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Hyundai, Kia Hit with $100M Fine for Greenhouse Gas Lies
The U.S. has reached a historic settlement with Hyundai and Kia over their sale of nearly 1.2 million vehicles that emitted approximately 4.75 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in excess of what the automakers certified to the EPA.
Attorney General Eric Holder said, ‘This unprecedented resolution with Hyundai and Kia underscores the Justice Department’s firm commitment to safeguarding American consumers, ensuring fairness in every marketplace, protecting the environment, and relentlessly pursuing companies that make misrepresentations and violate the law.’
The automakers will pay a $100 million civil penalty, the largest in Clean Air Act history, to resolve violations concerning the testing and certification of vehicles sold in America and spend approximately $50 million on measures to prevent any future violations.
Hyundai and Kia will also forfeit 4.75 million greenhouse gas emission credits that the companies previously claimed, which are estimated to be worth over $200 million.
The complaint alleges that the car companies sold close to 1.2 million cars and SUVs from model years 2012 and 2013 whose design specifications did not conform to the specifications the companies certified to EPA, which led to the misstatements of greenhouse gas emissions.
These allegations concern the Hyundai Accent, Elantra, Veloster and Santa Fe vehicles and the Kia Rio and Soul vehicles. Additionally, Hyundai and Kia gave consumers inaccurate information about the real-world fuel economy performance of many of these vehicles.
Hyundai and Kia have agreed to reorganize their emissions certification group, revise test protocols, improve management of test data and enhance employee training before they conduct emissions testing to certify their model year 2017 vehicles.
The EPA discovered these violations in 2012 during audit testing. Subsequent investigation revealed that Hyundai’s and Kia’s testing protocol included numerous elements that led to inaccurately higher fuel economy ratings.
RELATED: Hyundai Kia Hit with $9M Fine for Theft-Lax Tech
Key Facts
- State: Federal
- Category: Environmental Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release ↗
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