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The fraud incident of Dafa Industrial Corporation of Japan has not been properly dealt with. According to the Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) and CCTV News and other media reports, due to the problem of data fraud in the product certification process, the vehicle research and development business of Japan Daihatsu Industrial Co., Ltd. stopped for a time, resulting in the suspension of production of several models of the company.

According to a revision of vehicle safety standards implemented by Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport, vehicles sold since November must be equipped with rearview cameras, but some models of Daihatsu will not be able to meet the requirements on time because of the suspension of research and development. Affected by this, Dafa Industrial Co., Ltd. will suspend production of a number of models from late October, some of which may last several months.

As of press time, Dafa did not respond to the news, and it is not clear which models will be suspended.

In fact, as early as last year, Dafa Motor was hit by a counterfeiting scandal, which not only forced the factory to stop production, but also directly led to a loss of 5 billion yen in fiscal year 2023, the first loss for the company since fiscal year 1992.

In April last year, Japan Daihatsu admitted that a total of four models developed in overseas markets, namely, Toyota Yaris Ativ, Perodua Axia, Toyota Agya and an undisclosed product, were fraudulent in crash tests. These models were mainly sold to Thailand, Mexico, Ecuador and the Middle East and other international markets, with a total of 88123 vehicles sold. Toyota Chairman Akio Toyoda personally bowed and apologized, saying it was a betrayal of customer trust and absolutely unacceptable.

The next month, Dafa once again admitted to fraud, and its two hybrid models, the Daihatsu Rocky and Toyota Raize, violated the rules in the side collision test. They should have submitted the test data of the driver's seat and the passenger seat respectively, but actually submitted the data of the passenger seat as the data of the driver's seat to the Ministry of Land and Transport of Japan, while Dafa Industry did not do the collision test on the side of the driver's seat.

In December of the same year, Dafa released a 162-page third-party investigation report. After investigation, in addition to the fake door accessories in April and the rod side collision test in May, it was also found that there were 174 cases of fraud in 25 new test items, and the number of models confirmed to be fraudulent were models and 3 engines, including those that had been discontinued. At that time, including Toyota Motor Company, Mazda Motor Company and Subaru Motor Company were also affected by the survey. According to the results of the investigation, Dafa Motor decided to suspend shipments of all Dafa developed models produced in Japan and overseas, and Toyota also decided to suspend shipments of these models.

Affected by the fraud scandal, four Dafa vehicle factories in Japan were forced to stop work one after another, and since then, the Ministry of Land and Transport of Japan has carried out an incoming inspection on Dafa. It was not until May this year that all the factories resumed production.

In January this year, Daihatsu received a rectification order from Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport, revoked the production licenses of three models, and asked Dafa to take measures to prevent such incidents from happening again. To this end, Dafa President Aoheichiro and Chairman Matsuki Chun both resigned and stepped down in March.

In May, Toyota announced that in order to put an end to the certification test safety scandal, Toyota will be responsible for the whole process of small cars from development to certification, and then entrust Dafa Motor to take charge of the actual development work, which will be carried out in turn from future models. At the same time, the business structure of Dafa Automobile Co., Ltd. will be completely reformed.

According to the data, Dafa Automobile, whose full name is Daihatsu Automobile Industry Co., Ltd., headquartered in Ikeda City, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, founded in 1907, is one of the most popular light mini-car manufacturers in Japan, with a total of four complete vehicle factories in the Japanese local market. In 1998, Toyota formally acquired Dafa Automobile Industry and acquired a 51.2% stake in Dafa. Since then, it has become a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Group, which mainly focuses on the manufacture of small cars and accounts for about 4% of Toyota's global sales.

Dafa Motor has been exposed several times in a year that there are illegal scandals, which also directly affected its financial results, resulting in its first loss in 31 years. Due to certification violations and factory shutdowns, Dafa Industries posted an operating loss of 5 billion yen (230 million yuan) in fiscal 2023 (April 2023 to March 2024), the first loss since 1992, according to financial data. In fiscal year 2023, sales of Dafa Industries were 1.181 trillion yen (54.62 billion yuan), down 21% from a year earlier, while cumulative sales of new cars were 440000, down 22% from a year earlier. Affected by this, the company's light vehicle market share in Japan was surpassed by Suzuki for the first time in 18 years.

It is worth mentioning that Dafa car counterfeiting is not an isolated case. In June this year, five companies, including Toyota, Honda, Yamaha, Mazda and Suzuki, were also exposed.

Auto Industry concern believes that Japanese car companies are frequently exposed to illegal scandals, which not only damage consumers' credibility of brands, but also easily cause consumers to worry. The deeper impact is that this scandal will also lead to a serious blow to the brand image of Japanese car companies. Japanese government officials have previously said that the counterfeiting of Japanese companies has led to the suspension of production and sales, which will have a great impact on the Japanese economy.

"how to establish standardized data to prevent fraud scandals" is still an important issue for Japanese automakers.

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