Shares in Mitsubishi Motors closed down more than 15% – its biggest one-day drop in nearly 12 years.
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Although the incidents look to affect mainly the Japanese auto market, incorrect fuel economy figures are nothing new for the industry.
Mitsubishi president Tetsuro Aikawa has told reporters the wrongdoing came to light because Nissan alerted it to inconsistencies in emissions data.
There are roughly 625,000 vehicles affected, and a lot of them were supplied by Mitsubishi to Nissan, which discovered the fraudulent manipulation.
“This discovery was made during Nissan’s assessment of data from the current model, as part of our development of the next-generation vehicle”. Of these, 157,000 were sold under the Mitsubishi brand name, and the model names were “eK Wagon” and “eK Space”.
Mitsubishi is conducting an internal investigation into the matter to determine which employees were directly responsible for the deceptive practices.
Mitsubishi Motors Corp’s President Tetsuro Aikawa attends a news conference to brief about issues of misconduct in fuel economy tests at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry in Tokyo, Japan, April 20, 2016.
The Japanese automaker said it deliberately fudged the fuel efficiency numbers in its favour by margins of roughly ten percent.
Volkswagen AG is perhaps the biggest example of an automaker caught cheating on emissions tests, but others have been accused of overstating fuel efficiency as well.
Mitsubishi Motors sold just over 1 million cars past year.
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Turns out the motoring company were falsifying tyre pressure figures to flatter mileage rates, according to the company themselves. “NM also has stopped sales of the applicable cars, and MMC and NM will discuss compensation regarding this issue”. The duo agreed to pay up $350 million in US penalties, and more to resolve claims from vehicle owners.
