Toyota’s Daihatsu to halt all vehicle shipments – media

TOKYO  -Toyota Motor unit Daihatsu will halt shipments of all vehicles both overseas and in Japan, the Asahi newspaper and other Japanese media said on Wednesday, as it scrambles to respond to a widening scandal over the rigging of safety tests.

Daihatsu is expected to report findings by an independent panel that has been investigating the scandal to Japan’s transport ministry as early as Wednesday, Asahi said, citing anonymous sources.

Spokespeople for Daihatsu, which became a wholly owned Toyota subsidiary in 2016, declined to comment on the media reports, but the company announced it will hold a joint press conference with Toyota at 0745 GMT on Wednesday.

A transport ministry official told Reuters the ministry received a report from Daihatsu about the findings of the independent panel sometime after 11:30 a.m. Japan time (0230 GMT).

The automaker was found to have cheated on safety tests of almost all models it currently has in production as well as some cars it made in the past, the Asahi said.

It may have committed “irregularities in procedures” for exhaust gas certifications, it said.

The Nikkei earlier reported Daihatsu would widen production halts beyond the six models it had initially identified as having problems.

Public broadcaster NHK and the Kyodo news agency also said it would halt shipments of all models.

Daihatsu said in April that it had rigged side-collision safety tests carried out for 88,000 small cars, most of which were sold under the Toyota brand.

Daihatsu said at that time it had discovered the wrongly conducted tests after a whistleblower report. It also said it had reported the issue to regulatory agencies and halted shipment of affected models.

The following month, Daihatsu said it had stopped sales of the Toyota Raize hybrid electric vehicle and its own Rocky model after also finding problems with testing for those two models.

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A spokesperson for Daihatsu said on Wednesday production of those two models was suspended, while shipments of the other four affected models remained halted.