Toyota, other Japan automakers under fire for new lapses as safety scandal deepens

TOKYO — Toyota Motor and Mazda Motor temporarily halted shipments or sales of some vehicles after Japan's transport ministry found irregularities in applications to certify their models.

The ministry said on Monday (June 3) irregularities were found in applications to certify models from the two automakers and also from Honda Motor, Suzuki Motor and Yamaha Motor. It had ordered Toyota, Mazda and Yamaha to suspend shipments of some vehicles.

The developments represent a widening of a safety test scandal among Japanese automakers. The ministry had requested automakers to investigate their vehicle certification applications following a safety test scandal at Toyota's compact car unit Daihatsu that emerged last year.

Toyota, the world's biggest automaker by volume, said on Monday it has temporarily halted shipments and sales of three car models made in Japan. Chairman Akio Toyoda will hold a press conference at 0800 GMT on Monday.

The transport ministry said separately it will conduct an on-site inspection at Toyota's headquarters on Tuesday.

Mazda suspended shipments of its Roadster RF sports car and the Mazda2 hatchback from Thursday last week after finding workers had modified engine control software test results, it said in a statement.

It also found crash tests of the Atenza and Axela models that were no longer in production had been tampered with by using a timer to set off airbags during some frontal collision tests instead of relying on an on-board sensor to detect a hit.

Yamaha said it had halted shipments of a sports motorcycle.

Honda, which is also due to hold a press conference later in the day, said it had found wrongdoing in noise and output tests over a period of more than eight years to October 2017 on some