Japan orders Toyota to make ‘drastic reforms’ after new certification violations

The Japanese government ordered Toyota Motor on Wednesday to make “drastic reforms” after discovering new violations in the carmaker’s vehicle certification procedures.

In a so-called corrective order, the transport ministry said on-site inspections had uncovered widespread, intentional misconduct and irregularities in seven additional models that had not been previously disclosed.

Toyota said the corrective order instructed it to “make drastic reforms to ensure appropriate certification operations”.

The carmaker added it was in the process of confirming compliance with requirements for the models involved, and that customers did not need to stop using affected vehicles.

Earlier this month, Toyota said it had not found any new cases of wrongdoing in car model certification applications beyond the ones it had already reported in June.

Toyota and four other vehicle makers admitted in June they had submitted either flawed or manipulated data when applying for certification of vehicles.