The shattering of the myth of Made in Japan began more than 30 years ago with Toyota s counterfeitin

Mondo International Updated on 2024-01-31

As the world's No. 1 car company in terms of sales, Japan's Toyota was unexpectedly exposed to fraud for more than 30 years, which shocked the global automobile circle. There are all kinds of indications that the myth of Toyota's so-called "craftsman spirit" has become a joke, and the gold-lettered signboard of "Made in Japan" has long since collapsed.

It is the best representative of "Made in Japan", and it is also an industry that Japanese people are proud of. However, Japan*** has recently exposed a blockbuster scandal again. Daihatsu Motors, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, issued a 162-page third-party investigation report, admitting that the company had 174 cases of illegal operation and fraud. At the press conference, Hiroki Nakajima, vice president of Toyota Motor Corporation, and Soichiro Okuhira, president of Daihatsu Motors, both bowed their heads at 90 degrees and apologized for 7 seconds. The posture is skillful and looks sincere, but in fact Toyota Daihatsu is very dishonest.

In April this year, Daihatsu was exposed to fraud, but at that time, Daihatsu only admitted that four models were fraudulentLater, seeing that it couldn't be hidden, in May, Dafa had to admit that there were two other cars that were also involved in counterfeiting. In view of this, the relevant Japanese regulators decided to investigate to the end, and a third-party review agency intervened in the investigation, only to find a total of 174 violations, involving as many as 64 models. According to a third-party investigative committee, the data is "only part of what has been found," which means that the actual number of frauds may be much higher than the 174 number. Japan's Fuji TV said that Toyota's fraud incident was "unheard of".

Daihatsu Automobile was founded in 1907 and was officially acquired by Toyota as a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota. In 2022, Daihatsu's global sales exceeded 1.7 million, accounting for more than 10% of Toyota's total sales. Dafabet gave reasons for its fraud, one of which was that "the management focused too much on short-term development and turned a blind eye to violations". This points to the source of the fraud to the management behind it. As a member of the group, the problem of Daihatsu counterfeiting is so serious that Toyota naturally cannot escape the blame, and it cannot stay out of it. Daihatsu's fraud involved 22 models and 1 engine only about Toyota.

The Daihatsu scandal is not the first time that Toyota Group has been exposed to fraud. Last year, Hino Motors, a subsidiary of Toyota, pleaded guilty to falsifying exhaust emissions and engine fuel efficiency performance data since 2003, a practice that has lasted for 20 yearsToyota Industries was also revealed to have made similar falsifications in the exhaust data of forklifts. According to third-party investigators, Daihatsu's violations date back to 1989. At least for more than 30 years, many of its companies have exposed fraud, is Toyota "not seeing" or "not wanting to see", or "intentional"?

In fact, not only Toyota, but also Japanese car companies have been exposed to fraud on a large scale, and "counterfeiting" seems to have become an open secret of Japanese cars. In 2015, Takata, Japan, the world's second largest airbag manufacturer, broke out of the "airbag door" data fraud incident, and more than a dozen car companies around the world recalled hundreds of millions of carsIn 2016, Mitsubishi Motors and Suzuki Motors successively admitted to the falsification of fuel consumption testsIn 2018, Subaru, Nissan, Yamaha and other car companies also successively exposed the ......problem of exhaust emissions and fuel consumption test fraud

Japanese car companies, represented by Toyota, have been flaunting their own automobile products with the "spirit of craftsmanship", shaping Japanese cars into myths and promoting Japan to become one of the world's four major automobile powers. However, since the "lost two decades", Japan's competitive leadership has gradually been lost in many industries, including automobiles. In particular, the explosion of China's new energy vehicles has formed a dimensionality reduction blow to Japanese automobiles. As a result, Japanese car companies did not hesitate to take risks, reducing costs through counterfeiting, maintaining the original high profits, and thus grabbing a large number of improper benefits.

In fact, Japan's counterfeiters are not limited to the automobile industry, but also Asahi Kasei in the construction industry, Kobayashi Chemical in the pharmaceutical industry, and Toshiba ...... in the home appliance industryAccording to the global international competitiveness ranking released by IMD, the world ranking of Japan's manufacturing industry has dropped from the first place in the early 90s of the 20th century to more than 20 in the 21st century, and only ranked 25th in 2018. The proliferation of counterfeiting shows that not only is the "craftsmanship" of the Japanese automotive industry gone, but the myth of "Made in Japan" has long since become a joke.

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