A truck drives past a Hino sign in Williamstown, West Virginia, in 2017. The truck maker, a subsidiary of Toyota, agreed to plead guilty to federal conspiracy charges and pay a total of $1.6 billion dollars to settle civil lawsuits after regulators discovered it had been submitted fraudulent data. to escape emissions standards.
Ivan Couronne/AFP/via Getty Images
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Ivan Couronne/AFP/via Getty Images
Hino Motors, a Toyota subsidiary that makes commercial trucks, has agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of a multi-year criminal conspiracy to fraudulently evade state and federal emissions standards. It’s part of a broad settlement that also resolves civil lawsuits filed by federal regulators and the state of California.
The company is paying a total of $1.6 billion in fines and penalties, including the second-largest criminal fine ever levied by the Environmental Protection Agency for Clean Air Act violations involving vehicles.
According to complaints filed by regulators, the fraud involved more than 100,000 heavy-duty diesel trucks and off-road diesel engines. The vehicles did not meet federal and state emissions standards, but Hino submitted false data claiming they did.
These vehicles are still safe to use, but Hino will offer free voluntary repairs for certain vehicles, which California regulators have requested. say will not affect fuel economy or vehicle operation. There will be no vehicle buybacks.
As part of the settlement, Hino will also pay criminal fines and civil costs, pay more than $150 million to replace ship and train engines with cleaner versions, and finance hybrid and zero-emission buses and trucks. in California. These remedies aim to balance excessive pollution caused by the company’s failure to comply with emissions standards. The company is also on probation for 5 years, during which it cannot import any diesel engines into the United States.
It is the latest in a series of crackdowns on companies that evade emissions testing, including a deal with engine manufacturer Cummins and the famous Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal.
Companies can cheat on tests in several ways. In this case, Hino was supposed to put its products through a battery of tests and then send the results to regulators for approval. But instead of sending the real test results, regulators found, the company repeatedly submitted false data — including altered data, data obtained through poorly performed tests, or data fabricated entirely without no testing.
California Air Resources Board Regulators say they “found inconsistencies” in Hino’s data, then worked with the EPA to uncover even more violations.
“EPA and the American consumer rely on true and accurate data from engine manufacturers to protect our nation’s air quality,” said Acting EPA Administrator Jane Nishida. said in a statement. “Hino’s actions directly undermined EPA’s program to protect the public from air pollution.”
California was reviewing Hino’s data because it — uniquely among U.S. states — can adopt and enforce stricter emissions standards than the federal government. The state is a large automotive market, and its regulations have a profound effect on the auto industry.
President-elect Donald Trump has said he intends to roll back at least some of California’s regulators. California prepares to defend its regulatory powers, in a repeat of a legal fight which extended throughout the first Trump administration.
Satoshi Ogiso, president and CEO of Hino Motors, called the agreement with regulators an “important milestone.” “We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused to our customers and stakeholders,” he wrote in a declaration. “To prevent this type of issue from happening again, we have implemented company-wide reforms, including significant improvements to our internal culture, monitoring and compliance practices.”
Toyota and other automakers have been trapped in recent years submit false data to Japanese regulators as well, a scandal for which Toyota apologized. A year ago, Toyota said “irregularities” and certain subsidiaries “had shaken the very foundations of the company as an automaker.”
