Gov’t finds M’bishi Motors exaggerated fuel economy in more models

It’s unclear if any of the affected models are sold in the United States, but the company did say that some overseas vehicles will be affected by this latest development.

The latest government report widening the scope of Mitsubishi Motors’ fuel economy scandal has deepened troubles for an automaker that had hoped for a quick recovery ahead of a scheduled investment from Nissan Motor.

The transport ministry said Tuesday it carried out tests and found other models, including the Pajero sport utility vehicle, had inflated mileage by as much as 8.8 percent, and on average 4.2 percent.

Japan’s transport ministry on Tuesday ordered Mitsubishi Motors to stop domestic sales of eight vehicle models after an investigation found the vehicle maker overstated their fuel economy, the second such order in a matter of months.

The Japanese automaker acknowledged in April, 2016, it systematically falsified mileage data on its eK wagon and eK Space minicars, also produced for Nissan Motor Co. Mitsubishi reported that none of these misreported vehicles affected cars sold in the U.S. This is in addition to the four compact vehicles that were embroiled in the scandal in April, which resulted in major loss of public trust and forced Mitsubishi to turn to Nissan, who ended up acquiring a one-third stake for US$2.2 billion.

Mitsubishi has admitted to using unapproved methods to calculate mileage for 25 years, while it also used estimates, rather than data from actual tests, to calculate the fuel economy for its minivehicles.

The Mitsubishi Outlander is sold in the US, but the investigation findings will need to be released before the full impact on markets outside Japan is known. “We need to change this”, president Masuko Osamu said at the press conference.

An internal investigation has revealed bad interaction, slack governance and pressure on resource-starved engineers at the root of Mitsubishi’s issues.

Mitsubishi has forecast a loss for this financial year of AU$1.86 billion as it deals with the fallout and lost sales caused by the scandal.