5 Things About Mitsubishi Motors Mileage Cheating Scandal

Mitsubishi has admitted to the mileage cheating scandal in its cars. Here are the five things to know about the scandal.

Cars Are Affected

Mini-vehicles which were produced since mid of 2003 which involved 625,000 units in total. Models like eK Wagon and eK Space, and cars manufactured for Nissan which runs into a total of 468,000 units of Dayz and Dayz Roox, which were sold in Japan. Mitsubishi has stopped these models.

Who Found Out

Nissan who is a partner with MMC (Mitsubishi Motor Company) for produced mini-cars found out a discrepancy in of their tests in November, 2016 in their car, Dayz. MMC has set up an external committee in light of this discovery and will report it in three months.

The Japanese transport ministry is testing some of the Mitsubishi models in the coming weeks and results will be out in June.

Reasons To Rig The Data

MMC rigged the test data to get the certification on fuel economy, a bloated figure of 10 percent higher than what the cars achieved.

The pressure was the key reason as competitors were showing better fuel economy, this led to rigging the data. Companies like Daihatsu Motor were performing better on fuel economy and Mitsubishi had to be relevant in the industry which was one of the reasons for the scandal.

Cost To Mitsubishi

An estimate is close to $1 billion or can be even higher depending on the sanctions it might face from the government agencies. It will have to pay the car owners whose cars have been affected, any tax benefits they enjoyed at the cars affected, compensate its partner; Nissan, and of course the legal suits and fines.

Impact On Mitsubishi

The market value has already hit an all time low and lost an approx. $3.7 billion on just a week. Their branding has hit hard not just in Japan, but globally as well, even its orders for the new cars has been reportedly fallen. Most of all they need to find out how they can re-brand itself to get back to winning ways.