Toyota Motor Corp.'s small-car unit Daihatsu Motor Co. said Monday its parent will be more involved in its operations after a recent safety testing scandal caused Daihatsu to temporarily halt all shipments at home and abroad.
Daihatsu said Toyota will be in charge of development and safety approval for some of the models Daihatsu has been handling while it will focus on its mainstay minivehicle business.
The move will see Toyota exercise stronger control in the manufacturing process at Daihatsu, which had enjoyed a certain autonomy in pushing forward the parent's small-car strategy.
The change will apply to Daihatsu's overseas models starting May 1 and is expected to expand to some of its domestic models later, the company said. Outside of Japan, Daihatsu mainly sells its cars in Indonesia and Malaysia where it has production sites.
The Toyota unit also said former Chairman Sunao Matsubayashi and former President Soichiro Okudaira as well as current vice president Hiromasa Hoshika returned their bonuses for fiscal 2023 in full while seven other executives payed back 10 to 50 percent of their annual bonuses.
"We thought it important for the sake of preventing a recurrence that Toyota takes responsibility for safety approval," Hoshika said at a press conference in Tokyo.
Masahiro Inoue, a former Toyota executive who took the post of Daihatsu president in March, said, "We aim to become a mobility company with the main focus on minivehicles. Daihatsu and Toyota will complement each other's weaknesses."
Daihatsu in December admitted to safety test rigging for most of its models, which a third-party investigation found dated back as far as 1989. The panel blamed "an extremely tight and rigid development schedule" for the misconduct.
Following the revelations, Daihatsu stopped all its shipments in and outside of Japan, including models that it made for other makers such as Toyota, Subaru Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp.
The data rigging, coupled with similar recent scandals at Toyota truck subsidiary Hino Motors Ltd. and affiliate Toyota Industries Corp., prompted Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda to make a rare appearance in front of the media and apologize in January.
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