Toyota's truck brand Hino admits faking and fudging emissions data for 20 years
- Reference: 1659499272
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/08/03/hino_faked_emissions_data/
- Source link:
Hino admitted to misconduct in March 2022 and yesterday published a [1]report [PDF] detailing its subsequent investigation.
The report suggests Hino's sins aren't directly comparable to Volkswagen's "Dieselgate" scandal – in which the German automaker intentionally wrote software to report false values for engine emissions.
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But the Toyota subsidiary did alter and fabricate data about emissions and engine performance.
[3]
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The document also admits to diverting data "as if it was measured at the specified measurement points, despite results having been measured at the non-specified measurement points specified under laws and regulations."
Those deceptions were possible because chains of custody for test data were not strong so detecting the fabricated, faked or diverted data was not easy.
[5]
Remediation actions therefore include promises to:
Establish a system to preserve certification test records, which will secure traceability and access control;
Plan to automate the preservation of data by introducing external systems.
Hino has also pledged to "Strengthen … management of control software used in certification/durability tests from the perspective of laws and regulations."
The company's control software will therefore be linked to test results. Hino has also promised to track "'running changes' upon changes of control software."
[6]Toyota, Subaru recall EVs because tires might literally fall off
[7]Software issues cost Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess his job
[8]Tesla Autopilot accounts for 70% of driver assist crashes, says US traffic safety body
The report also outlines a raft of planned governance and cultural changes.
Hino therefore finds itself in a rogues gallery of automakers found to have faked data about their products' performance, alongside [9]Volkswagen , [10]Nissan , Subaru, Mazda, and Suzuki.
VW forked out billions in fines after Dieselgate.
Hino has already recalled tens of thousands of trucks in Japan, and had certifications for some of its engines revoked. Lawsuits surely await. ®
Get our [11]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.hino-global.com/corp/news/assets/e9e9de2a2a41bb0b5079f138f042b1a3.pdf
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YupHWRwovgk2@iAY8@Cm8wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YupHWRwovgk2@iAY8@Cm8wAAAIg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/27/toyota_subaru_recall_evs_because/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/26/from_beetles_to_bugs_vw/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/15/tesla_autopilot_accounts_for_70/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/29/vw_finds_us15_beeelion_under_the_couch_to_pay_off_us_regulators/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2018/07/10/nissan_admits_falsifying_emission_data/
[11] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Establish a system to preserve certification test records
I wouldn't put too much stock in your disbelief that this is happening in the "modern (computer) age". This is Japan where nearly all businesses and half of homes still have (and use) fax machines.
Re: Establish a system to preserve certification test records
As do we. Orders for things are made by website, and this is confirmed by a signed fax.
It's a weird quirk of law that a signature on a fax carries legal weight (probably from the days when it was literally scanning the original document in real time) while a signature in an email is just a meaningless pasted graphic.
This sort of thing matters when the orders are for tens of thousands of euros. That signature is a commitment.
Re: Establish a system to preserve certification test records
...quirk of law that a signature on a fax carries legal weight...
A fax always sends a receipt to acknowledge the recipient has received the fax. Email can be configured to send a receipt but seldom is and even then is easy to spoof.
It's the receipt of delivery that's important for legal documents.
Independant testing required.
If you are going to deliberately falsify your emissions data then the best way to avoid getting caught out is to put the blame on inadequate data storage systems and processes rather than on the people who implemented those systems. Much like all the other diesel fraudsters this stinks like an overripe Durian. I'm sure lots of Hino owners will now be contacting HinoDieselClaim.jp to get their hands on some cash, whether they gave a rats arse about their trucks emissions or not.
The only way to do that is for all testing to be independent of the manufacturer and for the test methodology to not be revealed or to be as close to a real world scenario as possible.
Just follow your nose...
Walking through the city, it's quite easy to spot the cheating diesels: you can easily smell the emitted soot (smells like the dirty old heavy trucks) and the NOx (a sharp smell, somewhat similar to chlorine) all over the place. If you ride a bike, you can get a really nice dose when following an older SUV. And they smell in summer and in winter, so the 'engine protection' clearly is designed to kick in at a wide range of temperatures (although it's worse in winter). I'd therefore be willing to bet that the list in the article (Volkswagen, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, and Suzuki) is way too short.
I am not sure if the newer ones just have improved diesel engines or if they switched to ordinary gasoline -- most newer SUVs smell a lot less. It's not about which company cheated (all the diesel manufacturers did), but just about who managed to make a transition before getting caught.
Establish a system to preserve certification test records
Oh my god.
Where I work they perform bacteriological tests multiple times per day (it's a food factory). The results, including details of who did the test, where, and when, all have to be filed for something like five or six years. Thankfully these days it's data rather than boxes of paper records.
Oh, and we also have to preserve a ridiculous number of self generated paper records (scanned into the system at the end of each day) such as product temperature after cooking in the oven, temperature of various things as it leaves the kitchens, periodic weights to ensure the machines (or employees) are dosing out the right amount, and there's a gizmo for the final product before boxing that detects metal contamination and weights every single thing, rejecting anything out of tolerance. When the production run is in the trend of thousands, that's a lot of data. All of this, and loads more I'm not aware of, is recorded every single day.
So it seems unbelievable in the modern (computer) age that companies who have to perform mandatory testing of products have "issues" regarding the traceability of such tests and certifications awarded.