JAPANESE carmaker Toyota Motor Corp (Toyota) has reportedly stopped sales and deliveries of its Yaris Ativ in Thailand for the time being.
The announcement comes after the company's affiliate Daihatsu Motor Co., Ltd (Daihatsu) publicly admitted and apologize for rigging part of the door in side-collision safety tests.
According to a Reuters news report, Toyota Asia region chief executive officer Masahiko Maeda during a press conference in Bangkok said the problem may have occurred due to pressure on Daihatsu to shorten the development time of the Yaris Ativ.
"This kind of problem would of course not have happened if development had been carried out under appropriate conditions," Maeda reportedly said.
"I think the fact that it still happened, means there was some kind of pressure at the development site," he said, adding that the vehicle's relatively large size may have posed a challenge to Daihatsu, which specializes in the production of small cars.
88,000-plus small cars, most of which were sold under the Toyota brand, were affected by Daihatsu's reported "wrongdoing".
A majority of the affected models reportedly includes 11,000 Perodua Axias manufactured in Malaysia starting from February, and 76,000 of the Toyota Yaris Ativs made in Thailand from last August - the latter were mainly bound for Thailand, Mexico and Gulf Cooperation Council countries (comprising of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) according to Daihatsu.
In Malaysia the Yaris Ativ is known as the 2023 Toyota Vios which reports say is not affected by the incident.
It is said the door trim on the affected vehicles had been modified with a "notch" to minimize the risk in testing that the door interior could break with a sharp edge and cause injury to an occupant when the side airbag deployed in an accident.
The modification for testing was not part of the production vehicle.
A majority of the figures of the affected vehicles are said to be the 76,000 Yaris models.
Daihatsu said it had discovered the rigged safety test after a whistleblower report and had reported the issue to regulatory agencies.
Shipment of affected models have also been stopped and will only resume after new safety tests in the presence of regulators can confirm the safety of the models.
Toyota board chairman Akio Toyoda called the wrongdoing an "absolutely unacceptable act" as it betrays the trust of its customers.
Currently a new report states that the company is working with the Thai government to resume sales of the affected Yaris Ativ model, which has been produced in Toyota's Gateway plant in Chachoengsao province. Further investigation was also underway.