2023-06-02 23:52:21
Fiat-Chrysler parent Stellantis and General Motors paid a total of $363 million in civil penalties for failing to meet US fuel economy requirements for model years, documents seen by Archyde.com show. previous.
The record fines include $235.5 million for Stellantis for the 2018 and 2019 model years and $128.2 million for GM covering 2016 and 2017, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which manages the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) program. .
Stellantis, which also owns Fiat, Peugeot and other brands, said the penalty “reflects past performance recorded prior to the formation of Stellantis, and is not indicative of the company’s direction.”
Stellantis previously paid a total of $156.6 million in penalties for the 2016 and 2017 model years.
GM said Friday that “as we work toward the goal of a zero-emissions future, we may use a combination of credits from prior model years, expected credits from future model years, credits earned from other manufacturers, and civil penalty payments to meet increasingly strict CAFE regulations”.
GM, which sells Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles in the United States, had not previously paid a fine in the 40-year history of the CAFE program. It had initially planned to use credits to cover its compliance shortfall but opted instead to pay penalties, the NHTSA said.
The GM and Stellantis fines were paid between December and May, records show. This is the first time in three years that the agency has collected fuel economy tickets.
NHTSA in April 2022 said it estimated there would be 11 cases between 2018 and 2021 “in which substantial civil penalty payments will be required,” but did not disclose the automakers involved.
The disclosure comes ahead of NHTSA’s plan to soon propose tougher fuel economy standards for 2027 and beyond, following the Environmental Protection Agency in April proposed a 56 percent reduction in projected average fleet emissions over the 2026 requirements by 2032.
The EPA said in December that Stellantis had the world’s lowest fuel economy among all major automakers, averaging 21.3 miles per gallon in 2021, while GM was second-lowest at 21.6 mpg.
In March 2022, NHTSA reinstated a steep increase in penalties for automakers whose vehicles fail to meet fuel efficiency requirements for 2019 and beyond.
For model years 2019 through 2021, the penalty is $14, instead of $5.50, for every 0.1 mpg of new vehicles that do not meet required fuel economy standards, multiplied by the number of vehicles sold that fail to meet required fuel economy standards. they do not comply. For the 2022 model year, the figure increased to $15.
Automakers protested the fine increase in 2016, warning it might increase industry costs by at least $1 billion annually, including increasing the value of compliance credits sold by Tesla (TSLA.O) and others.
Automakers whose vehicles achieve higher-than-required fuel economy can sell credits to automakers that don’t comply with CAFE rules.
Stellantis said it had made an incremental provision of 660 million euros ($709 million) as a result of the increased NHTSA penalty.
In April 2022, NHTSA dramatically boosted fuel economy standards, reversing former President Donald Trump’s rollback of US regulations aimed at improving gas mileage.
The organization raised fuel efficiency requirements by 8% for the 2024 and 2025 model years and by 10% in 2026.
Both Fiat-Chrysler and General Motors have been misleading millions of consumers with false fuel economy data.
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