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The producer of Ram pickup truck engines has been fined almost $1.7 billion. Photo: Rebecca Cook/Reuters. |
According to Reuters, engine manufacturer Cummins has agreed to pay a fine of $1.675 billion for installing a device on hundreds of thousands of engines that allowed them to emit excessive amounts of emissions.
The US Department of Justice said Cummins was accused of installing a deceptive device to help its engines bypass or disable emissions controls such as exhaust gas sensors and other computer circuits.
Cummins installed the device on 630,000 engines for the RAM 2500 and RAM 3500 pickup trucks from 2013 to 2019. Additionally, Cummins was also accused of installing auxiliary emissions controls on 330,000 RAM 2500 and RAM 3500 pickup truck engines from 2019 to 2023 to bypass emissions regulations.
“Initial estimates show that these devices caused some Cummins engines to emit thousands of tons of excess NOx emissions,” said Merrick Garland, US Attorney General.
Meanwhile, Michael Regan, administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that residents living near highways, where the harmful emissions mentioned above are concentrated, are the communities most vulnerable to this incident.
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Nearly one million RAM pickup trucks equipped with emissions cheating engines. Photo: CarBuzz. |
Cummins expects to pay nearly $2.04 billion in the fourth quarter to resolve legal complaints related to nearly a million emissions cheating engines. However, Cummins still claims that “the company has not seen any evidence of wrongdoing and does not acknowledge any violations.”
Formal compensatory amounts require court approval and will be announced next month.
In response to this incident, Stellantis – the company that owns the RAM pickup truck brand – declined to comment. Cummins said it had recalled approximately 960,000 affected vehicles, and the emissions control software will also be updated. Reuters reported previously that Cummins had to pay $59 million to recall vehicles.
In April 2019, Cummins first announced that it was reviewing its internal certification procedures and the company’s compliance levels.
In August 2022, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in the US – now a subsidiary of Stellantis – had to pay a fine of nearly $300 million after being convicted in a multi-year diesel emissions cheating scandal.
In 2017, Volkswagen had to pay a $1.45 billion criminal fine in the United States after admitting to cheating on emissions tests. At the time, the German automaker had installed cheating devices on approximately 11 million vehicles worldwide and used software to reduce emissions during testing.
In the US alone, the amount of money that Volkswagen had to pay to settle the consequences of the above-mentioned incident totaled over $20 billion.
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