It's Official: Mitsubishi Has Been Rigging Fuel Economy Tests
Just as the dust was beginning to settle following last year’s explosive VW emissions scandal, it’s emerged that Mitsubishi has also dabbled in economy test fiddling.
Mitsubishi released a statement to coincide with a press briefing this morning, in which it said: “we found that with respect to the fuel consumption testing data, the company conducted testing improperly to present better fuel consumption rates than the actual rates…We express deep apologies to all of our customers and stakeholders for this issue.”
When announcing that it was about to release details of misconduct in emissions testing earlier today, the company’s shares plunged by 17 per cent, wiping out $1.2 billion in the process.
625,000 cars are affected, all of which are only for sale in Asia. The four models that have fallen foul are the Mitsubishi eK Wagon and eK Space, plus the Dayz and Dayz Roox, which are both manufactured for Nissan. The bulk of the cars affected - 468,000 - are the ones made for Nissan, and it’s actually Nissan that discovered and reported the discrepancies originally.
Nissan has halted sales of the Dayz and Dayz Roox in Japan, while Mitsubishi has also suspended sales, and stopped production of the offending vehicles.
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
Mitshubishi emissions memes incoming…
Prepare to see the old coal train meme with like a Mitsi logo mixed with the VW one. (if anyone good with photoshop reads this please do the world a favour and create that wonderful masterpiece)
I don’t even know any one of those ridiculously named units and Mitsubishi would still sell Mirages and Montero Sports and other models like pancakes here in Philippines
Bye bye any chance of bringing back the Evo.
There wasn’t going to be a chance anyway. They wouldn’t put a “Final Edition” badge on a car if they ever thought they’d bring it back
It’s not just cheating of emissions, but manufacturs have always been lieing about fuel economy than what you get
Its not cheating emissions indeed! Its making a mistake..
I wonder if this will kill Mitsubishi in the US. I really don’t know if this will be as big a deal here as Volkswagen was, because not many people besides enthusiasts have Mitsubishis
Has anyone thought that maybe these emissions and fuel economy standards are becoming a bit unrealistic?
At least All the good models are still unaffected. I hope.
Since when are official mpg figures even close to real mpg anyway? All makers have optimistic numbers.
Yeah, I’ve always got better than the EPA figures in every car I’ve owned. All you have to do is adjust the nut behind the wheel!
Actually the only company that doesn’t lie or bend the rules is suzuki, they send there cars to the tester and get there emissions figures from that. not the other way around unlike like nearly every other manufacturer.
Mitsubishi will be dead (at least in the US) in <5 years. They make mediocre cars that have nothing on their competition and sales have dropped to a point that the vast majority of people here don’t know who they are. Now that the Evo is dead they really have nothing at all going for them.
There cars are only a small part of the mitsubishi company. It won’t be dead for a long time.