Several Japanese car manufacturers have been caught falsifying certification tests, Toyota’s may be the biggest scandal. Mazda, Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki also admitted they lied in the reports.
The Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (FILLED) published it, that the ongoing investigation of 85 domestic manufacturers, including several car manufacturers, revealed that most of them acted in accordance with the law, but Mazda, Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki did not. According to the instructions of the MLIT, all four investigated their own operations and found falsification of type approval applications, “they were found guilty of fraud”, the ministry said. The guilty companies were ordered to suspend the supply of vehicles whose certification tests were falsified and to rectify the deficiencies as soon as possible.
Mazda was found to have rewritten its engine control software to influence performance tests, while Yamaha and Honda both submitted fake noise tests. Suzuki lied about brake system test results and Mazda also falsified crash tests. Of the five major Japanese automakers that were caught cheating, only one, Toyota, is still under investigation. The car manufacturer is no stranger to being caught in a lie, so it went into apology mode. Toyota’s own detailed statement issued to explain MLIT’s report that “false data was submitted during pedestrian protection tests for three currently manufactured vehicles” and “falsification of crash tests for four previously manufactured vehicles.”
The lies actually served the interests of consumers, Toyota claims. According to their statement, among the seven models, they found six cases “where the testing methods differed from the standards set by the national authorities”, but they emphasize that none of the affected vehicles is dangerous. Shinji Miyamoto, head of Toyota’s Customer First Promotion Group, said that in most cases they used “more stringent test conditions” and that the data they provided to the government exceeded what was required by law. In one example, a heavier-than-statutory moving barrier was used for rear-impact fuel leakage testing, resulting in greater distortion.
Toyota also didn’t differentiate between the passenger and driver side when reporting head and leg injuries to a pedestrian in a side impact, and in another case using an old, unregulated trunk test block to provide data on the risk of luggage displacement. In the end, Toyota didn’t meet the target engine performance in a test, and instead of stopping to fix things as required, “they reset the engine control system and used retested data for certification,” Miyamoto said.
Toyota added: “In each case, we have conducted an internal inspection and confirmed that they all meet the standards set by law and are therefore safe for our customers to use,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda said of the affected vehicles. “Nevertheless, these actions fundamentally shake the foundations of the certification system, and as a car manufacturer, we believe that these are actions that should never be committed,” the president added. he stressed that the investigation was still ongoing (the MLIT also “only listed the abuses discovered so far”), but believed that the company was now moving in the right direction in terms of compliance with automotive regulators. “These efforts will have to be made continuously, it will take time, but I will look into it myself and take responsibility for the development,” added Toyoda.
Toyota said the tests involved 2014 Crown models, as well as 2015 model year Isis, Sienta, Crown and Lexus RX vehicles, none of which are no longer in production. Current vehicles involved in the scandal include the Corolla Axio and Corolla Fielder, as well as the Yaris Cross, whose production has been suspended in Japan. It is not clear how many vehicles were sold on the basis of false certificates, or whether such vehicles are sold outside of Japan. Earlier this year, Toyota was caught faking certification tests for its diesel engines by rewriting the engines’ performance software to miscalculate the results – like the VolksWagen. In 2022, the company’s heavy vehicle subsidiary Hino admitted that similar results had been falsified going back to 2003.
Source: sg.hu
