Japan's Mitsubishi admits manipulating fuel tests

ANKARA

Japanese carmaker Mitsubishi Motors on Wednesday admitted falsifying test data on more than 600,000 vehicles.

The company, which is Japan’s sixth-biggest carmaker, said in a statement on its website that staff faked fuel economy statistics in 157,000 cars and 468,000 vehicles made for Nissan.

The vehicles were sold in Japan but the company is to investigate the testing of models manufactured for overseas markets.

Mitsubishi said it had “conducted testing improperly to present better fuel consumption rates than the actual rates” and apologized to customers. It added that the production and sale of affected models had been stopped.

Tyre pressure figures were falsified to give better mileage rates, the company added.

The announcement saw shares in the company fall by more than 16 percent in Tokyo.

The revelation follows last year’s Volkswagen emissions scandal, in which the German car giant was found to have cheated diesel emissions tests in the U.S. and elsewhere.