TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp stated on Tuesday each the president and chairman of Daihatsu Motor will step down virtually a 12 months after the small-car unit stated it had rigged collision safety-tests.
The departures are among the many most drastic modifications Daihatsu has made thus far, as Toyota seeks to return the model to its roots as one among Japan’s most iconic compact automobile makers.
Toyota faces a possible hit to its fame from the protection certification lapses at Daihatsu, in addition to separate governance points at truck maker Hino Motors and affiliate Toyota Industries.
The scandals on the three firms triggered a uncommon apology of Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda final month.
In an announcement, the world’s top-selling automaker stated its chief government officer for the Latin America and Caribbean area, Masahiro Inoue, will exchange Soichiro Okudaira as Daihatsu’s president efficient March 1.
Daihatsu’s chairman, Sunao Matsubayashi, can even step down and won’t get replaced, Toyota added.
The outgoing Okudaira had labored at Toyota for almost 4 a long time earlier than turning into president of Daihatsu in 2017, a 12 months after it turned an entirely owned Toyota subsidiary.
Toyota Chief Govt Koji Sato advised reporters, nevertheless, that the organizational change at Daihatsu was not carried out as a punishment for the outgoing executives.
In quantity phrases, Daihatsu accounted for 7% of Toyota’s complete group gross sales of 11.2 million automobiles in 2023, together with these of the posh Lexus model and Hino Motors.
Given the misconduct over the protection take a look at certification purposes, Daihatsu additionally might be faraway from a industrial automobile partnership referred to as the Industrial Japan Partnership Applied sciences (CJPT), the automaker stated in a separate assertion.
The partnership was established in April 2021 by Toyota, Hino and Isuzu Motors to facilitate expertise improvement for industrial automobiles. Suzuki Motor and Daihatsu joined in July the identical 12 months.
Daihatsu’s 10% fairness stake within the partnership might be transferred to Toyota, the assertion stated.
(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Satoshi Sugiyama; Modifying by Kim Coghill & Shri Navaratnam and Miral Fahmy)