Toyota Motor Corp truck and bus unit Hino Motors is going to halt production of some of its medium and heavy-duty trucks. It will be continued for at least another year, as there is a widespread data falsification scandal. Until August 2023, the medium-duty Ranger and the heavy-duty Profia truck will not be produced.
Halting production of some truck models is the latest sign of the scandal worsening for Hino since it first announced the data falsification affecting some of its bigger trucks in March. Since then, it has said it falsified data on some engines going back as far as 2003, at least a decade earlier than originally indicated. All told, about 640,000 vehicles have been affected, or more than five times the figure initially revealed.
Hino said last month it would suspend shipments of small trucks after a transport ministry investigation revealed that some 76,000 of its small trucks sold since 2019 had not been subject to the required number of engine tests. Toyota and others involved in a commercial vehicle partnership have since expelled Hino from the group over the falsification of engine data by the truckmaker.
The widening scandal
The widening scandal at Japan’s Hino Motors over the falsification of engine data has become a headache that will not go away for parent Toyota which has a controlling 50.1% stake in Hino. Hino became Toyota’s subsidiary in 2001 and nearly all Hino presidents since then previously worked for Toyota.
Toyota and others involved in a commercial vehicle partnership have expelled Hino Motors from the group over a scandal involving the falsification of engine data by the truckmaker. It is the most severe step announced so far by Toyota, which has a controlling 50.1% in Hino since the scandal erupted in March.
“We believe that Hino’s participation will cause inconvenience to stakeholders, and we have decided that it is appropriate to expel Hino from CJPT,” Toyota President Akio Toyoda said in a statement. Hino’s 10% equity stake in CJPT would be transferred to Toyota, the statement said. “We take this decision very seriously,” Hino said in a statement responding to the expulsion from CJPT, adding that it was working to correct the issues that led to the misconduct.
The expulsion meant Hino would be excluded from joint planning and other agreements in the partnership, Toyota said. Toyota said Hino “will play a minimal role” in a previously announced project due to begin in 2023 to develop small electric commercial vans and light-duty fuel cell electric trucks to transport goods between Tokyo and Fukushima prefecture.