Tech News Flash, February 14th - Toyota Corporation recently announced in a statement that the Chairman, Jun Matsubayashi, and President, Ichiro Ohira, of its subsidiary Daihatsu Motors will resign.
Toyota CEO, Tsuneharu Sato, commented on this: "It is necessary for Daihatsu to undergo a rebirth and restore its rightful image."
Ichiro Ohira, who joined Toyota in 1979, has long held key positions in Toyota's research and development department at the company's headquarters. Jun Matsubayashi became a director of Daihatsu in May 2016 and was promoted to Chairman and Chief Technology Officer at the end of 2019.
The departure of these two key figures is directly related to the previously exposed falsification scandal.
In December 2023, Daihatsu Industries announced on its official website that a third-party committee had found over a hundred instances of misconduct during supervision, including falsification of safety crash test data.
The company will suspend shipments of all models, including those already produced. Starting from December 25, 2023, Daihatsu Industries' three vehicle assembly plants in Japan have successively shut down.
According to reports, the fraudulent activities can be traced back to as early as 1989, involving 64 vehicle models. As a result, over 1 million vehicles will be recalled, not only Toyota's own products but also models manufactured by Daihatsu for Mazda and Subaru.
Recently, at a press conference, Toyota's Chairman, Akio Toyoda, bowed in apology for a series of recent scandals involving Toyota's subsidiaries, stating, "We deeply apologize for causing trouble to stakeholders, including customers."
