Nissan admits falsifying emissions figures

Nissan has become the latest car manufacturer to admit falsifying exhaust particulate figures during emissions tests.

The Japanese car giant confirmed in a statement that exhaust emissions and fuel economy tests at its factories in Japan had “deviated from the prescribed testing environment”.

The company also said inspection reports were “based on altered measurement values”.

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The problems were found during voluntary compliance checks following an “improper” vehicle inspection scandal last year, The Guardian says.

A recall of 1.2 vehicles were triggered when Nissan revealed in October that for decades uncertified inspectors had been signing off on final checks for cars sold in Japan, Reuters reports.

Despite now admitting to employing emissions-cheating measures, the firm has yet to reveal which models, and how many cars in total, are affected by the obscured test figures.

Nor has it been explained how Nissan circumvented emissions tests, says Autocar. Other manufacturers embroiled in the emissions scandal, most notably Volkswagen, have used a combination of software and hardware solutions to cheat test results.

Although the announcement is “very embarrassing” for Nissan, the scandal does not appear to have been led from the “highest levels” of the company, says the BBC’s business correspondent Jonty Bloom.

Unlike VW, which deliberately created emissions-cheating devices, Bloom says the Japanese manufacturer seems simply “to have been running its testing system very badly”.

Nissan said it is investigating the misconduct in testing at its factories and will “implement appropriate countermeasures based on the results”.