Toyota risks losing global leadership in car sales to its subsidiary Daihatsu. The scandal of the falsification of safety data is weighing on the stock market and dealers, with company results in sharp decline. Only in Japan there drop in demand in February was 33.3% compared to the previous year. In parallel, national production recorded a decline of 12.9%. Globally, sales have recorded a drop of 6.9%, standing at 719,630 units, compared to the same period of the previous year, marking the first decrease in many months. Additionally, production fell 2.6% to 737,180 units, representing the first contraction in a year and a half.
Difficult to reach the 2024 objectives
Although Toyota achieved a record of global production of 9.16 million vehicles for fiscal 2023 a month early, analysts say it is unlikely to meet its new upwardly revised targets of output of 10.1 million units produced and sales of 10.4 million units. Also because during the period between the end of January and the beginning of March, the group was forced to suspend up to six production lines in four factories, while Daihatsu, after admitting to manipulating data for most of its models especially in the late 1980s and early 1990s, has halted output at all of its domestic plants. AND This had a significant impact on the parent company’s overall sales. Sales also plummeted in China, while the Japanese company held firm in North America.
For Mercedes cause on the emissions front
Ithe group Mercedes-Benz is responsible towards the owners of some of his diesel cars equipped with an emissions manipulation device, as determined by a German court. Bloomberg reports this, explaining that the ruling of the Stuttgart Court of Appeal concerns the Mercedes Glc and Glk models. The more than 2,500 motorists who have filed a class action lawsuit allege that the automaker has manipulated diesel engines to violate emissions standards. Motorists will not receive directly compensation, but must now sue individually. Mercedes has said it will appeal against the ruling arguing that the company and its employees acted correctly. The lawsuit essentially replicates the lawsuit against Volkswagen over the diesel emissions scandalconcluded with an 830 million euro deal in 2020.
Dieselgate never ends
And precisely as regards Volkswagen, the news has recently come out that the State Council rejected the appeal of Volkswagen Italia e Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft towards the 5 million fine of euros imposed byAntitrust Italian, confirming the 2019 ruling of the Lazio Regional Administrative Court. This is yet another chapter of the dieselgate, the story linked to devices installed on cars to falsify emissions data. Volkswagen Italia and Volkswagen Ag let it be known that “they do not agree with the decision and reserve the right to analyze the detailed sentence”. But bad news for the group in Germany too. The administrative court of the Schleswig-Holsteinhas in fact expressed himself against the German company always regarding a software for diesel engines of the older generation.