Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced on Monday that it was still too early for it to show its support to sister company Mitsubishi Motors Corp for the fiasco it is embroiled in due to its fuel economy data cheating.
The transport ministry of Japan is currently investigating Mitsubishi Motors after the carmaker admitted that it had reported faked fuel economy data on four of its car models sold in Japan.
The automaker said on Monday that it would make an announcement the following day to update the media about the issue, but cancelled the event saying there are conflicts in its scheduling.
But the company said that it would submit information connected with the data cheating to the Japanese transport ministry on Tuesday, as its response to the ministry's request.
In a related development, a senior executive of Mitsubishi Motors has cancelled his visit to the Beijing car show in connection with the fuel data falsification. But his absence in the event didn't discourage Mitsubishi's local joint venture partner from announcing that it wants to be the top SUV brand in China, the world's largest car market.
Zhang Yuesai, executive vice president of Mitsubishi's Chinese joint venture, said on stage at the Beijing motor show that his company plans to introduce 10 new Mitsubishi car models in the next five years.
He didn't mention anything about the issue of fraud admission, nor did he apologize for it. But there were no Mitsubishi Japanese executives that spoke at the event.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is the biggest investor in Mitsubishi Motors, having around 12.6 percent stake in the company. Its business includes building of rail infrastructures, military aircraft and luxury cruise ships.
"The investigation into Mitsubishi Motors over its falsified fuel economy data is still ongoing, so at this point we cannot decide on whether to offer assistance," said Shunichi Miyanaga, President and Chief Executive, Mitsubishi Heavy President in an interview.
