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Comment by dsgnr | Hacker News Reader

Also found a report about another problem they cheated on tests to pass:

"They said the door trim on the affected vehicles had been modified with a "notch" to minimise the risk in testing that the door interior could break with a sharp edge and cause injury to an occupant when the side airbag deployed in an accident."

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/japans...

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Stupid question: why didn't they add that part to the actual production cars? It doesn't sound like a complex system or problem (compared to say, reducing emissions versus just cheating in emission testing) especially since they already seem like they know exactly what they had to fix.

Even then I'd understand if it was a one time thing (rush in production or design, no time to redesign) but this is systematic and across a wide range of models. I guess the other models in question had more deeply rooted design issues that can't be fixed with a less intricate tweak?

The strange thing about that modification is that it appears on the surface to be a legitimate safety improvement. Could the underlying test be subpar?

it sounds like it wasn't in the production vehicle.

Right, but I’m wondering if the notch was actually useful for legitimate passengers in the event of an accident.

why would that call into question the underlying test? Rather it calls into questions the design decision of the daihatsu team to know they could create a safer product but decide to not do so, and fake it on the safety tests.

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