Toyota Takes Over Daihatsu's Role in Small Car Development

Toyota announced a major restructuring of its operations with Daihatsu following the safety scandal that embroiled the two automakers earlier this year. While Toyota already implemented a management shakeup in Daihatsu, those measures were merely the beginning.

Recently, Toyota announced that they will reform their overseas business structure to “thoroughly prevent the recurrence of procedural irregularities at Daihatsu”. More importantly, Toyota will take over the development of compact cars for emerging markets effective immediately.

The Emerging-Market Compact Car (EMCC) company which spanned the organizations of both Toyota and Daihatsu has been dissolved following Daihatsu’s safety irregularities that tarnished the brand’s overall safety image. Moving forward, EMCC will now be known as the Toyota Compact Car Company. In addition, Toyota will take responsibility for overseas businesses from development to certification.

As for Daihatsu, the automaker will continue to help in developing cars for emerging markets but will not take on a project leader role. More specifically, Daihatsu will only be commissioned to do certain parts of vehicle development while under the supervision of Toyota. Moreover, the last remaining vehicles currently still being developed by Daihatsu will be checked and certified by Toyota.

With Daihatsu effectively compromising Toyota’s safety reputation, it’s no surprise the automaker has taken the aforementioned measures to steer them back onto the straight and narrow. Combined with the fact that the Japanese government became involved in the investigation speaks volumes about the measures Toyota recently made to avoid such irregularities from happening again.

Source: Autoindustriya