Daihatsu has admitted to rigging numerous crash tests over the years.
In 2015, Dieselgate, an affair during which the public learned that Volkswagen had rigged the CO2 emissions tests of its vehicles, had a worldwide impact. The company had suffered deeply from this affair, with some of its directors sentenced to prison terms. Today, it is the turn of Toyota’s subsidiary, Daihatsu, to face a global scandal, this time related to its crash tests.
False crash tests
The story begins last April with a whistleblower suspecting Daihatsu of having rigged the crash tests of six models among its car offering. A doubt which was still far from reality, since this affair actually concerns 64 models, and 170 irregularities identified.
The file is all the more cumbersome as some of these retouched essays date from the 1990s, which suggests a system that has been institutionalized for a long time. Daihatsu has thus on numerous occasions discreetly modified the cars passing the crash test, in order to ensure proper deformation of the car or the opening of the airbag.
15 models hanging in Asia
And the consequences are already being felt for the company which belongs to Toyota, the world’s leading automobile manufacturer. Management has just announced the suspension of deliveries of all new vehicles, while the Japanese Ministry of Transport has launched an inspection at the firm’s headquarters.
At the international level, there are fifteen models whose marketing is suspended throughout Asia. As a reminder, Daihatsu has no longer been accessible on European territory since 2013.
For the boss Soichiro Okudaira, who publicly apologized, this scandal would be caused by certain cultural traits of the group, such as the fear of failure, or the inability to denounce this type of facts. He also pointed out the constant pressure imposed to reduce costs and deadlines.
Source : Caradisiac, The world
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