Hino Motors faked their emission and fuel economy data for nearly two decades, with outside lawyers finding that the cheating started in 2003. Imagine buying a truck and believing it is clean, while in reality, it pumps out dirty gas. That is a massive lie.
In 2016, the Japanese transport ministry asked all carmakers about cheating because Mitsubishi got caught faking fuel data. Hino bosses looked officials in the eye and said they were completely clean, lying directly to the government's face.
The fraud compromised almost their entire lineup: out of fourteen engine models, Hino tainted twelve with fake data. Four of those engines could not even pass the basic legal emission standards when tested honestly.
Executives pushed for results without giving workers the tools or time to succeed. A giant gap grew between the bosses in their high offices and the engineers on the dirty shop floor. Nobody was checking the work, so cheating became the easiest way out.
Uncovering the Long Paper Trail of Fake Reports
The paper trail finally caught up with them. On August 2, 2022, the special investigation committee led by lawyer Shigetaka Sato delivered a massive 170-page report to the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. This report exposed how Hino engineers systematically altered testing logs for the heavy-duty A09C and E13C engines.
During type designation tests, they literally swapped the muffler to make the exhaust look cleaner than it was, doing this right under the noses of regulators.
Peeling Back the Layer of Corporate Silence
To understand how they pulled off such blatant deception, one must look inside the engine development division, where a culture of absolute obedience prevented anyone from questioning deadlines. Under the pressure of meeting strict post-new long-term emissions regulations in Japan, engineers felt they had no choice.
The software controlling the selective catalytic reduction system was programmed to behave differently during testing compared to real-world driving.
This is classic defeat device behavior, just like the infamous Volkswagen scandal, but happening in Tokyo's outskirts.
How Engineers Tricked the Emission Test Machines
This defeat device software was only part of the strategy, as engineers also resorted to physical manipulation to trick the emission test machines. To cheat the fuel efficiency tests on the medium-duty A05C engine, Hino workers calibrated the fuel consumption measurement instruments to show better results.
They ran tests longer than allowed to find a favorable data point.
For the selective catalytic reduction system on the larger engines, they replaced failing catalyst parts with brand new ones mid-test.
By doing this, they kept the deterioration factor artificially low, resulting in a manual, hands-on rigging of physical hardware during official government witness testing.
Why This Japanese Giant Left Us Completely Stunned
Given how brazen this hands-on rigging was during official government witness testing, the silence from Hino's parent company is baffling. Is it not absolutely wild that Toyota owned 50.1 percent of Hino and apparently had no clue? For years, Toyota held Hino up as their shining star for heavy transport, completely asleep at the wheel.
When Toyota Chief Executive Akio Toyoda finally spoke up in August 2022, he sounded like a disappointed parent, stating that Hino’s actions betrayed the trust of all stakeholders.
How does a global giant miss twenty years of systematic cheating right next door?
The surprise runs even deeper when you look at the North American market. In October 2020, Hino had to abruptly halt truck production in the United States and Canada because their engines failed to meet U.S. emissions testing protocols. Why did nobody put two and two together back then? Reports from Nikkei Asia showed that the U.S. Department of Justice started a criminal investigation into Hino's testing practices shortly after, proving the cheating was a massive global habit, far beyond a local Tokyo problem.
With so much pride on the line, you would think somebody would have blown the whistle sooner. But in Japan's strict corporate hierarchy, challenging your boss is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. The engineers kept quiet, the bosses kept boasting, and the dirty trucks kept rolling off the assembly line. It is a hilarious comedy of errors, if you ignore the massive cloud of toxic gas they left behind!
No comments:
Post a Comment