Mitsubishi Motors president to step down over fuel efficiency scandal

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (MMC) President Tetsuro Aikawa is set to step down to take responsibility for a scandal in which fuel efficiency data for some of the company's vehicle models was manipulated, company sources said.

Aikawa is expected to resign after a special fact-finding panel comprised of lawyers, which the company set up on April 26, issues a report on the scandal and MMC has paved the way for settling the matter.

MMC reported the outcome of its in-house probe to its government regulator, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry, on April 26. However, the ministry deemed that MMC's report on the scandal is inadequate, and ordered the automaker to re-submit a report by May 11.

At a news conference later in the day, Aikawa did not clarify whether he would stay on as president.

While admitting that the data manipulation scandal is a serious matter that could put the company's survival at stake, Aikawa said, "My biggest mission is to work out measures to prevent a recurrence."

However, the president has deemed his resignation inevitable as other Mitsubishi group companies, which have stakes in MMC, have pointed out that the automaker's top official bears a heavy responsibility for the scandal that followed the firm's cover-up of technical problems in the 2000s in order to avoid recalling concerned vehicles, company sources said.

MMC officials told the news conference that over the course of development, the company revised upward multiple times its fuel efficiency target for its own eK Wagon and the Dayz, which is produced for Nissan Motor Co., from an initial 26.4 kilometers per liter in 2011 to 29.2 kilometers in 2013. The officials added that the company manipulated running resistance, basic data for fuel efficiency that the company submitted to the ministry, in order to make it look like the firm had achieved its fuel-efficiency targets for those models.

The company also forged running resistance for some other models even without conducting driving tests to make it look as if those models meet the company's targets.

Furthermore, the officials said that MMC had measured fuel efficiency data for most of its models sold domestically since 1991, using an unauthorized method.

The fact-finding panel, headed by lawyer Keiichi Watanabe who had previously served as superintendent prosecutor at the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, will question those involved in the case in its investigation into the data manipulation scandal.

Aikawa had worked as an engineer and been responsible for the development of the first-generation eK Wagon that went on sale in 2001 before being appointed to the MMC board.