Mitsubishi Admits Manipulation of Fuel Economy Tests on more than 600,000 Kei Cars

It appears that lying about fuel economy and emissions is not exclusive to Volkswagen

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation has publicly admitted that it has manipulated fuel economy tests for more than 600,000 mini cars sold in Japan.

The company said the "improper conduct" happened during the certification process for kei cars manufactured by Mitsubishi for the Japanese market. According to the press release, the testing was done improperly "in order to present better fuel consumption rates than the actual rates."

Four kei cars are involved: the Mitsubishi eK Wagon, Mitsubishi eK Space, Nissan Dayz, and Nissan Dayz Roox. The latter two models have been manufactured by Mitsubishi and supplied to Nissan since June 2013. Through March 2016, Mitsubishi has sold 157,000 units of the eK Wagon and eK Space and shipped 468,000 of the Dayz and Dayz Roox to Nissan.

It was Nissan that discovered the deviations in the fuel consumption figures when it examined the fuel consumption rates of the Dayz and Dayz Roox for its reference. Nissan reached out to Mitsubishi, and that's how the latter learned about the "improper conduct."

"During our internal investigation, we have found that the testing method which was different from the one required by Japanese law has been applied to other models manufactured by MMC for the Japanese domestic market," Mitsubishi said in the press release. "We express deep apologies to all of our customers and stakeholders for this issue," the automaker added.

Mitsubishi announced it has decided to stop production and sales of the applicable cars while Nissan has stopped sales as well. The automakers will discuss compensation regarding this issue.

Mitsubishi also said it will conduct an investigation into products manufactured for overseas markets. The automaker will set up a committee formed exclusively of external experts, and will publish the results of the report as soon as it is complete.