Mitsubishi's dieselgate: cheating since 1991

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Except for the fact that the company is paying them. I would say that’s a conflict of interest.

Not a surprise anymore that companies cheat and lie in pursuit of the dollar.

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What’s the alternative? Do you do your job for free?

And don’t say government regulation - regulatory capture in Japan is light years ahead of here.

[quote=“cameronh1403, post:2, topic:77194, full:true”]Not a surprise anymore that companies cheat and lie in pursuit of the dollar.
[/quote]

If a corporation can make $100 while hurting nobody, or $101 while killing a hundred people, then a hundred people are going to die.

Relying on ethical self-regulation from a structure that is specifically designed for amoral profit maximisation is a fool’s gamble.

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Clever to claim that only kei cars are affected, but what are the odds? Pretty much nil.

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it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

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And here’s how VW is fairing (jalopnik linky). Which includes this line at the end that I don’t particularly care for:

Clearly, there is progress being made on what has already been a long, arduous journey for VW and its customers.

Oh, yes, do tell us of VW’s arduous journey into the wilds of “massively fraudulent carmaker”. They’ve had it so tough with this scandal…

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I never think that a corporation is ever ethical. They are geared to get money and that’s it.

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Fixed that:

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“Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.”

  • Andrew Young, author, civil rights activist, US congressman, mayor, and UN ambassador

Granted, it occasionally has to be made legal after the fact. More often it’s illegal, but for some reason that seems to apply only to the wealthy and corporations the government decided not to prosecute.

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If they only did it on their under 550cc super-compact cars, they could be possibly telling the truth about it being limited to Japan only, Those cars are only sold in Japan because they don’t meet safety standards anywhere else in the world. However they keep selling them in Japan because they’re popular: inexpensive to buy, the yearly inspection (around $300/yr) is cheaper, they have good fuel economy, and most importantly you don’t need proof of a legal parking space to buy one (a requirement for buying a full-size car in Japan).

However I agree that it’s unlikely that if it worked so well on domestic cars that they wouldn’t do it on their foreign exports as well. Mitsubishi makes and exports lots trucks under their Fuso label, and they’re all diesel as well.

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They’ve exported cars with the 3 cylinder engines in question, at the very least to Tiawan, but likely other markets too. They are only making the admission on kei cars (they style you describe) but if they’ve popped any of the engines used on their kei cars into larger models for export then they’re pretty much likely/definitely lying right out of the gate.

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Because, as we’re so frequently reminded, capitalism is about ‘competition’, and, if one company holds back from killing those people, another one won’t, and that second company will have greater resources in the future of the competition.

Morals, ethics, and foresight are evolutionary disadvantages to corporations.

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[quote=“doctorow, post:1, topic:77194”]
Mitsubishi’s Dieselgate: Mitsubishi has admitted that it cheated on emissions standards tests for a quarter of a century
[/quote]Except that these are gasoline-engine cars, not diesels, and they cheated on fuel economy standards, not emissions.

Cory, do you even read the articles you link to? Your headlines and summaries often seem to suggest that you don’t.

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My Honda has a function that lets me track gas mileage; I have fun trying to get my MPG as high as possible. I wonder if that is inaccurate, and if so, what other functions on my car are not telling me the truth. Somehow I don’t think that claiming to the popo that my digital speedometer was not registering the correct speed, so I wasn’t speeding, really! will fly.

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Yup Cory’s incorrect, I barely read the BB and clicked to the mitsu statement. It’s not nearly as dramatic as VW, or as evil. And if other markets, foreign govts actually test fuel economy themselves rather than leaving to the maker/importer, then it could very well be limited to the kei cars wherever they were sold, or similar with the same guts.

Personally I’d love one even if the advertised mileage were off, still probably better than many.

But while Cory was well off the mark, like, altogether, the comparison between VW & this isn’t completely off. If a consumer believes a false mileage rate & never bothers to calculate it themselves in daily use they do end up unknowingly raising their emissions.

Why the heck can’t I get a kei car anyway, at least without jumping through a buncha hoops. The son of the owner of the last company I contracted to, years ago, brought one over, Cute-As-A-Button.

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Assuming you are in the US could import one as long as it’s more than 25 years old.

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Forget it @glenblank it’s BoingBoingtown.

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Horrifying safety performance in crashes with…well, anything really. Especially microvans.

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