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MMC President Confirms Resignation Over Fuel Economy Cheating

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. President Testuro Aikawa confirmed earlier today he will resign after the company’s shareholder meeting in June because of the company’s fuel economy cheating scandal.
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Mitsubishi Motors Corp. President Testuro Aikawa confirmed earlier today he will resign after the company’s shareholder meeting in June because of the company’s fuel economy cheating scandal.

Ryugo Nakao, MMC’s vice president of product development, will step down at the same time and for the same reason.

The company insists that upper management wasn’t directly involved in rigging fuel economy ratings. But Aikawa concedes that management’s demands that its engineers meet high fuel efficiency targets in a short period may have helped create an environment where “irregularities happen.”

Aikawa’s career included time on MMC’s product development team, where the company says the wrongdoing occurred. He and Nakao say they decided to resign to avoid hindering the “drastic change” needed to reform the company.

MMC told Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism that a company investigation showed its staff sometimes arrived at fuel efficiency results for new cars by borrowing data from earlier tests of similar vehicles. Nakao says the people who failed to conduct new tests as required by law “lacked common sense.”

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