Fifteen years after its first scandal, Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors is caught in another cover up. This time, the employees were caught intentionally falsifying fuel mileage tests.
Mitsubishi Motors admitted manipulating test data to overstate the fuel efficiency of 625,000 cars. The scandal is not the first to occur in the auto industry. Mitsubishi Motors adds to the list of automakers that inflate fuel mileage and provide faulty emissions data. This list includes Hyundai, Ford Motor Co., Volkswagen and Kia Motors.
Nissan Motors Co. is affected by this scandal, as 68,000 Dayz and Dayz Roox vehicles were produced by the shameful Japanese automakers, as well as 157,00 of its eK Space light and eK Wagon passenger cars.
Nissan caught inconsistencies in data, Mitsubishi looked further into internal investigations. It was discovered that employees were falsifying tire pressure data to make the mileage appear better than it really was.
President Tetsuro Aikawa held a press conference with other company executives to explain the situation and apologize.
“The wrongdoing was intentional. It is clear the falsification was done to make the mileage look better. But why they would resort to fraud to do this is still unclear,” Aikawa stated to press.
This comes decades after Mitsubishi Motor’s first scandal in the early 2000s. The automaker had defects in faulty clutches, fuel tanks and failing brakes dating back to the 1970s. The scandal made it very hard for Mitsubishi to gain back the consumer’s trust. Mitsubishi Motors is Japan’s sixth-biggest automaker.
President of the shamed automakers was asked was asked if the latest scandal highlighted how the company did not fix itself after the recall over fifteen years ago, although it had repeatedly promised to come clean.
“I realize that view exists, I see how difficult it can be to have compliance consciousness spread among all our employees.”
Nissan stopped production of the affected cars and compensation is currently in discussion.
