TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp stated on Tuesday each the president and chairman of Daihatsu Motor will step down nearly a yr after the small-car unit stated it had rigged collision safety-tests.
The departures are among the many most drastic adjustments Daihatsu has made up to now, as Toyota seeks to return the model to its roots as considered one of Japan’s most iconic compact automotive makers.
Toyota faces a possible hit to its fame from the security certification lapses at Daihatsu, in addition to separate governance points at truck maker Hino Motors and affiliate Toyota Industries.
The scandals on the three corporations 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 substitute Soichiro Okudaira as Daihatsu’s president efficient March 1.
Daihatsu’s chairman, Sunao Matsubayashi, may also step down and won’t get replaced, Toyota added.
The outgoing Okudaira had labored at Toyota for almost 4 many years earlier than turning into president of Daihatsu in 2017, a yr after it grew to become an entirely owned Toyota subsidiary.
Toyota Chief Government Koji Sato instructed reporters, nonetheless, 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 security check certification purposes, Daihatsu additionally can be faraway from a business automobile partnership referred to as the Business 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 know-how growth for business automobiles. Suzuki Motor and Daihatsu joined in July the identical yr.
Daihatsu’s 10% fairness stake within the partnership can be transferred to Toyota, the assertion stated.
(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Satoshi Sugiyama; Enhancing by Kim Coghill & Shri Navaratnam and Miral Fahmy)