Toyota has halted sales of the Yaris Ativ in Thailand after it was revealed that Daihatsu had rigged part of the side-collision safety tests performed on the vehicle.
Daihatsu revealed in late April that it had rigged part of the door in side-collision safety tests by adding a ‘notch’ to the door trim to minimize the risk of the door interior breaking with a sharp edge and injuring an occupant in the event of the side airbag being deployed. This ‘notch’ is not found on the production model.
While recently speaking at a press conference in Bangkok, Thailand, Toyota’s chief executive for the Asia region, Masahiko Maeda, revealed the problem may have occurred due to pressure placed on Daihatsu to shorten the development time of the Yaris Ativ. Daihatsu discovered the issue after a whistleblower report and immediately reported the issue to regulatory agencies and stopped shipments of impacted models.
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“If development had been carried out under appropriate conditions, this kind of problem would of course not have happened,” Maeda said. “I think the fact that it still happened, means there was some kind of pressure at the development site.”
The rigged safety test impacted a total of 88,000 vehicles. Of these, approximately 76,000 Yaris Ativ models were bound for Thailand, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.
Speaking with Reuters, Toyota said it is working with the Thai government to resume sales of the Yaris Ativ. Maeda also assured Yaris Ativ owners that their vehicles are safe.
After Daihatsu acknowledged that it had rigged safety tests, Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda apologized for an “unacceptable” violation of consumer trust.
“We’ll proceed with a detailed investigation from here on, but promise to decisively understand what happened at the site, investigate the true intentions and sincerely work to prevent a recurrence,” Toyoda added. “We’re going to need some time to do that.”
