Mitsubishi Motors Corp is planning to pay compensation of around US$600 million (S$810 million) to compensate owners of four minivehicles models where it overstated mileage readings, with each owner receiving 100,000 yen (US$960), the Nikkei newspaper said on Friday.
Mitsubishi in April admitted to overstating the fuel economy for some 625,000 minivehicles including two models produced for Nissan Motor Co. It has said improper mileage calculations may have been used for nine other models.
The automaker was not immediately available for comment. It plans to brief from 3 pm Tokyo time (0600 GMT) to provide an update on an ongoing investigation into its falsification of fuel economy data.
It was not immediately clear from the Nikkei report how much compensation would or would not be offered for other vehicles where it used wrong fuel economy data and tests.
Mitsubishi Motors CEO Osamu Masuko, outgoing President and COO Tetsuro Aikawa and Executive Vice President Ryugo Nakao will attend the briefing at Japan’s Transport Ministry.
The scandal, which the company has blamed on pressure to deliver competitive mileage readings and poor supervision of testing processes, has led to plans for Nissan to take a one-third controlling stake in the embattled automaker. Aikawa will step down later this month.
In the wake of the scandal, Japanese automakers’ mileage calculations have come under increased scrutiny. An investigation by the transport ministry has found that Suzuki Motor Corp was also using wrong methods to calculate mileage for models going back to 2010.
