Toyota and other Japanese automakers criticized for vehicle certification problems

TOKYO (Reuters) – Toyota Motor said on Monday its chairman would speak about an investigation it conducted into its vehicle approval applications at the request of Japan's transport ministry.

President Akio Toyoda will hold a news conference on Monday at 0800 GMT, the company said.

The Transportation Ministry separately announced it would conduct an on-site inspection at Toyota headquarters on Tuesday.

It said irregularities were found in model certification applications from Toyota, Mazda Motor, Yamaha Motor, Honda Motor and Suzuki Motor and that it had ordered Toyota, Mazda and Yamaha to suspend shipments of certain vehicles.

The ministry had asked automakers to investigate their vehicle certification applications following a safety testing scandal at Daihatsu, Toyota's compact car unit.

Toyota announced Monday that it has temporarily halted shipments and sales of three car models manufactured in Japan. Yamaha has announced that it has stopped deliveries of a sports motorcycle.

A Mazda spokesperson said it would issue a press release at 06:50 GMT detailing its response, followed by a press conference at 07:00 GMT.

Honda is also scheduled to hold a press conference later today.

A Toyota spokesperson added that the company is still investigating issues related to vehicle fuel efficiency and emissions and plans to complete the investigation by the end of June.

Toyota shares closed down 1.8%.

The company said it provided insufficient data in pedestrian and occupant protection tests for three production models – the Corolla Fielder, Axio and Yaris Cross – and errors in crash tests and other testing methods for four discontinued models, including one sold under the luxury Lexus brand. .

He added that there were no performance issues that violated regulations and customers were not forced to stop using their cars.

In the Daihatsu scandal, a panel found that the unit had rigged side-impact safety tests conducted on 88,000 small cars, most sold under the Toyota name.

(Reporting by Daniel Leussink and Rocky Swift; additional reporting by Kaori Kaneko and Satoshi Sugiyama; editing by Kim Coghill and Edwina Gibbs)