Toyota Raize & Daihatsu Rocky Sales Halted in Japan – Perodua Ativa Affected?

Daihatsu has found themselves in hot water again, this time pertaining to a new safety certification discrepancy that happened on yet another DNGA-based products, which are the Toyota Raize and Daihatsu Rocky crossovers.

This is discovered after an internal investigations into Daihatsu Motor Corporation’s safety certification operation were conducted, following the recent procedural irregularities involving the UN R95 side-impact testing for several DNGA-based models, including the Toyota Vios/Yaris Ativ (AC100) and Perodua Axia (D74A).

Unlike the previous case, this new discrepancy involves another testing procedure, cordially known as the UN R135 test, where the side part of the vehicle will be suspected to have an impact against a pole. Both passenger and drivers’ side of the car must be tested, where the gathered data must be submitted for analysis.

In Daihatsu’s case, it is said that the passenger side test was done correctly, but not for the drivers’. Instead of submitting the true test result of the driver side, Daihatsu submitted the passenger side test result to authorities, which resulted in this new safety discrepancy.

To note, this new discrepancy only pertains to the hybrid (HEV) variants of both models, where its sales have been suspended in Japan. A total of 56,111 units of the Toyota Raize Hybrid and 22,329 units of the Daihatsu Rocky e-smart Hybrid were affected by this new safety issue. Both models share the same 1.2-litre e-smart Hybrid powertrain, alongside many other mechanical parts including the aforementioned DNGA platform.

Fortunately, this testing misconduct doesn’t affect the 1.0-litre turbo variants of the Rocky/Raize, which is currently on sale in the Japanese domestic market. This means that the Perodua Ativa, who shares much of its body, chassis and powertrain components with both turbocharged models, should be exempted from this discrepancy as well.

However, the Perodua Ativa hybrid used for Perodua’s long-term study program might get affected, as the models loaned out by the firm in this study are all fully-imported (CBU) from Japan, possibly sharing most of its mechanical parts with the affected Rocky/Raize hybrids. 

As for now, we can’t confirm nor deny whether the Ativa hybrid is affected by this, as the press release issued by Daihatsu did not mention the model. We’ll have to wait for an official statement from Perodua to be absolutely sure.

Aside from the Perodua Ativa, another Raize/Rocky twin, the Subaru Rex is also not affected by this discrepancy, as Subaru  only offers the nat-asp 1.2-litre variant of the model in Japan.