Mitsubishi headquarters raided by Japans Transport Ministry over fuel-economy scandal
The headquarters of Mitsubishi Motors along with its Nagoya plant were raided by officials from Japan's Transport Ministry. This raid seems to be the fallout of Mitsubishi Motors' admission last week that more of its models were involved in the fuel-economy scandal than what it had earlier stated. Mitsubishi Motors is Japan's sixth largest car manufacturer.
According to a Reuters report, transport minister Keiichi Ishii told reporters that the government wants to thoroughly investigate the circumstances that led to this situation. He also said that the transport ministry has sent documents to other automobile manufacturers to ensure that they comply with the existing regulations for calculation of fuel economy.
In April this year, Mitsubishi Motors had apologised for submitting incorrect fuel-efficiency data to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. Subsequently Japan's Transport Ministry had asked the carmaker to submit a detailed report. The affected models include the eK Wagon, eK Space, Dayz and Dayz Roox. The Dayz and Dayz Roox models were manufactured by Mitsubishi Motors for Nissan.
Nissan had discovered a discrepancy between the claimed and actual fuel economy of the vehicles. It had asked Mitsubishi to find out the reason for the same. During investigations, Mitsubishi found that the tyre pressure of these affected models was altered in order to attain higher fuel economy during testing. After this finding, Mitsubishi had taken a decision to stop marketing and manufacturing all the affected models.
The transport ministry has said that during their own investigations, they found that Mitsubishi Motors had stated a higher fuel economy for another eight vehicles, including the RVR, Pajero and Outlander SUV. Also, the company has admitted to using unapproved methods to calculate fuel economy for 25 years. It even used estimates instead of actual test data to calculate the fuel economy of the affected models.
Source: Reuters
