Daihatsu To Spearhead Toyota’s Compact Car Development From 2017

Toyota Motor Corporation and its fully-owned subsidiary Daihatsu Motor Co Ltd will be establishing a new internal company to be responsible for developing compact vehicles for emerging markets. The new company will be known as the ‘Emerging-Market Compact Car Company’.

The setting up of the new company was earlier announced on 4 Oct 2016, but a new statement from Toyota released today sheds more light on the new company’s operating structure.

According to the statement, the new company is being founded with the objective of establishing new work processes to enable the development of higher quality and more competitive compact cars from emerging markets by tapping into Daihatsu’s expertise in the segment.

A key organizational change related to this development sees Toyota Motor Asia Pacific Engineering and Manufacturing Co Ltd (TMAP-EM) based in Bangkok being renamed as Toyota Daihatsu Engineering and Manufacturing Co Ltd (TDEM) and parked under the new EMCCC.

EMCCC itself will consist of three divisions:

• Product & Business Planning: To conduct overall planning for products and business operations for both Toyota and Daihatsu models. Also responsible for proposing strategy and line-up for Toyota models in emerging markets.
• Product Planning: Final product development for Toyota brand vehicles.
• Quality Planning: Final quality development for Toyota brand vehicles.

It is also stated that Daihatsu will, under the operation of the new EMCCC, henceforth be responsible for spearheading development of compact cars specifically for emerging markets.

The soon-to-be-renamed TMAP-EM, meanwhile, will be responsible for supporting the production of Daihatsu compact vehicles in emerging markets.

Daihatsu President Masanori Mitsui is to be appointed chairman and Toyota Managing Officer Shinya Kotera is to be appointed president of the new internal company.