Mitsubishi says employees cheated on fuel economy/emissions tests

[cyclopathic]

It looks more and more like Nissan ratted Mitsubishi out to get a better hold of kei car manufacturing enterprise. I mean if everyone else is cheating including yourself, why else would you do that?

[flatbroke]

Suzuki also.....http://www.autoevolution.com/news/su...e_bottombubble

[MetroMPG]

Mitsubishi President Resigns Over Fuel Economy Scandal

He’s been with the company since the Plymouth Sapporo/Dodge Challenger era, but Mitsubishi president Tetsuro Aikawa’s tenure comes to an abrupt end in June. Aikawa stepped down today after less than two years at the helm, the victim of his company’s ongoing fuel economy scandal, according to an announcement from the automaker. Ryugo Nakao, the company’s executive vice-president in charge of quality, is also out the door.

[inuvik]

Now that Suzuki has joined the "cheaters club" in Japan it certainly is beginning to look like Nissan played this to their advantage to get ahold of Mitsubishi at a fire sale price. Suzuki's share price will probably only fall slightly as a "me too cheater". You can't tell me that all of the Japanese auto manufacturers weren't aware of the cheating. They all grab ahold of the competitors products and test them and take them apart. The difference is that these big corporate Japanese companies are run by "old school" corporate families that would not out one another to bring dishonor on them. They knew and kept their mouths shut. Nissan however is run by Carlos Ghosn who saw an advantage and played it.

[MetroMPG]

Maybe he'll snap up little Suzuki while they're at it.

[inuvik]

Maybe he'll snap up little Suzuki while they're at it.

I could see this happening. Suzuki is big in 2nd world Asian countries

[Eggman]

An interesting story from Automotive News. This article, from early 2014 when Tetsuro Aikawa was installed as CEO, summarizes Mitsubishi's struggles and winding path.

Mitsubishi, in naming Aikawa as next president, declares its independence

TOKYO -- The naming of Tetsuro Aikawa as Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s next president marks a key step toward independence for the carmaker. It may finally be getting out from under the thumbs of its largest shareholders.

Aikawa, who will take over in June after getting shareholder approval -- a virtual certainty -- has deep roots in the Mitsubishi conglomerate. His father was president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the former parent company that spun off the automaker in 1970.

But crucially, Aikawa will be the first president in more than a decade to have spent his entire career at the carmaker.

For almost 15 years, the automaker's controlling shareholders, from erstwhile German parent DaimlerChrysler AG to the Mitsubishi Group companies, have installed bosses of their choice.

...

In 2000, Daimler took a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors, but the tie-up imploded in a clash of cultures. The Germans exited in 2004, leaving the Japanese company with huge gaps in its future-product pipeline. Suddenly, vehicles that were supposed to have been developed jointly disappeared from the plans.

Soon afterward, Mitsubishi's reputation at home was severely damaged by a scandal of its own making. Over several decades, the carmaker had been systematically covering up defects it should have notified the government about. Sales and its stock price nose dived.

...

Mitsubishi had its r&d ranks hollowed out after the breakup with DaimlerChrysler, Aikawa said. That, combined with the defects scandal, led more than 10 percent of the company's engineers to leave within the span of half a year, hobbling future product plans, he said.

Of his 36 years at Mitsubishi, Aikawa said, "That was the toughest period."

He also wants a rebirth in design, an area where Mitsubishi has languished of late. Said Aikawa: "Through technology and design, I want to reconstruct the Mitsubishi brand."

His selection to lead Mitsubishi may represent the first step of that reconstruction.

So much for independence. What a shame.

I wonder if his career path lead him through the kei car testing process in any way. Someone who has been involved in a company for that length of time is bound to know about it's various operations.

[cyclopathic]

An interesting story from Automotive News. This article, from early 2014 when Tetsuro Aikawa was installed as CEO, summarizes Mitsubishi's struggles and winding path.

Mitsubishi, in naming Aikawa as next president, declares its independence

So much for independence. What a shame.

I wonder if his career path lead him through the kei car testing process in any way. Someone who has been involved in a company for that length of time is bound to know about it's various operations.

To me the whole debucle sounds more of the negligence and lack of funding than malicious intent. They haven't changed test procedure since 1991. Add failure to fix detects and it is definitely management/funding issue.

[inuvik]

Suzuki CEO to step down

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-su...-idUSKCN0YU0UV

[MetroMPG]

It's not the $1 billion that was previously estimated, but Mitsu has set aside $480M to compensate owners of the affected vehicles in Japan.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said it will book a charge of 50 billion yen ($480 million) this fiscal year to compensate buyers for manipulating fuel-efficiency ratings, as it admits to falsifying test data for 20 models that it sold in Japan in the past decade.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...-mileage-fraud

But that hit doesn't include lost sales & the share price damage, which is much bigger.