Toyota's subsidiaries are collectively counterfeiting, and the Japanese auto industry is on the decline
Author丨Pan Lei
Editor丨Sea waist
题图丨Midjourney
"Dafabet will take measures to completely eliminate the problem of non-compliance. Toyota will also continue to support the new Daihatsu."
After the subsidiary "Daihatsu Automobile" was exposed to collision data fraud at the end of last year, Toyota CEO Tsuneji Sato is trying to restore the reputation of Daihatsu and even Toyota through iron-fisted rectification.
Daihatsu is known for manufacturing small cars, first founded in 1907 and has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor since 2016.
In fiscal year 2022 (April 2022 to March 2023), Daihatsu produced more than 1.7 million units worldwide.
Tsuneji Sato has changed Daihatsu's organizational structure and will no longer have the position of chairman after the resignation of Chairman Sunao Matsubayashi.
另外，大发总裁奥平总一郎（Soichiro Okudaira）也将辞职。
Tsuneji Sato also appointed Masahiro Inoue, the former CEO of Toyota Latin America, as president of Daihatsu in an effort to revive the automaker, which had been mired in a fraud scandal.
But it is difficult to predict the extent to which he will be able to reverse the tide of counterfeiting.
Because according to the results of the investigation at the end of last year, the history of counterfeiting of Daihatsu Automobile can be traced back to 1989 at the earliest.
At that time, it was still the mythical era of "Made in Japan", and Tsuneji Sato had only joined Toyota Motor for three years.
What is even more difficult to control is that the Japanese auto industry, including Toyota, has collectively fallen into the vortex of counterfeiting.
Toyota's intertwined relationship with some of these counterfeiters, such as Denso and Aisin, adds to the complexity of tackling the counterfeiting problem.
Although it has become the world's No. 1 car company in terms of sales for the fourth consecutive year (11.23 million units sold in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%), Toyota's reputation for "lean manufacturing" has also been tarnished by the fraud scandal.
"High work pressure" leads to the collapse of the quality system
Daihatsu broke out that the fraud was in April 2023.
At that time, a "whistleblower" from within Daihatsu submitted false information about Daihatsu to the regulator.
Specifically, when Daihatsu completed the crash test of the relevant model, it copied the data obtained from the left crash test into the right crash test data and submitted it to the regulator.
The models involved in data falsification not only include Daihatsu's own models, but also involve models with Toyota logos.
After conducting an internal investigation a month later, Daihatsu admitted that this was an unacceptable fraud by the public, and stopped production and sales of the relevant models.
Only four models were involved in the internal investigation, including the Toyota Vios.
But after a six-month-long investigation, an independent commission came to a much more serious conclusion.
According to the commission's investigation report, almost all of Daihatsu's models have quality problems, with as many as 64 models in total.
Dafabet also manufactures some Subaru and Mazda brand cars, which are also counterfeit.
According to the committee, they found 174 quality violations, including false records.
This shows that Daihatsu's quality control system has collapsed.
Dafabet finally admitted to the investigation report and gave the reasons for the fraud, including "the work schedule was too tight and rigid, which caused great pressure", "the management only focused on short-term development, and turned a blind eye to the non-compliance", etc.
The latest news now is that Daihatsu Motor submitted a report on test fraud to Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on February 9.
Previously, Daihatsu had submitted a recall request to Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to plan to recall 322,700 vehicles.
Multiple businesses are involved in counterfeiting
What makes Tsuneji Sato tricky is that Toyota's counterfeiting scandal is not Daihatsu.
On January 29 of this year, tests of fuel engines produced by Toyota Industries Co., Ltd. (TICO) were falsified.
However, Toyota Motor said that after re-validating the mass-produced products, it found that the relevant engine and vehicle performance met the standards.
Based on this, it is "not necessary to stop using the engine products immediately".
This kind of excuse of "although it is fake, it can be used normally" has been common in Japanese car companies or industry chains.
Earlier, in August 2022, Toyota's Hino Motors (mainly commercial vehicles) had a scandal of falsifying exhaust emissions and fuel consumption data.
Hino's process of being exposed to fraud is similar to Daihatsu.
Hino's own investigation admitted that since 2016, there has been a falsification of exhaust emissions and fuel consumption data.
But an investigation by an independent third-party agency revealed that Hino had been cheating since 2003.
If Hino and Daihatsu are subsidiaries of Toyota and can use strict measures to stop counterfeiting, then Toyota's right to speak should be discounted for industrial chain fraud.
For example, at the beginning of 2021, the Japanese auto parts supplier "Akebono Brake Industry Co., Ltd." (Akebono) was exposed to falsification of quality inspection data.
akebono is a Tier 1 supplier of brake system related parts such as brakes, and is a top supplier in Japan.
Back in 2007, Akebono partnered with McLaren F1 Team to develop a carbon braking system.
But a scandal that later broke out revealed that Akebono had been falsifying quality inspection reports since 2001.
In the 20 years of counterfeiting, more than 114,000 counterfeit products have been provided to customers, accounting for 60% of all products in the same period.
Toyota, as the largest shareholder of Akebono, has been using the latter's products for many years.
In addition, Nissan, Honda, Isuzu, and Mitsubishi are also customers of Akebono.
It is worth mentioning that Akebono's fraud is after the change of management, and the new management took the initiative to expose it, apparently not wanting to pay for the consequences of the fraud left by the previous executive.
In fact, not only Akebono, but also many other companies in the Japanese automotive industry chain such as Joyson Safety Systems have also had counterfeiting scandals.
Counterfeiting is rampant in Japan's automobile industry
In addition to Toyota, other Japanese car companies have also more or less broken out fake news.
Mitsubishi, for example, has covered up car defects for decades to avoid recalls.
Suzuki, on the other hand, revised its fuel consumption figures to maintain its image as "fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly".
Nissan Motor has used unqualified inspectors for 38 consecutive years to inspect vehicles leaving the factory.
Behind the collective counterfeiting of these OEMs is a large group of closed Japanese automobile supply chains such as Takata Airbags, Kobe Steel, and Hitachi Metals.
The entire automobile manufacturing ecology seems to have become commonplace with counterfeiting.
Parts giants such as Denso and Aisin have not had any counterfeiting scandals so far, but quality problems have also occurred frequently.
Among them, Takada has gone bankrupt because of the "death airbag".
According to people in the Japanese auto industry, it is the strategy of low fuel consumption and low price that has intensified the competition in the Japanese mini car market, forcing many car companies to take risks in counterfeiting, and finally evolving into a market share battle that ignores consumers.
In response to Daihatsu's latest fraud scandal, Tsuneji Sato's strategy so far has been to change management.
In addition to Dafabet's first and second leaders, he also transferred new executives from Lexus and other places to take charge of organizational change and quality certification.
In order to restore its credibility, Daihatsu also intends to compensate for the losses of suppliers caused by the suspension of production due to fraud, involving 423 suppliers.
Dafabet's overseas business is focused on Southeast Asia, where the counterfeiting scandal will have an impact on consumer sentiment.
It is worth mentioning that electric vehicle manufacturers from China are rapidly expanding their presence in the Southeast Asian market.
Taking Thailand as an example, the sales of Chinese EV brands accounted for 80% of the country's market share in 2023, with BYD, SAIC MG and Nezha becoming the most popular EV brands.