Toyota says president, chairman of scandal-hit Daihatsu unit to step down
Toyota Motor has chosen Masahiro Inoue to restore leadership at Daihatsu Motor, after the unit became entangled in a vehicle certification scandal, Bloomberg reported.
In a joint statement the companies said, Inoue, CEO of Toyota Latin America, would replace Soichiro Okudaira, effective March 1.
Daihatsu’s top posts would be replaced and its operations abroad would be folded into Toyota’s oversight, Toyota CEO Koji Sato said Tuesday. A new leadership structure for Daihatsu will be announced in April.
Daihatsu Chairman Sunao Matsubayashi will step down and his position is left vacant.
“For Daihatsu to be reborn as the company it was meant to be, this is what we believe is necessary,” Sato told reporters, as reported by Bloomberg.
An internal probe followed by a government raid of Daihatsu’s headquarters led to a weeklong suspension of domestic production and a revocation of certification for several models. The manufacturer supplies cars and other automobile parts to Toyota, Mazda Motor and Subaru. In 2016, the carmaker became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toyota, which has promised to step in should Daihatsu struggle to compensate customers, suppliers and business partners. Daihatsu said Tuesday it would remove itself from the Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies or CJPT, a strategic manufacturing alliance with Toyota and Suzuki Motor.
Production of 10 models will resume February 26, Okudaira said Friday after
submitting a report to Transport Minister Tetsuo Saito that outlines proposed countermeasures to prevent such conduct in the future. These included increased staffing and production time as well as training for managerial and executive staff in an effort to improve transparency.
As highlighted by Bloomberg, in January, an internal investigation revealed that another unit, Toyota Industries, was found to have manipulated power output figures for some of its diesel engines. Akio Toyoda, Chairman of the Toyota group, said the entire organisation needs to “return to basics” to overcome these scandals.
Last week, Toyota raised its full-year guidance for the fiscal year ending in March, following a banner year boosted by record sales and strong demand for hybrid cars around the world.