The archipelago of automotive scandals? After Hino and Takata it’s up to Daihatsu
From safety tests to emissions tests. In the last period there have been numerous scandals involving the Japanese car world. The last one concerns the oldest house in Japan: Daihatsu. Here are all the details
When it comes to small and reliable cars, the mind usually goes to Japanese cars. In the last period, however, the Land of the Rising Sun has strung together a series of scandals that risk casting a shadow over the entire sector. The last one concerns none other than the oldest brand. Daihatsu has in fact admitted to having "rigged" the tests of over 88,000 vehicles, mostly produced on behalf of the Toyota parent company.
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE DAIHATSU SCANDAL
According to what is learned, of the sample under indictment, 76,289 are Yaris assembled in August 2022 between Thailand and Malaysia and sold in Mexico, Thailand and in the markets of the Persian Gulf, while the remaining 11,834 are from Perodua (whose investors are UMW Corporation with 38%, Daihatsu Motor Co. with 20%, Daihatsu with 5%, MBM Resources with 20%, PNB Equity Resource Corporation with 10%, Mitsui & Co. with 4.2% and Mitsui & Co. with 2.8%). In fact, the scandal concerns around 12,000 Axias produced last February in Malaysia and still marketed on the same Malaysian market.
Not unlike the Hino affair , here too internal reports have triggered an investigation. It was thus discovered that during the tests, "the internal lining of the front seat door was modified in an improper way and there was a violation of the procedures and methodologies for verifying the impacts required by the regulations".
"We deeply apologize for breaking the trust of our customers and other stakeholders and causing great inconvenience and concern," the company's headquarters in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, where the oldest automaker is based, said. Japanese.
Daihatsu informed the competent authorities, freezing the deliveries not made and setting up a commission to clarify the details of what happened, analyze the causes, understand the details (for how many years the bad habit had been going on) and define any preventive measures.
NEW APOLOGY FOR TOYODA BY TOYOTA
And there is another element that allows us to draw a parallel with Hino: the fact that both companies belong to Toyota. President Akio Toyoda thus found himself again in the position of profusely bowing in public apology for an "unacceptable" breach of consumer confidence. “We will proceed with a detailed investigation, but we promise to firmly understand what happened, investigate the true intentions and work sincerely to prevent a repeat. We will need some time though,” added Toyoda.
THE HINO SCANDAL
The scandal of Hino Motors Ltd, a manufacturer of trucks and buses had led the parent company, the much better known Toyota, to distance itself from the conduct that led the reality led by CEO Yoshio Shimo to falsify data for years, with the same company forced on several occasions to announce new stops on shipments of vehicles abroad.
The investigation, according to what has been reconstructed in the Japanese press, was launched after Hino had admitted that he had lied about the data relating to the emissions and fuel consumption of four of his turbodiesel engines for heavy vehicles. However, the admission of Toyota's industrial vehicle division (50.1% of the share capital) was not complete, so much so that the continuation of the investigation has brought to light episodes of forgery dating back to October 2003, while those on consumption started in 2005. The company, on the other hand, had said that they had been going on since 2016. All this, according to what emerged from the work of the external commission of inquiry commissioned by the builder himself and led by a former magistrate, Kazuo Sakakibara , former chief prosecutor of the district of Osaka, in order not to displease the top management.
THE LATEST TRAVELS OF THE TAKATA AFFAIR
Even more recent is the maxi recall of 270 thousand units by Volkswagen which brought back the pages of the calendar to 2017, the year of the scandal and the consequent bankruptcy of the manufacturer Takata. The recall of the German car manufacturer in fact concerned a new tranche of models in which the technology of the Japanese manufacturer Takata is installed. According to data from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority, "faults in the gas generator of the front airbags" could lead to an "uncontrolled deployment and release of metal fragments that could injure the occupants". The nightmare of defective airbags produced by the Japanese manufacturer Takata has thus come back into the news, which, as anticipated, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2017 precisely because of the continuous malfunctions of its devices.
A closing with aftermath even in much more recent times, if we consider that Ford communicated at the end of last week to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that it is recalling just under 100,000 old Ranger pickups to give its technicians the opportunity to correctly replace the Takata airbags.
And earlier, in September 2021 the German newspaper Der Spiegel had reported that the US federal transport agency NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) had opened a further investigation into more than 30 million cars built between 2001 and 2019 equipped with the infamous airbags at risk. These were vehicles of luxury brands, as well as generalist manufacturers, which had no direct responsibility in the matter, such as Porsche, Jaguar Land Rover, Ferrari, Tesla, Bmw, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, GM, Nissan, Mazda, Subaru and Toyota.
In January 2020, shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (which is why the news went unnoticed) it was discovered that the ammonium nitrate used as an explosive for air cushion expansion was undergoing changes due to humidity and high temperatures, effectively causing a much stronger explosion to the point of "shooting" metal components into the passenger compartment and injuring the passengers. That is why the German brand is currently favoring recalls of vehicles delivered in “hot countries, such as South America for example”.
THE DIESELGATE FROM MITSUBISHI
Going back in time, another major scandal was that which broke out in 2016 and which concerned Mitsubishi. "We have found – the Japanese company was forced to admit – that the company has improperly conducted tests on fuel consumption emissions, to present better rates than those currently achieved". The cars involved at the time were over 600 thousand.
“I want to express my deepest apologies to all our customers and other parties involved,” said Mitsubishi chief Tetsuro Aikawa as the stock fell 15%. “We have decided to stop the production and sale of the affected models.” The Japanese government agency for consumer protection had imposed a fine of 480 million yen (the equivalent of 3.9 million euros) against Mitsubishi. In 2018, irregularities also emerged with reference to other Japanese brands.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/smartcity/larcipelago-degli-scandali-dellautomotive-dopo-hino-e-takata-tocca-a-daihatsu/ on Wed, 03 May 2023 08:25:48 +0000.