TOKYO – Toyota subsidiary Daihatsu tampered with part of the door in side crash safety tests conducted for about 88,000 small cars, most of which were sold under the Toyota brand, the companies said on Friday.
They said the door trim of the affected vehicles had been modified with a “notch” to minimize the risk by testing that the inside of the door could break with a sharp edge and cause injury to an occupant when the airbag side was deployed in an accident.
The test modification was not part of the production vehicle, the companies said.
Toyota President Akio Toyoda said the companies were investigating how the side panel of the Yaris and other models had been changed for safety testing and apologized for what he called an “unacceptable” breach of trust consumers
Toyota said it had not received any reports of accidents or injuries related to the rigged side crash test.
It was not immediately clear who had tampered with the doors for the crash tests, how much knowledge of the action had been within Daihatsu and whether senior managers had approved the move.
“We will proceed with a detailed investigation from here, but we promise to decisively understand what happened at the site, investigate the true intentions and work sincerely to prevent it from happening again,” Toyoda told reporters.
“We’re going to need some time to do that,” he said.
Daihatsu said it had discovered the tampered safety test following a whistleblower report. It said it had reported the problem to regulatory agencies and stopped shipping the affected models.
Affected models include Toyota Yaris Ativs manufactured in Thailand since last August, and Perodua Axias manufactured in Malaysia since February.
Of the more than 88,000 vehicles, about 76,000 were Yaris models mainly destined for Thailand, Mexico and Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Daihatsu said.
About 11,800 affected vehicles were Axias manufactured by Daihatsu in a joint venture it manages with Malaysian carmaker Perodua. These cars were sold in Malaysia.
The Gulf Cooperation Council is made up of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.
Daihatsu said it would conduct further safety tests in the presence of regulators and confirm the safety of the models before resuming shipments.
The discovery of the tampered safety test is the first crisis for Toyota President Koji Sato, who took over as Toyoda’s top job on April 1.
“We need to find the cause of what happened, including examining the environment in which it happened, and once we’ve confirmed that, take appropriate measures to address the underlying cause,” Sato said.
Toyoda, who was Toyota’s chairman in 2010 when a series of recalls sparked US investigations, said he wanted all Toyota employees and affiliates to understand that “making better cars” required a commitment to talk about the problems .
“We can’t run from this or hide,” he said.
Daihatsu, which specializes in the production of small cars, became a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota in 2016 when Toyoda was chairman.
The incident comes as Toyota has ramped up production amid restrictions imposed by semiconductor shortages, faces pressure to move faster to launch cost-competitive new electric vehicles and faces to a drop in sales in China, a key market. .
(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Maki Shiraki; Writing by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Potter)
