Toyota, Honda use poor quality materials to produce cars

Kobe Steel supplied counterfeit steel, aluminum and copper to automakers including Toyota, Honda, Nissan... to produce some car parts, according to Bloomberg.

The head of Kobe Steel, Japan's third largest steel company, admitted to falsifying quality data on steel, aluminum and copper to supply to major car manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda, Subaru...

According to Bloomberg, Kobe Steel used fake data on the hardness and ductility of aluminum and copper to supply automakers to produce some parts.

About 4 percent of the substandard materials were shipped to major customers including Toyota, Honda and Nissan between September 2016 and August 2017. A Kobe Steel spokesperson said the customers had been contacted about the thousands of tons of substandard materials they had delivered.

Major car manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda, Ford, Nissan... all buy steel from Kobe Steel. Photo: Autoweek

Toyota representatives confirmed the use of substandard materials provided by Kobe Steel in the production of rear doors, hoods and some other parts. Currently, the car company is investigating to see which models are affected by this batch of poor quality materials.

Meanwhile, spokespeople for Honda and Nissan also confirmed that they used non-compliant materials from Kobe Steel to manufacture vehicles and are in the process of conducting a more detailed assessment.

According to the latest report from Kobe Steel, more than 11,000 tons of counterfeit steel, copper and aluminum produced by this company and its branches in Japan, China, Malaysia and Thailand have been shipped to customers.

Kobe Steel's non-conforming materials, including copper alloy pipes and steel wires, were used to manufacture tires and engines on its partners' products.

Kobe Steel, Japan’s third-largest steelmaker, supplies materials to automakers and aircraft manufacturers, with annual sales of about $15 billion. The company lost about $1 billion in stock market value on Tuesday after the scandal was revealed.

This is the third major scandal to hit the auto industry in three years, along with the Takata emissions cheating and defective airbags scandal.

Previously, the airbag manufacturing company Takata had to declare bankruptcy when its products killed 11 people, causing tens of millions of cars from many manufacturers to be recalled.

According to Zing