Institutional Fatigue of Daihatsu

Japanese carmaker Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of Toyota, announced on Wednesday that it had been committing 174 kinds of cheating in its safety tests for over three decades. Daihatsu halted all the car shipment in Japan and overseas and the government exercised investigation into Daihatsu. Toyota is also regarded as responsible for the long-time inappropriate practices. There is a structural problem in Japan’s manufacturing behind the case.

When a carmaker develops a new type of car, it needs to pass the examination of National Traffic Safety and Environment Laboratory, which is one of the independent administrative agencies. Daihatsu has been passing the examination with false or fabricated data starting from as early as 1989. Those facts were found in the investigation of an independent committee in Daihatsu.

 

The committee found the inappropriate practices in 64 types of cars and 3 types of engines. The cheating included 143 cases of submitting false data in the document for safety test, 28 cases of false change or adjustment of testing devices and 3 cases of fabrication of examination data.

 

According to the news reports, Daihatsu tested the safety of airbag not with actual impact of collision but activation with the timer. In another cases of collision test, they used the data of passenger’s seat for driver’s seat. In some tests for protecting pedestrians, the speed at the collision was fabricated. In some tests for speed indicator, they used wrong data of air pressure of wheels.

 

Those false measures were made for passing the tests as fast as possible. The independent committee indicated that the pressure for car development in a very short time pushed the workers into the wrongdoings. Daihatsu accelerated short-term car developments with outstanding success in an eco-friendly car, Mira e:S, in 2011. It was 2014 when the inappropriate practices abruptly increased.

 

Daihatsu was included in the Toyota group, when Toyota obtained 100% share of Daihatsu’s stocks in 2016. It is reported that Daihatsu has been pressured by Toyota to take advantage of Daihatsu’s skill of short-term developments in overseas. Daihatsu introduced too tight and rigid schedules for car developments.

 

Among the companies in Toyota group, Hino Motors committed the fabrication of safety data on fuel efficiency tests and Toyota Industries Corporation fabricated the data for engines of forklift trucks. Although the responsibility of Toyota was focused on, the president or chairman from Toyota did not attend the press conference on Daihatsu’s false measures. The case may indicate the limit of Toyota’s manufacturing management.

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