Toyota halts some diesel shipments after more testing irregularities

TOKYO – Toyota suspended global shipments of 10 nameplates, including some Toyota Hilux pickups and Land Cruiser SUVs as well as select Lexus LX models, on Monday after another case of inappropriate product testing was found at a group company supplying engines.

The latest problems, this time involving product certification at Toyota Industries, follow earlier testing scandals at Toyota minicar maker Daihatsu and truck affiliate Hino Motors.

Toyota said it would suspend shipments of several vehicles equipped with diesel engines supplied by Toyota Industries. The nameplates include some Toyota Hiace vans, Hilux pickups, Fortuner SUVs and Innova MPVs, as well as the Land Cruiser 300 and Lexus LX 500d SUVs.

The temporary suspensions are another embarrassing discovery for the world’s largest automaker, as it continues to grapple with similar problems at Daihatsu and Hino.

The revelation comes just a day before Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda plans to announce a new global vision for his automaker and its constellation of affiliates, known collectively as the Toyota Group.

“We recognize the gravity of the fact that the repeated certification irregularities at TICO, following those at Daihatsu, have shaken the very foundations of the company as an automobile manufacturer,” Toyota said in a statement.

TICO stands for Toyota Industries Corp.

“Restructuring the relevant business will require a change in the mindset of all individuals, from management to employees, as well as a drastic reform of corporate culture,” Toyota said.

Toyota produces about 36,000 of the affected vehicles each month on a worldwide basis, including 11,000 in Japan and 25,000 overseas, the company said. The company is stopping shipments of the vehicles in line with Toyota Industries’ decision to halt engine supply.

After the announcement, Toyota CEO Koji Sato held a press briefing where he bowed in apology before television cameras and blamed the problems on a mix of poor communication and a breakdown of corporate culture in adhering to compliance rules.

“We recognize that not only people at the testing site but also the management did not have a proper understanding of ‘certification,' " Sato said. “Proper communication is very important.”

More scandals

Late last year, Daihatsu was forced to suspend shipment of all models, including some supplied to Toyota, Subaru and Mazda for sale under those brands, after the fully owned minicar subsidiary was found to have faked side collision impact data.

An independent investigation found Daihatsu rigged safety tests on 64 nameplates — some two dozen sold by Toyota.

Daihatsu’s cheating stretched back three decades. Toyota has said it is unaware of any accidents connected to the rigged testing, which centered on  the cars’ airbag control units.

The Daihatsu safety scandal continues to fester, with Japanese authorities on Jan. 26 revoking approval for Daihatsu to produce three commercial vehicles in Japan. That was the third instance of Japan’s transport ministry rescinding type approval for Daihatsu models.

In 2022, Hino was embroiled in misconduct after it came to light that employees had been fudging emissions tests on engines used in more than 600,000 vehicles as far back as 2003.

Toyota holds a 25 percent stake in Toyota Industries and fully owns Daihatsu.

Toyota took a controlling stake in Hino in 2001 and holds 50.2 percent. But last year, as the truck maker was digging out from the emissions scandal, Toyota announced plans to merge Hino with Daimler-owned heavy truck rival Mitsubishi Fuso to jointly develop truck technologies.

Toyota and Daimler said they want to finish details on the agreement early this year.

Rattled group

The Toyota Group is an alliance of more than a dozen companies, many of which have cross-shareholdings and intertwined corporate histories.

The group includes megasuppliers Denso and Aisin, as well as such stalwart Toyota suppliers as Toyota Boshoku, JTEKT and Toyoda Gosei. But other companies deal in diverse products and industries ranging from boats, industrial machines and forklifts to semitrucks, housing and real estate.

In recent months, the companies have begun to sell off crossholdings to generate funds to reinvest in new technologies such as electrification, software and digitalization.

In the Toyota Industries’ engine case, none of the affected vehicles is sold in North America. Affected markets include Europe, Japan, mainland Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Neither Toyota Motor nor Toyota Industries said when shipments might resume.

Toyota Industries President Koichi Ito, speaking in a separate news conference, cited insufficient training and a lack of communication between Toyota Motor and its own engineers as one root cause of the problems. The issue goes back as far as 2017 when Toyota Motor commissioned Toyota Industries to develop and produce the engines.

Ito said his company would compensate suppliers. But he didn’t say how much Toyota Industries would have to pay or how much it would lose through lost production or sales.

Toyota Industries certified the diesel engines by using engine control unit software different from the mass-production version. The purpose was to smooth out measurements of the engines’ horsepower performance so it would appear to have less variance, Toyota said.

Toyota said it has re-verified its mass-produced vehicles and has confirmed that the engine performance meets the company standards. It says there is no need to stop using vehicles equipped with the engines that are already on the road.

Toyota Industries is perhaps best known as a manufacturer of forklifts.

As part of the Monday revelations, Toyota Industries announced it had discovered six engine models for forklifts and one for construction machinery had violated certain domestic testing rules, including those for durability.

That comes on top of violations found in March 2023 in three forklift engines and one engine for construction machinery.

Shipments of those were suspended last year, and Toyota Industries said it would suspend shipments of the newly identified engines, and forklifts using them, as well.