sales were up 40 percent from a year earlier through the first 10 days of March.

He said the automaker had not decided whether to extend unprecedented incentives, including rebates and dealer incentives of up to $4,000 (2,600 pounds) and zero-percent financing into April, a move analysts say could stoke sales at the expense of profit margins.

"We'll continue to keep the dealers competitive in the marketplace. I think we will have to take a look at results and reevaluate, but the promise I made to dealers was that we will continue to make them competitive," Esmond said.

(Writing by Kevin Krolicki, additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in Detroit, editing by Matthew Lewis)