The U.S. attorney’s Office in Manhattan announced on thursday that Toyota will pay $180 million to U.S. government to settle the allegations that it failed to report and fix pollution control defects in its vehicles for a decade.
This is not the first time Toyota has been sanctioned for emissions violations.
In 2003, the automaker was penalized $20 million for selling 2.2 million vehicles with noncompliant on-board diagnostic systems.
About Company
Toyota is the world’s second-largest automaker behind Volkswagen, and once built a reputation for clean technology on the back of its best-selling Prius gasoline-electric hybrid passengers cars.
It is the third automaker in recent years to pay penalties for Clean Air Act violations after Volkswagen and Fiat Chrysler.
What is the issue?
Emissions regulations largely rely on a “self-disclosure” system where manufacturers are responsible for filing reports detailing their compliance.
Over the 10-year period, Toyota delayed filing of 78 emissions reports, and some of them were as many as eight years late.
The company also failed to file 20 emissions recall reports and over 200 quarterly updates on emissions recalls.
However, the lawsuit was filed on thursday and settled on the same day itself.
What now?
The company accepted in the court to investigate future emissions-related defects quickly.
And, also claimed that it will voluntarily report them to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in a timely manner.
Justice Department commented
“Automakers have to report to the EPA if there are 25 cases of the same pollution control defect in a model year.
But Toyota decided to report the defects only when required under a less-stringent California standard.”
Toyota commented
“The company nearly five years ago identified and self-reported a process gap that resulted in a delay in the filing of certain non-public EPA reports for emissions-related defects in vehicles.
while this reporting delay resulted in a negligible emissions impact, if any, we recognize that some of our reporting protocols fell short of our own high standards, and we are pleased to have resolved this matter.”
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