Mitsubishi Motors Corp, which admitted to cheating on fuel-economy ratings, yesterday said that more models, including a sport utility vehicle, might not have been properly tested, as the scandal spreads beyond the initial batch of minicars.
The Japanese automaker is investigating nine additional current models, including the RVR sports utility vehicle that is sold in the US as the Outlander Sport, as well as ones that have been discontinued.
Mitsubishi chairman Osamu Masuko told reporters in a briefing at Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism that vehicles sold abroad are properly tested and the company expects no impact on overseas sales.
The company said it will separately issue a report on the additional models, without providing more details.
Orders for its vehicles in Japan have plunged after the company first revealed it had overstated the fuel economy of its minicars by as much as 10 percent. The Japanese government has said it will set up a task force to look into concrete measures to prevent irregularities in vehicle testing.
The scandal has also affected Nissan Motor Co, which sold two of the minicar models under a partnership agreement.
Nissan was not involved in setting the fuel-economy targets for the minicars in question, Mitsubishi Motors president Tetsuro Aikawa said at the same briefing.
Mitsubishi had raised the fuel economy targets five times for the minicar models to 29.2 kilometers per liter from 26.4km per liter in a bid to outperform the competition.
For the RVR, Mitsubishi Motors had calculated the fuel economy using data from a base model, without conducting any actual testing, the company said. The actual fuel economy of the nine models being probed did not differ from the stated figures, it said.
Mitsubishi Motors has established a third-party group to investigate the falsified fuel efficiency labeling that is expected to take about three months, the company said last month. The committee consists of three lawyers, including a former member of the Tokyo High Prosecutors’ Office.
The automaker, which had required a bailout from other Mitsubishi group companies more than a decade ago because it covered up deadly defects, said the supervisor in charge of the models had felt the need to boost efficiency to meet targets and mishandled the testing.
The company has not sought support from Mitsubishi group companies and aims to solve the crisis on its own, Masuko said at a briefing in Tokyo.
The company should be able to handle compensation with its own resources, he said.
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