Future of scandal-hit Mitsubishi Motors in doubt - again

Tokyo

SALES are falling off a cliff. Its reputation is in tatters. And even its top executive is talking about whether the carmaker will survive.

Mitsubishi Motors' future is hanging in the balance for the second time in a decade after a bombshell admission that it has been cheating on fuel-economy tests for years. The crisis is threatening to put the company into the ditch permanently, but some analysts think that the vast web of shareholdings among Japanese firms may just save it from the scrap yard.