On April 8, Toyota Motor and its subsidiary Daihatsu Motor jointly announced a major business structure reform plan, which aims to completely eliminate Daihatsu Automobile's procedural violations.
In this new reform plan, Daihatsu Motor will reposition itself as a mobility solution provider with mini vehicles at its core.
At the same time, the "Emerging Market Compact Car Company", which previously straddled Toyota and Daihatsu, will be officially dissolved.
Looking ahead, Toyota will be fully responsible for Daihatsu's overseas business development and related certification work, while Daihatsu will focus on R&D to ensure product quality and innovation. This business adjustment will be implemented gradually in accordance with a scheduled model conversion schedule.
The product planning function will be integrated into Toyota Compact Motors, while the business operations and product management functions will be taken over by Toyota's business and sales divisions.
The reform comes against the backdrop of a March 2023 when Daihatsu Motor admitted to fraud in a side-impact safety test involving 88,000 vehicles, including 64 models, of which 20 were sold under the Toyota brand.
Then, on December 20 of the same year, Daihatsu again publicly admitted that there had been a total of 174 violations, including falsifying safety crash test data, some of which could be traced back to 1989.