Mitsubishi Motors today admitted rigging the official fuel economy tests of Japan for some of their Kei cars.

The official press release says that the automaker“conducted testing improperly to present better fuel consumption rates than the actual rates; and that the testing method was also different from the one required by Japanese law. We express deep apologies to all of our customers and stakeholders for this issue“.

The models in question are the eK Wagon and eK Space ‘Kei’ cars and the Nissan Dayz and Dayz Roox, which have been manufactured by Mitsubishi and supplied to Nissan since June 2013.

The company estimates that 157,000 models of the eK Wagon and eK Space and 468,000 models of Nissan’s Dayz and Dayz Roox have been affected by their misconduct.

Nissan examined the fuel consumption figures of the affected cars for reference in the development of the next-gen model, only to find deviations in the figures. It then requested from Mitsubishi to review the running resistance value (a combination of the rolling resistance and air resistance while on the move) that was set by the latter, causing an internal investigation.

“In the course of our internal investigation upon this request, Mitsubishi Motors learned of the improper conduct that Mitsubishi Motors used the running resistance value for testing which provided more advantageous fuel consumption rates than the actual rates. Mitsubishi Motors will sincerely respond to our customers who own and use the applicable cars.”

After the reveal, both Mitsubishi and Nissan issued a stop-sale regarding the affected models, with the two companies now discussing about the compensation to be offered.

The problem though is even bigger for Mitsubishi, as they have found during their internal investigation that the illegal testing method has been applied to other models manufactured by them for the Japanese market as well, without providing further information.

The company will also conduct an investigation for their models that are available to markets outside Japan while they will set up a committee of external experts to find out what happened exactly.

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