Mitsubishi, Japanese auto giant admitted to rigging the fuel economy for its passenger vehicles that are being sold in Japan. The company confirmed that tests are conducted improperly to obtain actual fuel consumption figures that are better than actuals.
The company also says that the testing is completely different from the one required by Japanese law. The Mileage of 6,25,000 cars is manipulated including the manufactured cars by Mitsubishi for Nissan. eK Wagon, eK Space, and the Nissan Dayz and Dayz Roox are the four models have been affected by the fudging.
Mostly the affected cars are mini cars, or ‘kei cars’ as called by Japan. 157,000 units of eK models and 468,000 units of the Dayz models are sold with the rigged fuel efficiency numbers. Shocking thing is that Nissan discovering the malpractice and reported the same. In reality, both Nissan and Mitsubishi have suspended sales of affected models. There is an investigating team working on this issue.
It is noted that Korean manufacturers Hyundai and Kia had agreed to pay $350m in penalties for overstating the vehicles fuel economy rating in the year 2014. For this misconduct, the company is fined or penalized. Soon after Mitsubishi stated falsifying test results shares of the auto giant plunged a whopping 15%, which is wiped off $1.2 billion of market value. The company`s biggest one-day fall in almost 12 years.
As the rules are getting strict day by day it is well known and well-respected auto manufacturers known as Mitsubishi to lead an example. With this emission scandal blooming over Volkswagen`s head another instance with a reputed manufacturer resorting to malpractice without any good news for the auto industry in general.