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On October 20, a number of media exposed that the product inspection data of Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Company had been falsified for more than 30 years. In response to the scandal, Japan's Mitsubishi Electric announced that it would punish 22 current and former executives involved in data fraud.

According to several media reports, the final investigation report of the external expert panel showed that Mitsubishi Electric had violations such as falsifying test data in 17 of the 22 production bases in Japan, involving a total of 197 cases. Of these, 112 were deliberate acts and 62 involved managers. To this end, Mitsubishi Electric decided to reduce the monthly salaries of a number of current executives, including the current president, Qi Jianqi, and asked the executives involved to return some of their salaries.

Mitsubishi Electric, founded in 1921, is one of the core enterprises of Mitsubishi Group. In the Japanese market, Mitsubishi Electric is the largest manufacturer of train air conditioning products. On February 1, 2021, Mitsubishi Electric officially became a century-old enterprise on the 100th anniversary of its founding. However, as a century-old company, Mitsubishi Electric has been exposed a number of fraud and fraud scandals since last year.

The data fraud of Mitsubishi Electric was exposed for the first time in June 2021. Mitsubishi Electric Co., Ltd., located in a factory in Nagasaki, did not carry out product inspection in accordance with the contract, but forged inspection data before the train air conditioners were mass produced or left the factory. In addition, the factory also falsifies the test data of air compressors, which play a role in train braking and door closing, which is related to the safety of operation. To make matters worse, it is reported that Mitsubishi Electric's counterfeiting has been going on since 1985, or for 35 years. After the fraud was exposed, Mitsubishi Electric issued a statement confirming that it had launched an internal investigation into the misconduct at the Nagasaki plant and would deal with the matter promptly and announce the results of the investigation. At the same time, Mitsubishi Electric also said that the problem was discovered in mid-June 2021 and that shipments had been stopped, but there was no problem with the safety performance of the products that had been delivered. Affected by this, Takeshi Sugiyama, president of Mitsubishi Electric of Japan, resigned. Mr Sugiyama said: "he is responsible for the organized fraud that has damaged the credibility of the company and believes it is necessary to resign to enable the company to establish a new system and restore trust in Mitsubishi Electric."

Prior to this, in May 2021, it was revealed that Mitsubishi Electric had provided 2.15 million pieces of electrical equipment components that did not meet safety certification standards to a number of domestic and foreign customers; in December 2020, Mitsubishi Electric said that it had exported a large number of auto parts that did not meet local standards to European car companies and that it had forged relevant documents for as long as three years.

In fact, it has long been common for Japanese manufacturing companies to falsify data. In October 2017, Kobe Steel, a steel producer, admitted to tampering with some copper and aluminum product inspection data to supply customers with shoddy quality; in July 2018, Nissan admitted that it had falsified emissions and fuel consumption measurements at five factories in Japan.

In October 2020, Japan Junsheng Safety Systems, the largest supplier of automobile seat belts in Japan, was accused of "data tampering" on some seat belts that did not meet the standards in strength tests. These "substandard" products also entered Japanese car companies. In Japan alone, there may be 9 million substandard seat belts, involving about 2 million vehicles, including 10 Japanese car companies, including Toyota, Honda and Nissan. All use the products provided by the company. In February 2021, Japanese auto parts supplier dawning Brake Industry Co., Ltd., suppliers to Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi and other car companies, apologized to the public that about 114000 of the brake and parts products produced by the company's four local factories in Japan were tampered with or fabricated. Of these, about 5000 pieces did not meet the standard value agreed with the automaker. According to the time of dawning announcement, counterfeiting has been affected for as long as 20 years, including 10 Japanese car companies, including Toyota and Nissan.

On March 4, 2022, Hino Motor, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Group of Japan, admitted to the outside world that engine data had been falsified for nearly 20 years. On Aug. 22, Hino posted on its website that the engine of one of its light trucks did not meet the emission testing requirements, so delivery of the Dutro series of small trucks would be suspended after Hino's large and medium-sized truck engines were exposed to falsification of fuel consumption and emission data. On Sept. 9, Hino issued a statement on its website apologizing for the falsification of the data and recalling the vehicles involved. Affected by the timing of counterfeiting, Hino Motors completely stopped the production of related models for the Japanese domestic market, and the suspension may last until next summer. At that time, the head of the public relations department of Hino Motor said: "it is impossible to determine exactly when production will resume."

Japanese enterprises, as a country with industry as the development, the production and manufacturing standard of "craftsman spirit" has been widely recognized internationally, but it has been exposed one after another that fraud has not only affected the trust and interests between enterprises, but also posed a threat to the safety of consumers. In response to the fraud by Japanese car companies, Japan's Ministry of Land and Transport has previously said: "if Japanese automakers fail to solve the problem of counterfeiting, it will not only be affected by individual car companies, but even the ingenious image of Japanese companies." and even the Japanese economy. "

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