Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism officials raided a Mitsubishi Motors Corp office yesterday following the shock admission by the automaker that it falsified fuel-efficiency tests of more than 600,000 vehicles.
The officials descended on a research and development center in the city of Nagoya and the Japanese government might slap the under-fire company with fines over the scandal, local media said.
“This has critically damaged consumers’ trust and it won’t be tolerated,” top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said. “It’s an extremely serious issue.”
Photo: Reuters
Mitsubishi’s Tokyo-listed shares crashed 20 percent to ¥583, extending Wednesday’s 15 percent nosedive and wiping about US$2.5 billion off the automaker’s market value in just two sessions.
Mitsubishi said it would halt production and sales of the affected vehicle models — mini-cars sold in Japan, including some made for rival Nissan Motor Co — and warned that the number of affected vehicles would likely rise.
Mitsubishi’s top executive on Wednesday said that the brewing crisis would take a bite out of the automaker’s bottom line, as it widens its probe to cars that it sold overseas.
Photo: EPA
VOLKSWAGEN
The embarrassing revelation follows a massive pollution-cheating scandal at Volkswagen (VW) AG that erupted in September last year after the German automaker admitted that several engineers had installed software into 11 million diesel engines worldwide that intentionally skewed emissions values during testing.
Embattled VW is to offer US$5,000 to each US buyer of its diesel vehicles that were installed with emissions-cheating software in a bid to avoid a major court case, Die Welt newspaper reported yesterday.
The US cases have been consolidated in a federal court in San Francisco by Judge Charles Breyer, who had given Volkswagen until yesterday to come up with a plan to deal with about 600,000 vehicles that had their engines rigged to make them appear less polluting.
According to German daily Die Welt, the deal, agreed with the US authorities, does not resolve all the issues, but would leave Volkswagen picking up the cost of recalling and modifying the offending vehicles.
German litigation lawyer Christopher Rother told Die Welt that the US deal is likely to serve as a reference point for damages for European VW clients.
The total costs of the controversy are still incalculable, but are expected to run into many billions as a result of fines and lawsuits.
If the deal is not accepted by the plaintiffs, then the case could go to trial.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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