Mitsubishi admits cheating on fuel-economy tests
Automakers’ reports of fuel economy and pollution ratings have come under especially close scrutiny after a scandal at Volkswagen last year.
Shares in Mitsubishi fell 15 percent Wednesday after the company released a brief statement saying it had engaged in “improper” fuel-economy reporting.
The cheating at Mitsubishi appears to have been exposed by an unexpected source: another Japanese carmaker, Nissan Motor.
[...] arrangements are increasingly common in the global automobile industry, as manufactures pursue greater scale in an effort to lower costs.
[...] for smaller manufacturers like Mitsubishi, whose sales of 1.2 million vehicles a year make it only Japan’s sixth-biggest carmaker, they can be financially indispensable.
“We had problems in the past, and we thought that we had overcome them as an organization, but that wasn’t the case,” said Ryugo Nakao, a Mitsubishi executive vice president in charge of product development.
Subject to lower taxes than full-size cars, keis were introduced in the lean years after World War II to promote car ownership, and they remain popular with budget-conscious buyers.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, which regulates the automobile industry, said the method Mitsubishi used differed from Japan’s nationally mandated standard.
Many countries, including the United States, set their own detailed rules for fuel-economy testing, and Nakao said Mitsubishi, like other carmakers, tested the cars it makes for export with methods different from those used on cars it sells in Japan.
Since 2012, Hyundai, Kia, Ford and the Mini division of BMW have all been forced by U.S. regulators to lower their fuel-economy ratings for various lines.
Krebs said the willingness to take shortcuts reflected difficulties that automakers face as they strive to meet new standards for emissions and fuel economy that regulators in Europe, the United States and elsewhere have set.