The data rigging in vehicle safety tests led to a temporary suspension of all Daihatsu shipments at home and abroad, highlighting the deteriorating quality control at the world's biggest auto-making group.
Toyota President
"He has propelled reforms through intensive dialogue with local employees," Sato said of Inoue. "He is tasked with pushing forward with the rebirth of Daihatsu as a leader on the ground."
Inoue said at the same press conference that Daihatsu had failed to recognize the strains on its employees while experiencing rapid increases in production volume.
"People never open up to you unless you open up first," Inoue said. "I hope to have honest dialogue with Daihatsu's employees by actively communicating with them."
The new Toyota-led management reflects a historical trend of appointing Toyota executives as presidents of Daihatsu, including Okudaira, who took up the top role in 2017.
"We will reform the management, corporate culture and manufacturing so that similar problems will not happen again," Inoue said.
On task sharing between the two companies, Toyota said Daihatsu will focus on its mainstay mini-vehicle business and the parent company will help the unit in its vehicle development and production operations for overseas markets, with the aim of reducing its workload.
The management reshuffle follows Daihatsu's submission last week to
Toyota Chairman
Daihatsu in December admitted to safety test rigging for most of its models, which a third-party investigation found dated back as far as 1989. The panel blamed "an extremely tight and rigid development schedule" for the misconduct.
That was followed by another scandal at
==Kyodo
© Kyodo News International, Inc., source