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Toyota has been a major shareholder of Daihatsu since the late 60s, with veto power since the mid-90s and majority ownership since the late 90s.

hef19898 3y ago
The question is how much control Toyota had over operational decisions. I'd say not too much, even with Daihatsu being a subsidiary of Toyota. Either way, Daihatsu cheating and lying to pass safety tests for 30 years is bad, and hints at a deep seated culture issue.
- to11mtm 3y ago
  > The question is how much control Toyota had over operational decisions. I'd say not too much, even with Daihatsu being a subsidiary of Toyota. It could go either way, IMO. It didn't take long for folks to the Toyotafication of Subaru's as Toyota's ownership increased. In general it doesn't take a lot of ownership for a carmaker to start getting some pressure.
- numpad0 3y ago
  Daihatsu CEO right now is ex Toyota regional CTO for APAC, so there's that. One of contributing factors, as being told in news narratives, is Daihatsu relied on shortened time to market and therefore reduced engineering man-hours as a cost saving measure, and there were barely enough time for scheduled tests, let alone for delaying ones affected by known issues, which had incentivized test engineers to just rig the test and/or forge documents. Toyota is also known for persistently demanding suppliers to contribute towards $20-30MM yearly cost saving target by reducing price by 1% every half years(~100MM and 5.85% every 3 years). That surely had contributed, and frankly that itself is a culture issue.
  - freetime2 3y ago
    Yup, I would like to see a similar third party audit performed at Toyota, too. Toyota and Daihatsu cars share a lot of the same technology and engineering resources, similar to the relationship between Lexus and Toyota. I can’t help but wonder if they also share a similar approach to safety testing.

hef19898 3y ago

The question is how much control Toyota had over operational decisions. I'd say not too much, even with Daihatsu being a subsidiary of Toyota. Either way, Daihatsu cheating and lying to pass safety tests for 30 years is bad, and hints at a deep seated culture issue.

to11mtm 3y ago
> The question is how much control Toyota had over operational decisions. I'd say not too much, even with Daihatsu being a subsidiary of Toyota. It could go either way, IMO. It didn't take long for folks to the Toyotafication of Subaru's as Toyota's ownership increased. In general it doesn't take a lot of ownership for a carmaker to start getting some pressure.
numpad0 3y ago
Daihatsu CEO right now is ex Toyota regional CTO for APAC, so there's that. One of contributing factors, as being told in news narratives, is Daihatsu relied on shortened time to market and therefore reduced engineering man-hours as a cost saving measure, and there were barely enough time for scheduled tests, let alone for delaying ones affected by known issues, which had incentivized test engineers to just rig the test and/or forge documents. Toyota is also known for persistently demanding suppliers to contribute towards $20-30MM yearly cost saving target by reducing price by 1% every half years(~100MM and 5.85% every 3 years). That surely had contributed, and frankly that itself is a culture issue.
- freetime2 3y ago
  Yup, I would like to see a similar third party audit performed at Toyota, too. Toyota and Daihatsu cars share a lot of the same technology and engineering resources, similar to the relationship between Lexus and Toyota. I can’t help but wonder if they also share a similar approach to safety testing.