Toyota expels Hino from Japanese truck consortium

The Commercial Japan Partnership Technologies Corporation (CJPT) has announced today its decision to expel Hino Motors considering its misconduct concerning emissions certification testing.

Toyota Motor Corporation’s truck manufacturing subsidiary entered into the Japanese national commercial vehicle consortium a little over a year ago as it moved to speed up its shift towards electrification. Now, after evidence of its emissions and fuel efficiency cheating have come to light, Hino has been summarily expelled from the CJPT, casting a cloud over its future direction.

Since its establishment in April 2021, the CJPT has been working to achieve carbon-neutrality within the commercial vehicle sector, while also reducing the burden on drivers and associated workers through greater levels of automation.

Toyota Motor Corporation president, Akio Toyoda, suggested that the misconduct by Hino is “incompatible with CJPT’s aspirations and goals” and that the continued inclusion of Hino in its activities “will not gain the understanding of its customers and the public”.

Specifically, Hino will be excluded from all CJPT agreements, including the joint planning agreement, and Hino’s equity stake (10%) in CJPT will be transferred to Toyota.

In the projects that CJPT is already working on, such as the previously announced social implementation in Fukushima and Tokyo, Hino will “play a minimal role to not cause inconvenience to CJPT’s customers”.

"As the parent company and a shareholder of Hino, we are extremely disappointed with the company's misconduct in relation to the certification testing, which has greatly undermined the trust of our customers and all other stakeholders,” said Mr Toyoda in a statement.

"Hino has committed misconduct in engine certification for a long period of time, and the company is in a situation where it is not to be recognised as one of the 5.5 million individuals in the Japanese automotive industry.

"CJPT is a project to build the future together, based on Japan's CASE technology. As of now, we believe that Hino's participation will cause inconvenience to stakeholders, and we have decided that it is appropriate to expel Hino from CJPT.

"This conclusion was reached after discussions with the companies involved. We will continue to work with our partners on the project to solve the issues facing the transportation industry and contribute to achieving a carbon neutral society."

The CJPT initially brought together Toyota, Hino and Isuzu with Toyota agreeing to take a 4.6 per cent stake in Isuzu as part of the alliance. Toyota already held a majority 50.1 per cent stake in Hino. Suzuki and Daihatsu later joined the CJPT to develop kei-classification electric commercial vehicles for metropolitan use.

News of Hino’s falsified emissions and fuel economy data came to light in March of this year when it was found to have been cheating data as far back as 2003.

Hino employees falsified tests on engines used in 643,635 vehicles over that timeframe, with 66,817 of the trucks now the subject of a recall notice.

Hino has blamed the missteps on employees being overburdened with the fast pace of work and on a corporate culture that discouraged people from reporting problems to management.

“Considering the fact that the misconduct in relation to certification testing has been long-term and widespread, we can only say that we have not even reached our starting point in solving these issues,” Hino said after its expulsion.

“We take this decision very seriously.”