Daihatsu suspends international sales

JAPANESE car brand Daihatsu is suspending shipments of all car models currently in production both at home in Japan and abroad, following new revelations about its rigging of safety tests.

“Daihatsu decided today to temporarily suspend shipments of all Daihatsu-developed models currently in production, both in Japan and overseas,” the c titan said in a statement following a report by an independent panel.

Daihatsu has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota since 2016.

The panel was set up earlier this year to probe a safety scandal that originally emerged in April.

The investigation “found new irregularities in 174 items within 25 test categories, in addition to wrongdoing already detected in April and May about door parts and side-collision tests,” Toyota said.

The number of car models linked to wrongdoing now totals 64, including 22 sold by Toyota.

Daihatsu vehicles were sold in South Africa by Imperial until the importer pulled out of our market in 2015.

Certain Toyota models such as the Rush and Avanza are built by Daihatsu although these models have been replaced in recent years by Suzuki-built products sourced from India. What did Toyota

say? With certification being a “major prerequisite” for an automobile manufacturer to conduct business, “we recognise the extreme gravity” of Daihatsu's neglect, which has “shaken the very foundations of the company as an automobile manufacturer”,

Toyota said.

In its own statement, Daihatsu, offered its “deep apologies” for “betraying the trust of our customers and stakeholders”.

Toyota and Daihatsu said they were not aware at this moment of any accidents that arose from the falsification, but “thorough technical verification” is underway. — IOL Motoring