The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda ordered a big-time investigation on the alleged rigging by its close affiliate Daihatsu of a side-collision safety tests carried out for some 88,000 small cars that include Toyota Yaris Ativs made in Thailand from last August and Perodua Axias manufactured in Malaysia starting from February.
Daihatsu allegedly admitted its fault after a whistleblower reported that the door trim on the affected vehicles had been modified with a “notch” to minimize the risk in testing and that the door interior could break with a sharp edge and cause injury to an occupant when the side airbag deployed in an accident.
Toyoda said the companies were investigating how the side-panel of Yaris and other models had been changed for safety testing and apologized for what he called an “unacceptable” violation of consumer trust. So far, Toyota said it had not received any report of an accident or injury related to the rigged side-crash test.
“We’ll proceed with a detailed investigation from here on, but promise to decisively understand what happened at the site, investigate the true intentions and sincerely work to prevent a recurrence. We’re going to need some time to do that,” Toyoda added.
Daihatsu reported that it had discovered the rigged safety test and had already reported the issue to regulatory agencies and that they had already stopped the exportation of the involved cars. Some 76,000 were Yaris models mainly bound for Thailand, Mexico and Gulf Cooperation Council countries – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
About 11,800 affected vehicles were Axias manufactured by Daihatsu at a joint venture plant it runs with Malaysian automaker Perodua. Those cars were sold in Malaysia.
AS of press time, Toyota regional bosses are not stopping the selling of the involved cars yet and are still waiting for the decision of the higher ups from Japan.