Investors cheered when Nissan Motor Co. Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn announced in May that his company would acquire a 34 percent stake of scandal-tainted Mitsubishi Motors Corp. as part of an expanded strategic partnership.
However, the reaction has been far less buoyant in Mizushima, an industrial Okayama Prefecture town that is home to Mitsubishi's flagship assembly plant.
Back in April, Mitsubishi Motors shocked its suppliers, employees and the entire automotive industry when it disclosed that it had improperly tested the fuel economy performance of four minicar models built for its joint venture with Nissan and had manipulated related data. This led to revelations some models had not been tested properly as far back as 1991.