Kawasaki Heavy Industries joins IHI Power Systems and Hitachi Zosen in a high-profile Japanese engine scandal as Tokyo investigates all of the country’s marine engine manufacturers, according to Splash 247.
The company admitted to altering the test results of hundreds of marine engines produced since 2000.
Following news in April this year that more than 4,000 marine engines manufactured by IHI Power Systems had falsified fuel economy data over the past 20 years, the Japanese government promised to investigate all engine manufacturers.
Hitachi Zosen was forced to apologise after two of its subsidiaries were found to have falsified fuel economy data for a total of 1,364 marine engines, or almost all the examined engines that have been shipped since 1999. The falsifications may have affected calculations of nitrogen oxide emissions.
For its part, Kawasaki Heavy Industries admitted that test results were changed for 673 of its two-stroke diesel engines, as well as one four-stroke engine.
Specifically, the investigation confirmed that shop trial fuel consumption rates for the company’s marine diesel engines had been altered through the manipulation of testing equipment to keep values within the permissible range of customer specifications and to reduce data discrepancies. This has the potential to impact NOx emissions calculations for these engines.
Yet, the 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal remains the most notorious customer fraud case. It was discovered that the German automaker deliberately programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate emissions controls only during laboratory emissions tests.
This resulted in the vehicles’ NOx emissions meeting US standards during regulatory testing. In fact, under actual operating conditions, the vehicles emitted 40 times more NOx into the atmosphere.
