Hitachi Zosen embroiled in growing Japanese engine scandal – Splash247

Shipowners and charterers have been left to wonder what their genuine emissions output is as a rumbling Japanese engine scandal explodes to encompass other popular brands. 

Following the news this April that more than 4,000 ship engines manufactured by IHI Power Systems had falsified fuel economy data over the past 20 years, another major local name in heavy machinery, Hitachi Zosen, has been forced to apologise to customers around the world after two of its subsidiaries were found to have falsified fuel economy data for a total of 1,364 ship engines, or almost all of the units investigated, that had been shipped out since 1999. The falsifications may have impacted calculations for nitrogen oxide emissions.

Japanese authorities have said they will now investigate all the country’s other major marine engine manufacturers to check for similar falsifications. 

Investigations underway in Japan have overtones of the famous Volkswagen emissions scandal. 

The 2015 Volkswagen emissions scandal is the most famous recent example of manufacturers knowingly misleading customers. The German car manufacturer was found to have intentionally programmed turbocharged direct injection (TDI) diesel engines to activate their emissions controls only during laboratory emissions testing, which caused the vehicles’ NOx output to meet US standards during regulatory testing. However, the vehicles emitted up to 40 times more NOx in real-world driving.

Shipping has had previous engine scandals. MAN, itself a subsidiary of Volkswagen, paid a fine in 2011 over its misleading fuel consumption claims while in 2016, Wärtsilä revealed deviations in certain fuel consumption measurement tests were detected at Wärtsilä’s delivery centre in Trieste in Italy.