Mitsubishi Motors Corp has admitted to manipulating test data involving more than 600,000 vehicles in order to improve fuel-economy claims.
In a statement released today, Mitsubishi admits that they have conducted testing improperly to present better fuel consumption rates than the actual rates; and that the testing method was also different from the one required by the Japanese law.
The applicable cars are 4 mini-car models, two of which are the eK Wagon and eK Space which have been manufactured by Mitsubishi; and the other two are the Dayz and Dayz Roox which have been manufactured by Mitsubishi and supplied to Nissan since June 2013. Up until the end of March 2016, Mitsubishi has sold 157,000 units of the eK Wagon and eK Space and supplied 468,000 units of the Dayz and Dayz Roox to Nissan.
Since Mitsubishi developed the applicable cars and was responsible for obtaining the relevant certifications, Mitsubishi conducted the fuel consumption testing themselves. In the process of the development for the next generation of mini-car products, Nissan examined the fuel consumption rates of the applicable cars for Nissan’s reference and found deviations in the figures. Nissan requested Mitsubishi to review the running resistance* value once again and in the course of their internal investigation upon this request, the automaker learned of the improper manipulated fuel consumption rates rather than publishing the actual rates.
Following to this issue, Nissan and Mitsubishi have decided to stop production and sales of the applicable cars and both automakers will discuss compensation regarding this issue.
According to BBC, Mitsubishi Motors’ shares closed more than 15% lower in Tokyo after the company made the announcement. This is possibly their biggest one-day fall in nearly 12 years.
*running resistance: rolling resistance (mainly genrated by tyres) and air resistance while vehicles are moving
