You may have read about the issues Daihatsu was embroiled in several months ago, after a whistleblower report and subsequent investigation revealed ‘procedural irregularities’ in its conduct and reporting of crash tests. We have a full explainer of the saga here, but the gist is that the company rigged cars to score higher in the tests, ‘adjusted’ and ‘tampered’ with the results, and, in some cases, skipped certain tests altogether.
Parent company Toyota has been taking measures to clean up the mess, and has now announced that it is stripping Daihatsu of the responsibility of developing compact cars. Instead, Toyota will take over the development and certification of models once overseen by its subsidiary via the Toyota Compact Car Company.
Daihatsu will instead be made into a “mobility company centered on mini vehicles.”
Quite a few models in Toyota’s current local lineup were developed by Daihatsu and utilize the Daihatsu New Global Architecture (DNGA) platform. These are the Wigo (Daihatsu Ayla), the Raize (Daihatsu Rocky), the Avanza and Veloz twins (Daihatsu Xenia), the Vios (Yaris Ativ), and our region’s Yaris Cross (as opposed to the model based on the Toyota New Global Architecture for other markets). The Lite Ace is also a rebadged Daihatsu, its counterpart being the Gran Max.
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Business and product management functions once handled by Daihatsu will also be transferred to Toyota. Daihatsu matters relating to “subcontracting, including resource management and optimization,” will likewise be reported to the parent company.
In addition, Toyota Motor Asia will be established from the merging of Toyota Daihatsu Engineering and Manufacturing Company and Toyota Motor Asia Pacific, serving as the regional headquarters.
“Based on the upcoming structural change, we aim to make the two companies in the Asia region more self-reliant and increase their collaboration,” reads the statement.
The restructuring will be implemented “sequentially, following model changeover schedules.” Given how many of Toyota’s current offerings in our region are based on Daihatsu models, it will be interesting to see the effect of these changes on their future generations.
