Volkswagen made quite a name for themselves when they were caught faking emissions regulations tests, though they weren't the only ones. Fiat Chrysler, BMW, Daimler, and Mitsubishi have all been accused of falsifying information. Now it seems Subaru is on that list.

Subaru released a statement recently, admitting that they had manipulated fuel economy and emissions data for about 900 cars in two Japanese factories. Following investigations confirmed these statements. The automaker believes that they falsification dates back as far as 2002, but they only hold records are far back as 2012.

The report indicates that the changes were made my factory inspectors and low-level management, and that upper management had no involvement.

Subaru claims that they were given three reasons for falsifying the information by their employees.

  • Senior inspectors ordered junior staff to change the results to make individual results match accepted averages.
  • Inspectors adjusted the data to make it more consistent with the values over time measurements. Sometimes, that meant making the results look better than they were, but other times, it meant making them look worse.
  • A lack of inspector training resulted in failure to properly adjust the data.
Reports showed that the vehicles in question still meet emission standards, so no recall is required. Even so, Subaru expressed their deepest apologies.

“[Subaru] sincerely regrets the facts uncovered by the Investigation, [we are] determined to implement measures to prevent recurrence of this problem. [We will] reform outdated aspects of its corporate culture such as authoritarianism, reliance on precedents, and formalism, and to become a genuine ‘upright company.’”


Good on them for keeping honest, I suppose.