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Mitsubishi: We've Been Cheating On Fuel Tests For 25 years (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader cites an article on CNN:The situation at Mitsubishi Motors just went from bad to much, much worse. The Japanese automaker admitted Tuesday that it had falsified fuel efficiency tests for the past quarter century (warning: annoying autoplay videos, alternate source), the latest revelation in a scandal that has rocked the company. The automaker said last week that it had used improper fuel economy tests on hundreds of thousands of vehicles, including some sold to Nissan. Cars with inflated fuel efficiency ratings were sold only in Japan. Mitsubishi said it would ask lawyers from outside the company to investigate the tests.
Are all car companies trying to look worst than their competitors? "Oh, you think they're bad? Check out what we did!"
I'm just waiting for a car company to come up with a ~$10K electric car now.
Good question, and I think this is because VW management has essentially escaped without criminal charges, now it's a manner of the the CxOs in the car companies getting approval from the board to take the financial hit and put this behind them.
I asked at this earlier, but I think (ie, agree with other /.ers who replied to me) - it's a case where pretty much everyone is complicit - now is a showcase of how and when all the car manufacturers come forward.
Just wish governments would simply mandate remediation as the sale of more electrics or other zero-emissions vehicles (as Elon Musk requested).
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in Japan they got this bad habit of spewing it all out when the shit first hits the fan. It's some sort of "first-fail atonement", deeply instilled in their culture, which in my humble opinion, is better practice than elsewhere. When you do the "bad thing", odds to get caught are around the sub-10% as you take measures to hide it, but by the time you get caught, odds are you're gonna get caught so they sky-rocket to 99%+ for all other instances of the event that can be analyzed. So why really trust in that meager, uncontrollable 1% that will keep sinking you when you can just apologize for all past, present and future instances of the event? Better just to spit it all out since the milk has already been spilled than have that corrosive loss of confidence haunt you forever. It's actually the best damage control you can do. Nothing like what Volkswagen is doing to be honest - VW won't admit the problem likely exists in other models before 2009. They are also just "patching" really awfully the problem, with a patch that suits emission policy, but that surreptitiously harms the consumer by reducing original power/economy spec, which made the consumer buy the product. It's like they are swiping all the dirt under the rug with the worst possible mop they had lying around, and that rug is already bulgy with previous dirt they hope will stay covered.
Might work better if there were an equivalent to the IIHS and their crash-testing. IIHS is not a government agency, but their testing regimen, far more advanced than NHTSA's, shames automakers into doing the right thing.
Unfortunately there's no, "Wow!" factor with fuel economy testing, compared to fairly spectacular results from IIHS's efforts.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.