Mitsubishi News: Mitsubishi Continued To Incorrectly Test Fuel Economy After Admitting It Manipulated Figures

[William Maley]

Mitsubishi's fuel economy mess in Japan isn't getting any better. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Japanese automaker continued to improperly test the fuel economy of their vehicles a month after admitting that it had manipulated fuel economy figures on their Kei cars. This accusation comes from a new report from Japan's transport ministry. 

“We cannot help but feel concerned that these points haven’t been improved,” said Naoki Fujii, head of the road transport bureau at the ministry.

Japan's transport ministry requires the country's automakers to perform five road tests and take the average of median values. In their report, the ministry explained to Mitsubishi workers how to properly do the test. But workers continued to manipulate the tests. Some examples listed in the report include,

• Workers took the average of the best mileage numbers, not the median numbers of the five tests
• Mitsubishi didn't tell workers doing the tests that you were only to do five

Mitsubishi Motors chief executive Osamu Masuko said they are taking the continued problems seriously and laid blame at the “lack of capability” at the division responsible for the testing.

Of course, this latest allegation puts some questions to Nissan planned acquisition of a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors. The deal - worth $2.2 billion - was expected to be finalized by the end of October. Now, it has been pushed back to the end of the year. Nissan's due diligence investigation is taking longer than expected.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (Subscription Required)

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[Frisky Dingo]

Someone just put them out of their misery.

[G. David Felt]

Ugly mess and Mistubishi could go the way of other past auto companies joining the history books.

[Drew Dowdell]

Well now Ghosn is in control of Mitsu.... I'm sure some heads will roll. 

[G. David Felt]

Hope they do the proper thing, so they can survive, but one does have to wonder how they can tell the world they have been cheating and then still cheat and no repercussions. 

Makes one wonder just what is going on with Japan Government to not have done something by now. The loss of face is huge here and heads should have rolled by now.

[regfootball]

we need to weed the Japanese makers down, nissan, toyota group, honda will even be lucky to remain apart from USA

Mazda is being valiant but they will get absorbed in ten years too

[Drew Dowdell]

I think Mazda's new business model is to build cars for other manufacturers as well as their own.

[A Horse With No Name]

On 9/20/2016 at 10:11 AM, Frisky Dingo said:

Someone just put them out of their misery.

Please!

 

12 hours ago, Drew Dowdell said:

I think Mazda's new business model is to build cars for other manufacturers as well as their own.

Considering they are not investing in anything like Hybrid or battery tech, yes....that IS their long term survival mode...survive for another decade or so and hope like hell someone buys you for your engineering base and manufacturing capacity.

12 hours ago, regfootball said:

we need to weed the Japanese makers down, nissan, toyota group, honda will even be lucky to remain apart from USA

Mazda is being valiant but they will get absorbed in ten years too

If not sooner. Too bad, they are a fairly innovative small company in their own way.

On 9/20/2016 at 1:48 PM, dfelt said:

Hope they do the proper thing, so they can survive, but one does have to wonder how they can tell the world they have been cheating and then still cheat and no repercussions. 

Makes one wonder just what is going on with Japan Government to not have done something by now. The loss of face is huge here and heads should have rolled by now.

Japan does not have the same level of ethical concern in many ways that the United States does.  As much as I am disgusted both political things that are done on both sides of the aisle, there are real ways in which our country still gets it right.