Mitsubishi says employees cheated on fuel economy/emissions tests

[Eggman]

I'm thinking about it but I'm not sure I want the complication of owning foreign stock.

I suppose Speck will have to suffice.

[Eggman]

Looks like Mitsubishi Motor's stock price has stabilized and is recovering somewhat.

Google Finance: MITSUBISHI MOTOR C NPV (OTCMKTS:MMTOF)
May 2 - Close: 4.45 +0.20 (4.71%)


Bloomberg - Tokyo Stock Quote - 7211: Mitsubishi Motors Corp
As of 2:00 AM EDT 5/2/2016 461.0 JPY +12.0 +2.67%

[MetroMPG]

Buy low!

Unlike the VW diesel scandal that has provided almost constant fodder in the car news blogs for months now, I haven't seen any articles about Mitsubishi today for the first time since the story broke.

[ComputerAbuser]

Well, since it doesn't apply to North America, they mostly lost interest.

[man114]

Well, since it doesn't apply to North America, they mostly lost interest.

It could have been a lot worse.

I think the potential for the most major fiancial harm would probably have been if it were global as opposed to one country. Instead it's isolated to a single country. It probably won't be much more financially detrimental than a major recall. Since it appears the followed protocol everywhere else it looks more like some isolated incident that caused it.

The VW incident is huge by comparison and was likely the worst expected fallout. Had Mitsubishi cheated The government could have levied stiff fines dating all the way back to when it started and the company was selling substantial numbers of cars and sank the company. So instead of tens of millions vehicles like VW it will boil down to a few hundred thousand, the company probably already has finances set aside in case of a recall of that magnitude as it is.

Since US sales seem to be picking up, they'll likely have a bit more cash to offset this. It might hurt their opinion in the Japanese market but if other markets pick up it would be inconsequential.

[MetroMPG]

I agree it could have been worse.

But is IS much worse than a few hundred thousand cars, which were the numbers of the "tire pressure Kei cars" from the first couple of days of the scandal. Mitsu has since admitted to cheating on the Japanese tests for 25 years. So we are actually talking about many millions of vehicles.

The question now is: what kinds of penalties will the Japanese government levy? And how badly will that hurt the company?

[cinder]

Haven't been all that up front about the rear axle . Funny , as I started writing this , Simon and Garfunkel - " Keep The Customer Satisfied " came on The Bridge of XM radio .

[man114]

I agree it could have been worse.

But is IS much worse than a few hundred thousand cars, which were the numbers of the "tire pressure Kei cars" from the first couple of days of the scandal. Mitsu has since admitted to cheating on the Japanese tests for 25 years. So we are actually talking about many millions of vehicles.

The question now is: what kinds of penalties will the Japanese government levy? And how badly will that hurt the company?

The problem I see happening is it's going to be difficult to locate and test older vehicles and determine they were operating the way they were intended to at the time of manufacture and at the same time determine if changing the tests caused any material difference in economy numbers (it might not given the fact that many of those older cars typically had larger engines). My guess is they'll limit it to a certain time frame. Mitsubishi probably could simply argue that the tests made no material impact and any vehicle outside their standard warranty may no longer meet factory specs.

[RapidRick]

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...r-japan-errors

Green Car Reports is reporting that Mitsu has retested its US lineup and everything is good. No surprise there, right?

[man114]

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...r-japan-errors

Green Car Reports is reporting that Mitsu has retested its US lineup and everything is good. No surprise there, right?

From what I've read mileage tests are more stringently checked in the US since the Ford debacle. I kind of expected this result, I've been driving the Mirage for 5 days now and despite my less than ideal driving style which usually leaves me on the lowest end of numbers I've still been above the advertised city numbers without any on my part at all, about 39.3mpg.