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posted by martyb on Friday January 11 2019, @08:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the Copies-Everything-Including-Cheating dept.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/01/fiat-chrysler-settles-in-lawsuit-over-diesel-emissions-cheating/

The US Justice Department (DOJ) on Thursday announced a $305 million civil settlement between Fiat Chrysler and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a lawsuit over illegal software found on certain diesel Dodge Ram models and diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee models.

[...] The settlement comes two years after the EPA accused Fiat Chrysler of installing undisclosed and illegal software on 104,000 vehicles, including 3.0L diesel Dodge Ram 1500 trucks and diesel Jeep Grand Cherokees between model years 2014 and 2016. The EPA claimed the software would sense when the vehicle was being tested under laboratory conditions and implement the full emissions control system so that the car could pass the EPA's emissions tests.

I guess the Volkswagen cheating was considered a feature by the Chrysler engineers, and they were just copying what the customers demanded?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @09:46AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @09:46AM (#784965)

    I haven't crunched the numbers, but VW had to pay what, like 5 billion, and Chrysler gets off with 300 million.

  • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday January 11 2019, @10:49AM (3 children)

    by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Friday January 11 2019, @10:49AM (#784970)

    Snip from NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/business/fiat-chrysler-justice-emissions-settlement.html [nytimes.com]

    "United States officials viewed the Fiat Chrysler matter as less serious in some respects than the Volkswagen case because it involved fewer vehicles and the trucks and S.U.V.s had been on the road for less time. The E.P.A. also stopped short of accusing the company of intentionally engineering the software to cheat on emissions tests.

    Volkswagen pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and other charges brought by the Justice Department. The company agreed to pay $22 billion in settlements and fines, including $4.3 billion to settle a case brought by federal prosecutors. It also was required to buy back 600,000 diesel vehicles from American consumers. Two Volkswagen executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the United States."

    Also, this settlement does not shield them from criminal charges. VW pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy. This is still an open matter for Fiat/Chrysler. They still deny their cheating software was not cheating.
    "Fiat Chrysler, however, has said that its software did not amount to an illegal defeat device. “Our position on that hasn’t changed,” said Eric Mayne, a company spokesman."

    Approximately 100,000 vehicles from Chrysler are affected.
    VW on the other hand, sold 11 million.

    --
    Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
    • (Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday January 11 2019, @10:59AM (1 child)

      by Pslytely Psycho (1218) on Friday January 11 2019, @10:59AM (#784972)

      A little clarification:
      VW 11million worldwide. 600k in U.S.
      Fiat/Chrysler apparently only sold 104k in the U.S. only, including 1700 imported vehicles.

      And oddly, three quarters of this page is struck through. From an AC's quote down. On this article only.
      Is this local to my browser, or is everyone seeing this?

      --
      Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @11:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @11:47AM (#784982)

        I am seeing the strikethrough

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @04:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @04:08PM (#785084)

      The NYT? Do you mean the N. Y. T.? Their spacing for common acronyms is annoying.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @10:54AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 11 2019, @10:54AM (#784971)

    5 billion sounds about right but naturally such a paltry sum means little. It's less than half their yearly profits and a tiny fraction of their overall revenue of over 250 billion dollars. All it did was give them a nice slap on the wrist and the hardened resolve to not get caught next time. To make this shit stick, you gotta hit them on gross revenue. Make them have to fight for survival after a flagrant violation like this. Anything less is practically tacit approval and amounts to political posturing before the electorate. We can argue over the necessity of any law including this very one. Maybe it was a stupid law, maybe it was utterly unfair, I don't know the answer to that but the contents of the law is immaterial to the fact that it applies to all equally and neither VW or Fiat get special or cute enough to be the exception. In order for the system to work the laws have to apply to us all. All emissions laws that apply to Opel, Renault, Tata, etc. also apply to fucking Volkswagen and Fiat. If you decide they don't, despite your money, your power, your influence, or which politician's nephew shares a class at the local Monessori school with your own precious angel, you are not GoDDAMN special and token penalties for Real Fuckups are a slap in the face to everybody else following the rules. Guess what, the other guys aren't stupid. They see VW get away with something they're gonna start wondering how to get on the gravy train. Then your air is really and truly fucked. But who cares right? Muh fuckin' profffffitttsss