Mitsubishi office raided in Japan as shares slide towards record low on fuel economy test scandal

The affected models are the Mitsubishi ek Wagon and ek Space, and the Nissan Dayz and Dayz Roox

Mitsubishi Motors President Tetsuro Aikawa attends a press conference on April 20, 2016 in Tokyo, Japan.

The offices of Mitsubishi have been raided in Japan after the company admitted to falsifying fuel economy data, sending shares plummeting 35 per cent in two days.

Investors watched in horror as the stock price fell a further 20 per cent on Thursday to trade around 583 yen following a raid on the Mitsubishi plant in the central Japanese city of Okazaki.

Trading was halted due to the surfeit of investors trying to sell stock. More than third of the company's value evaporated in the sell-off.

The raid by officials came after the company admitted that employees had altered the data in fuel economy tests to give better scores to 600,000 vehicles. The Japanese government said the case was being treated as "extremely serious" and gave the company until April 27 to put together a report on the scandal.

“We believe this manipulation [of testing data] was deliberate,” said Tetsuro Aikawa, Mitsubishi Motors’ president, who apologised for the cheating by making the traditional Japanese bow of contrition at a packed news conference. “It is clear that the intention was to make fuel-efficiency figures look better.”

Data was falsified in the testing of four types of cars, including two Nissan cars. The affected models are the Mitsubishi ek Wagon and ek Space, and the Nissan Dayz and Dayz Roox.

The false data was discovered when Nissan pointed out inconsistencies in the ways that vehicles had been tested. Mitsubishi then conducted an investigation and found the data had been falsified.

The company said the cars were only sold in Japan, but the investigation would cover overseas.

Mitsubishi is Japan's largest car maker. It sold more than one million vehicles last year but has less than 1 per cent of the UK market.

This is the first time a Japanese car maker has been implicated in a vehicle testing scandal since the emissions scandal engulfed Volkswagen last year.