TOKYO (XINHUA) – Japanese automaker Daihatsu Motor yesterday resumed production at its plant in the western Japanese prefecture of Osaka after a safety test fraud scandal led to operations suspension since last December.
For the first time in about four months, the carmaker, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corp, also brought back online its finished vehicle assembly plants in Shiga, Kyoto and Oita prefectures.
Daihatsu will speed up the delayed delivery of vehicles for which it has received orders, as well as the improvement of existing models and the development of new models.
The suspension of the plants, which came after Daihatsu admitted in December to rigging safety data for most of its models, led to a plunge in the country’s industrial output in January and cast doubt over the safety of the Toyota group’s vehicles, national news agency Kyodo reported yesterday.
In December last year, the safety test falsification scandal unfolded as Daihatsu announced that an investigation found 174 new cases of misconduct regarding the safety testing of new vehicles involving 64 models.
Back in last April, the carmaker acknowledged data-rigging in collision tests for six of its models, including those sold in Thailand and Malaysia. It was discovered a month later that the company had improperly obtained government certification for hybrid vehicles for the Japanese market as well.
