AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/06 Report--

On June 3, Toyota China issued a statement in response to Toyota's fraud in the Japanese market. Toyota China said that after confirmation, the models sold by FAW Toyota, Guangzhou Automobile Toyota and Lexus in the Chinese market had nothing to do with the incident, and the relevant certification experiments were completed in accordance with Chinese laws and regulations and under the supervision and guidance of Chinese regulatory authorities. There are no safety and quality problems. Please feel at ease to use them. Toyota China said that in the future, Toyota will continue to strictly abide by relevant laws and regulations, adhere to the principle of openness and transparency, and provide Chinese consumers with reassuring and safe products and services.

However, although the models sold by Toyota China and other companies in the domestic market have not been affected, the scandal has still caused serious damage to the international image of the Japanese auto industry and reduced consumer trust in the auto industry. the brand value of the company has also been affected.

Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport issued a notice on June 3, in view of the fact that Japan's Daihatsu and other companies have committed violations one after another in the process of obtaining the model certification needed for mass production of cars and engines. Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport instructed a total of 85 automobile production companies to investigate whether there is a similar situation. By the end of May, Toyota, Mazda, Yamaha engine, Honda Technology Research Industry and Suzuki had committed fraud in vehicle performance testing.

Subsequently, Toyota, Honda and Mazda have held a press conference on the violations, at which the leaders of the three companies publicly bowed and apologized.

Mazda took the lead in holding a press conference, Mazda President Mao Longsheng Hong and other senior executives bowed and apologized for the violations. The results of the survey showed that there were violations in a total of five tests in the two test categories, which involved 150878 vehicles produced and 149313 vehicles sold, namely Oncella, Atz, MAZDA 6 and MX5. This figure is staggering and further highlights the serious problems in data integrity in the Japanese auto industry. For violations, Mazda CEO Masahiro Moro attributed the problem to employees' misreading of ambiguous procedural manuals, rather than "organized concealment" or "malicious forgery".

In the announcement, Toyota admitted that the pedestrian and occupant protection test data of three production models (Corolla Fielder/Axio and YarisCross) were insufficient, as well as the collision test and other test methods of four discontinued models (Crown, Isis, Sienta and RX). Toyota believes that there are no performance problems in violation of laws and regulations, so there is no need to stop using the affected vehicles. However, from now on, the shipments and sales of the three models currently produced in Japan will be temporarily suspended. At a press conference in Tokyo, Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda said: "as the head of the group, I feel deeply guilty and I sincerely apologize to you." this is the fundamental problem of shaking the certification system and something we, as carmakers, must not do. Toyota will continue to conduct in-depth investigations and take measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again. "

Honda announced that the company had received instructions from Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport to investigate whether there was fraud in the application for model designation, and the results of the investigation confirmed that the vehicles sold had improper certification tests. and reported these situations to Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport on May 31. According to the report, Honda has committed misconduct in vehicle noise testing and engine testing since 2009, involving a total of about 4.35 million vehicles. However, Honda said the cars had no defects in performance and met the relevant standards. Although only Honda's past models have been found to have violated the rules, this fact still calls into question the overall integrity of the Japanese auto industry.

Suzuki said its light car, Otto, had violated brake tests, but the violation was the commercial vehicle version of Otto sold between December 2014 and December 2017, involving 26000 vehicles. Suzuki said it had strengthened its internal management after it exposed the fraud of emissions tests in 2016, and that internal certification tests were conducted by a regulatory certification department independent of the design and development department, so there were currently no violations.

Yamaha exposed the problem is the YZ motorcycle on sale, the noise test is not carried out in accordance with the regulations, there are two discontinued models, there are test fraud. Yamaha stressed that it had been re-tested internally in accordance with the regulations to confirm compliance with the standards, while it was uncertain whether there was a problem with the shipped vehicles, and shipments of the motorcycle had stopped at present.

On the same day, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Lin Fang criticized at a press conference, "it is regrettable that this has damaged the credibility of China's automobile industry and shaken the foundation of the automobile certification system." Lin Fangzheng asked the relevant car companies to seriously explain the situation to consumers, and said that Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport will "seriously handle" the matter on the basis of the results of the investigation.

In recent years, there have been frequent quality scandals among Japanese automakers. Take Toyota Motor as an example, subsidiaries Hino Motor, Daihatsu Motor, and Toyota automatic Loom Company have exposed violations in product quality testing. Even if Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda repeatedly bowed and apologized, it was difficult to recover the negative impact of the scandal on Toyota.

Industry insiders said that the counterfeiting of Japanese automakers may be just the tip of the iceberg. In the context of stock competition in the global automobile industry, the internal volume between manufacturers of various countries has reached the extreme. Japanese officials may also choose "self-exposure" to minimize the impact. Chinese automakers should not be cynical, should take it as a warning, while speeding up going to sea, control the quality control in order to achieve a stable and far future.

So far this year, Toyota has recalled more than 1.85 million vehicles worldwide. As of April, Toyota's global sales in 2024 were 3.1985 million vehicles, down 0.1% from a year earlier. Toyota's global sales have declined for three consecutive months since February, mainly due to the impact of Dafa car counterfeiting. Among them, Toyota has suffered an extremely serious decline in the Chinese market, with sales of 492000 vehicles in the first four months, down 9.3 per cent from a year earlier.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat