Mitsubishi Admits Cheating on Fuel-Economy Tests
By JONATHAN SOBLE

TOKYO — In the latest scandal to hit the automobile industry, Mitsubishi Motors said on Wednesday that it had cheated on fuel-economy tests for an ultrasmall car it produces in Japan. The company acknowledged that its engineers had intentionally manipulated evaluations.

The cheating affected about 620,000 cars sold in the Japanese market starting in 2013, Tetsuro Aikawa, Mitsubishi’s president, said at a news conference.

But the problem could stretch beyond that make of car. Mr. Aikawa said that the same testing method, which was in violation of Japanese standards, was used on other models in the country and that Mitsubishi was investigating whether fuel-economy ratings for other lines had been exaggerated as a result.

“It has become clear that improper testing methods were used to improve the appearance of fuel efficiency,” Mr. Aikawa said before he and other company leaders bowed in apology. Company executives called the manipulation of tests on the microcar, called the eK, “intentional.”

Automakers’ reports of fuel economy and pollution ratings have come under especially close scrutiny after a scandal at Volkswagen last year. The German automaker was found to have manipulated software in 11 million diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests.

Mitsubishi’s reputation has been battered by scandal before. In 2000, the company admitted that it had been hiding reports on vehicle defects for more than two decades. The news contributed to a sales plunge of nearly 50 percent and nearly pushed the automaker into bankruptcy.

The revelation of cheating put the fuel ratings of other Mitsubishi vehicles under scrutiny. Shares in Mitsubishi fell 15 percent on Wednesday after the company released a brief statement saying it had engaged in “improper” fuel-economy reporting. It disclosed the details after the market closed.

The cheating at Mitsubishi appears to have been exposed by an unexpected source: another Japanese carmaker, Nissan Motor.

Mitsubishi manufactures the eK and sells it at dealerships in Japan. But it also supplies versions of the car to Nissan, which markets them under a different name, the Dayz. Nissan, a larger company with a more extensive dealer network, actually sells more of the vehicles than Mitsubishi does.

Such arrangements are increasingly common in the global automobile industry, as manufactures pursue greater scale in an effort to lower costs. And for smaller manufacturers like Mitsubishi, whose sales of 1.2 million vehicles a year make it only Japan’s sixth-biggest carmaker, they can be financially indispensable.

Nissan took over development and design work on the eK and Dayz last year. It was then, Mr. Aikawa said, that Nissan’s engineers noticed the discrepancy in the published fuel rating — ostensibly an impressive 25 to 30 kilometers per liter, or 60 to 70 miles per gallon, depending on the version — and confronted Mitsubishi. He said the company would pay compensation to Nissan; the amount is subject to negotiation.

Mr. Aikawa said he and other top executives were unaware of the manipulation until it was pointed out by Nissan, at which point Mitsubishi began an internal investigation. It remained unclear who ordered the cheating, he said, but Mitsubishi plans to ask an independent commission of experts to conduct a more thorough inquiry.

“We had problems in the past, and we thought that we had overcome them as an organization, but that wasn’t the case,” said Ryugo Nakao, a Mitsubishi executive vice president in charge of product development.

The car is a “kei,” a category of tiny vehicles with engines under 660 cubic centimeters — smaller and less powerful than many motorcycles — that is specific to Japan. Subject to lower taxes than full-size cars, keis were introduced in the lean years after World War II to promote car ownership, and they remain popular with budget-conscious buyers.

The manipulation of the eK’s fuel rating involved the way Mitsubishi calculated the effect of wind and tire resistance on the car during driving simulations. Resistance fluctuates, depending on a car’s speed and other conditions, and manufacturers are supposed to operate test vehicles in a way that produces an average over the course of a test. That, presumably, gives a result closer to real-world conditions.

But Mitsubishi said it had secretly used a test method that can produce lower resistance and that can make the vehicle appear to be able to travel farther on less fuel. It said that it had used the same method on an unspecified number of other vehicle models, and that it was examining test results dating back to 2002 to determine if they were faulty.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, which regulates the automobile industry, said the method Mitsubishi used differed from Japan’s nationally mandated standard.

Many countries, including the United States, set their own detailed rules for fuel-economy testing, and Mr. Nakao said Mitsubishi, like other carmakers, tested the cars it makes for export with methods different from those used on cars it sells in Japan. But he said Mitsubishi would also review the fuel-economy standards it had reported overseas for possible discrepancies.

Mitsubishi’s admission is the latest blow to the credibility of automakers, said Michelle Krebs, a senior analyst at AutoTrader.

“This has left a cloud over the auto industry that suggests it isn’t honest,” Ms. Krebs said. “It leads consumers and regulators to be suspicious.”

Volkswagen is still reeling after its acknowledgment in September that it had equipped millions of cars worldwide with software intended to cheat on tailpipe emissions tests. The vehicles spewed far more pollutants than allowed under federal standards.

Since 2012, Hyundai, Kia, Ford and the Mini division of BMW have all been forced by United States regulators to lower their fuel-economy ratings for various lines. Hyundai and Kia were ordered to pay a combined $300 million in penalties related to fuel-economy claims. Ford paid up to $1,050 each to about 200,000 owners of six different models, most of them hybrids, that had been sold with inflated mileage ratings.

Ms. Krebs said the willingness to take shortcuts reflected difficulties that automakers face as they strive to meet new standards for emissions and fuel economy that regulators in Europe, the United States and elsewhere have set.

“There’s intense pressure to reach these standards,” she said, “and some are doing it by not actually having the performance to back it up.”

日三菱汽車 62.5萬輛油耗數據造假

日本三菱汽車廿日召開記者會，坦承該公司生產的輕型車共六十二萬五千輛油耗數據造假，社長相川哲郎公開道歉，表示是單位主管指示篡改，將車輛省油性能灌水百分之五到十，但「經營高層沒有給他們壓力。」

數據造假的車型有三菱的eK wagon和eK Space輕型車共十五萬七千輛，以及三菱幫日產汽車代工的Dayz、Dayz Roox輕型車共四十六萬八千輛，都是在二○一三年六月以後上市。

這類以省油為賣點、排氣量700 cc以下的輕型車幾乎都在日本國內銷售。三菱表示，出問題的車款即日起停產停售，並將進一步追查日本國內、外銷售的其他車款有無弊端，研究如何賠償加油費用。接下來三個月會交由第三者調查，車輛要不要召回由國土交通省決定。

據了解，日產汽車為研發新一代產品，對三菱代工的車輛進行道路測試，發現自測油耗數據與三菱提供的數據相去甚遠，去年花半年時間驗證，確定油耗數據有問題，四月十三日向三菱社長舉報。

相川在記者會表示，內部調查時，部門負責人承認「指示造假」，動手的是負責設計的員工，「還不知道牽連到什麼樣層級的人」。他說，「我不知道為何要造假，經營高層沒有給他們壓力。」

三菱從二○○○年後，多次發生隱匿車輛缺陷等醜聞。廿日的記者會現場約百名記者，許多人追問三菱為何沒有學到教訓，相川說，「內部自我檢討沒有發揮效果，要全體員工徹底遵守道德規範非常困難。」他表示不會在此刻下台，「要努力盡快解決眼前的問題，防止再犯，之後再考慮去留。」

對銷往國外的車輛，三菱表示會用與日本國內不同的調查方式，相川說，「尚未看到事件全貌」，無法預估對業績的傷害。三菱汽車股價廿日大跌超過百分之十五，市值蒸發十二億美元。

三菱汽車是日本第六大汽車廠，去年賣出約一百萬輛車。三菱在台灣的總代理中華汽車表示，受影響的車款並未引進台灣。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/business/mitsubishi-fuel-economy-tests.html

Video：Mitsubishi’s Apology For Emissions Tests
Mitsubishi’s president, Tetsuro Aikawa, admitted that the company falsified emissions data for a car sold in Japan and had used testing methods not up to government standards.
http://nyti.ms/1SupMY5

2016-04-21．聯合報．A6．話題．東京記者雷光涵