Over 1 million Nissans could be recalled

Nissan Motor Co announced on Friday a potentially highly damaging call to temporarily suspend registrations of thousands of new vehicles, following Japanese government checks found that unqualified personnel had carried out final safety checks at six domestic factories. Nearly 60,000 new cars are stockpiled at its plants awaiting reinspection, and Japanese officials have suggested over 1 million vehicles may have to be recalled. Japan today reports that 21 models including the Note, Skyline, and Leaf are affected. However, Nissan said on Friday that it does not know when the unqualified checks were carried out, or how many vehicles were affected. The issue was brought to Nissan’s attention after an on-site probe by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism earlier this month. The Japanese car maker will re-inspect affected vehicles, with a third party taking part in an internal investigation to figure out how the failures occurred. The Japanese government has asked Nissan to produce a report detailing how it intends to prevent a recurrence of this event by the end of this month. Nissan’s shares fell as much as 5.3 per cent today, their lowest since April.