FCA US faces further consequences for deceiving regulators about emissions systems on 101,000 diesel vehicles.
“Dieselgate” continues to haunt the U.S. car industry, five years after courts ordered Volkswagen AG to pay billions to resolve criminal and civil fraud cases brought by the government against it.
On Monday, FCA US LLC — formerly known as Chrysler Group and now part of Stellantis NV — was ordered to pay $300 million in penalties and will be placed on probation for three years for its efforts to subvert emissions regulations with the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Ram 1500 trucks. The vehicles house the company’s first-generation “EcoDiesel” engines, spanning the 2014, 2015 and 2016 model years.
This sentence is part of an earlier agreement on the automaker’s part, after pleading guilty to conspiracy in June. It’s likely to be the final major action the U.S. regulators will take against the company, after it also agreed to an $800 million settlement in January 2019 to conclude civil claims brought against FCA from the Justice Department and California state officials.
Coinciding with FCA’s sentence, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said, “Stopping violations of environmental laws and the defrauding of consumers is paramount to the protection of clean air and human health.” Separate to the company’s sentence, three FCA employees face charges related to the emissions cheating investigation.
On a further note, these actions do not affect the current-generation EcoDiesel engines, as fitted in Stellantis vehicles like the 2019+ Ram 1500 DT, shown below.
