Original title: Detection of violations and data fraud involving a total of 38 vehicles exceeding 5 million Japanese car companies "manufacturing worries"
Recently, a number of representative Japanese automobile manufacturing enterprises were collectively exposed to detect violations and data fraud. The picture shows that on June 3rd, in Tokyo, Japan, Mazda Motor Corporation held a press conference.
Photo courtesy of CFP
□ Our reporter Suning
Recently, a number of representative Japanese automobile manufacturing enterprises were collectively exposed to detect violations and data fraud, involving a total of 38 vehicles and over 5 million vehicles. Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has conducted on-site inspections on the headquarters of five car companies, namely Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Suzuki and Yamaha Engine, in accordance with the Road Transport Vehicle Law, in order to further investigate and confirm the facts of violation and falsification. At present, the above five car companies have admitted that there are violations and data fraud in the process of vehicle performance testing in order to obtain government vehicle certification.
A number of well-known Japanese car companies have collectively fallen into the "fake door" incident, especially Toyota, the industry leader, which has aroused widespread concern in Japanese public opinion. The outside world can’t help asking, where is the "Made in Japan" in the past?
Many well-known car companies admit fraud.
The five car companies involved in the fraud are various, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan has conducted on-site inspections, and relevant punishment measures are already in the pipeline.
According to Japanese media reports, on the 3rd of this month, Toyota publicly admitted that in order to obtain the government certification required for vehicle mass production license, there were a variety of illegal and fraudulent behaviors in the process of vehicle performance testing, including tampering with data and false declaration. For example, when the engine output power of Lexus RX was tested in 2015, the computer control parameters were tampered with in order to make the results up to standard.
Toyota’s illegal fraud involves four models that have been discontinued and three models that are in production, with a total of 1.7 million vehicles from 2014 to April this year. After the incident was exposed, Toyota suspended the production of two production lines in Miyagi Prefecture and Iwate Prefecture on the 6th, with an annual output of 130,000 vehicles.
On the same day, Honda, Mazda and other four car companies also admitted to implementing various types of illegal fraud in mass production certification and testing. Among them, Mazda Company carried out some violations such as changing the control software when testing the engine output power in the certification test of five models; Suzuki company made a false record of the brake test results of one model; Yamaha engine has some problems in the test of three models, such as the noise test environment is not compliant; Honda’s violation test involves the most models, reaching 22 models.
The reason why many car companies concentrated on illegal fraud was exposed was that Toyota Loom and Daihatsu, a subsidiary of Toyota, exposed violations last year. In March last year, Toyota Loom was exposed that its engines for automobiles and construction machinery violated the rules in the certification and testing process, and the mass production certification was cancelled. In December last year, Daihatsu was found that all its models (28 models in total) in production and development were in violation of regulations during the certification and testing process, which led to the complete suspension of production of Daihatsu and triggered the Japanese administrative department to put forward self-inspection requirements for the entire automobile industry.
A week after the above-mentioned five car companies publicly admitted fraud, as of the 11th, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism of Japan had conducted on-site inspections on the headquarters of the above-mentioned five car companies to further investigate and confirm the facts of illegal fraud. Some Japanese media analysts pointed out that in the future, depending on the survey results, the possibility of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism taking administrative sanctions against the above-mentioned enterprises and requesting the implementation of recalls will not be ruled out.
"Made in Japan" is in deep crisis of reputation.
The reason why Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism has carried out on-site inspections on car companies is that it is worried that "Made in Japan" will fall into a credibility crisis and hopes to maintain the international image of Japan’s automobile manufacturing industry.
According to Japanese media reports, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism believes that Toyota’s illegal fraud is not only inconsistent with Japanese domestic standards, but also violates relevant international standards, and is not allowed even overseas. Some media even spoke bluntly, worrying about the spillover of this incident and affecting the reputation of "Made in Japan".
Japan’s "Yomiuri Shimbun" reported that Toyota’s violations in certification and testing not only violated Japanese national standards, but also violated the standards of 62 countries including Britain, Germany and South Korea, and may have an impact on Toyota’s mass production in North America.
Lin Fangzheng, Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, recently admitted that this incident not only shook the foundation of Japan’s automobile certification system, but also damaged the credibility of Japan’s automobile industry. The New York Times pointed out that for a long time, people thought that Japanese products had good quality, but this idea may have begun to change in the case of successive counterfeiting cases.
In fact, since Mitsubishi Motors tampered with the fuel economy test data in 2016, Japan has exposed the problem of illegal fraud in the automobile manufacturing industry almost every year, and companies such as Suzuki, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda and Yamaha engines have been investigated one after another. In 2021, Toyota, a leading Japanese car company, exposed the long-standing problem of illegal car inspection, and 10 responsible persons were transferred to the prosecution. In 2022, Hino Motors of Japan was confirmed to have the problem of engine performance test data fraud at least since 2003.
It is not limited to the automobile manufacturing industry. In recent years, from the use of inferior ammonium nitrate in Takada airbags to the tampering of product data in Kobe Steel, from Toray Co., Ltd. to the falsification of tire reinforcing agent quality data, to the falsification of Mitsubishi electric wire industry data, from Kawasaki Heavy Industries and mitsubishi electric quality inspection fraud, to Kobayashi Pharmaceutical’s problem with monascus causing health incidents, quality problems in other Japanese manufacturing industries are also common.
The causes behind the vicious circle are complicated.
As the pillar of Japan’s manufacturing industry, the automobile manufacturing industry provides employment for 5.5 million people, and its output value accounts for 20% of the total manufacturing output value. Whether it can effectively solve the reasons behind the quality problems in the future and restore the reputation of "Made in Japan" is very important to Japan’s economy.
After the incident, the car companies involved said that they would take improvement measures to avoid similar problems from happening again. At the shareholders’ meeting held on the 11th, Hiroichi Ito, president of Toyota Loom, said that he would push forward the reform in organizational structure and corporate atmosphere. However, some shareholders believe that if the problem of too tight construction period and too heavy production tasks is not alleviated, even the reform can not prevent the recurrence of the problem.
There are also voices crying out for Japanese car companies, arguing that Japan’s car certification system has problems such as outdated standards, formalism and lack of supervision. However, with the intensification of international competition, Japanese enterprises are generally faced with problems such as rising costs and falling profit margins. Under such circumstances, their spare capacity to maintain high quality standards is increasingly stretched.
Japanese media pointed out that in the fourth quarter of last year, Japan’s GDP growth rate barely turned positive, but in the first quarter of this year, Japan’s GDP fell by 0.5% month-on-month. Some analysts believe that the suspension of production of Daihatsu did have an impact on the Japanese economy. In response to the collective illegal fraud incident of Japanese car companies, Hiroshi Nakanishi, the chief analyst of Japan’s Sino-Western Automobile Industry Research Company, believes that the scale of production reduction of Toyota and Mazda is likely to reach 20,000 to 30,000 vehicles within two months; Sakai Caisuke, a senior economist at Mizuho Research and Technology Company, said that the pace of Japan’s economic recovery may slow down from May to June.
Some analysts pointed out that a vicious circle has been formed at present: quality scandals continue, enterprises have to stop production and rectify, and the entire automobile supply and marketing industry chain has been deeply affected, leading to poor economic data and even dragging down the Japanese economy; However, Japan’s weak economic recovery and declining international reputation have a longer-term negative impact on the development of Japanese enterprises. (Suning)
