Late last year news of Daihatsu’s safety scandal emerged again but this time revealing more models by the company affected by rigged collision-safety tests. Daihatsu is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota, and Reuters reports that Toyota will announce its plans for the scandal-hit Daihatsu in about a month from now.
Toyota CEO, Koji Sato told reporters, “We [Toyota] are taking this very seriously”. The company is also considering whether to break down any boundaries as part of the move. Toyota may dispatch its own engineers to Daihatsu to address the issue.
Daihatsu on the other hand has released an official statement to declare that three of it models have had their Vehicle Type Approval (VTA)s revoked by Japan’s Ministry of Land Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT). The three models are the Daihatsu Gran Max, Toyota Town Ace, and Mazda Bongo.
A rectification order has also been sent to Daihatsu that urges it to “make fundamental reforms to the corporate structures that engaged in the procedural irregularities leading to the violations of laws and regulations to ensure that this type of procedural irregularities never occurs again”.
This latest safety scandal by Daihatsu involves about 64 models including models sold under the Toyota brand name. This includes the Raize, Toyota Town Ace, Toyota Agya/Wigo, Toyota Rush, Toyota Avanza, Toyota Veloz, Toyota Vios/ Yaris Sedan, and Toyota Yaris Cross.
It isn’t the first time Daihatsu has been caught in a safety scandal as back in May 2023 there was an episode that saw the temporary sales halt of the Toyota Raize/Daihatsu Rocky and another one that revealed rigged safety testing of models like the Perodua Axia/Toyota Agya.
RELATED: Daihatsu safety scandal – VTAs revoked for 3 models, no mention of Perodua
