of Toyota subsidiary, manufacturer of trucks and buses Hino Motors, stopped shipping some of its trucks from its plants. An investigation by Japan’s transport ministry has revealed that the company failed to carry out all mandatory engine tests for approximately 76,000 cars sold after 2019.
Toyota owns 50.1% of Hino Motors. In the spring of this year, Hino Motors was caught falsifying emissions data on its diesel engines. In Japan, the case was described as scandalous because the fraud is years old and involves more than 640,000 cars.
Hino Motors attributed what happened earlier to an inward-looking corporate culture and management’s inability to cooperate with employees. Achieving schedules and targets was a priority, and monitoring production processes was less important.
This time, the company is not suspected of direct feed fraud. According to Hino Motors, the problem is that the number of required engine tests has been omitted. CEO of Hino Motors Satoshi Ogison however, the abuses were not intentional and the provisions were misunderstood.
Engines manufactured by Hino are also used in Toyota trucks in Japan.
“We are very disappointed that Hino has once again failed the expectations and trust of its stakeholders,” Toyota’s CEO said Akio Toyoda comment.
An analyst interviewed by the news agency Reuters Seiji Sugiura Tokai of the Tokyo Research Institute is calling on Toyota to take responsibility for its corrupt subsidiary. Hino became a subsidiary of Toyota in 2001, and since then all of the truck maker’s CEOs have come from Toyota.
Toyota Communications Director Jun Nagata however, according to the parent company, she was unable to intervene directly in the management of Hino Motors, although she was involved in drawing the main lines and directing the company’s administration.
Hino Motors is the weakest unit in the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s auto index. Its shares have already fallen 38 percent this year, Tuesday’s drop was more than six percent. The sharp decline is explained by the fact that, due to the emissions scandal in the spring and the “mistake” made now, Hino’s car deliveries this year could be as much as 60 percent lower than planned.
Hino Motors parent company Toyota had a challenging year with no further problems. In April-June, its production volume was 10 percent lower than planned due to supply chain disruptions caused by the semiconductor shortage and the corona lockdowns in China. Despite the difficulties, the value of the company’s shares remained stable, and the decline in Hino’s prices did not affect Toyota’s shares.
At least fuel consumption and emissions tests of cars made by Mazda, Suzuki, Subaru and Nissan have been investigated in Japan in the past, Reuters reports.