Daihatsu Cars
JDM · 2 models
Daihatsu: Toyota's Kei Car Specialist
JDMDaihatsu is a Japanese carmaker based in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, and one of the oldest surviving Japanese engine makers. Today it focuses on kei cars, kei trucks, and kei vans, and it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota since August 2016.
Daihatsu models we cover
The company traces back to Hatsudoki Seizo, founded in 1907 to build gasoline engines for small stationary power plants, with input from Osaka University's engineering faculty. It made mostly steam engines for Japanese National Railways until a three-wheeled truck prototype was proposed in 1930, and it was formally reorganized as Daihatsu on March 1, 1951. The name joins the first character of Osaka (大, read "dai" here) with the first character of the Japanese phrase for engine manufacture, hatsudōki seizō (発動機製造).
Toyota became a major shareholder in 1967, raised its stake to 33.4 percent in 1995 and 51.2 percent in 1998, and took full ownership in 2016. Most Daihatsu models in Japan are kei cars, and because of that focus, 70 percent of Daihatsu drivers in Japan are women. Daihatsu also builds small cars sold under the Toyota name in emerging markets and supplies engines and transmissions to Malaysia's Perodua.
Its time in the United States was short. The Hijet arrived in 1987 as an off-road-only utility vehicle, the Rocky and Charade followed in 1988, and sales ended in 1992. Daihatsu left Europe by 2013, citing the strong yen. In 2023 it was found to have rigged safety tests in cases going back as far as 1989, and in December 2023 it halted shipments of 64 models, including cars sold under the Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru names.