Since the VW emissions scandal erupted in September 2015, and since then there’s been rumours that other auto-makers have been up to similar activities. Allegations were made against the 7th largest auto maker, Fiat-Chrysler, a day after VW agreed to pay around £3.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties for its wrongdoing.
Despite the carmaker denying any wrongdoing, authorities have been investigating their vehicles and have found software that can reportedly affect emissions readouts. As such, it’s something we’re keeping a very close eye on, as there are some remarkable similarities between the VW emissions scandal and the probes in to Fiat-Chrysler.
Findings
Authorities allege that the auto-maker has broken laws by installing software in their vehicles that can alter emissions in over 100,000 Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Ram 3.0 litre ‘EcoDiesel’ vehicles from the 2014 to 2016 model years.
Authorities also allege that they had broken the law by failing to disclose their use of the technology.
From their initial findings, authorities noted that the software reportedly caused higher nitrogen oxide levels (NOx emissions) in real-world driving conditions. Authorities said: “failing to disclose software that affects emissions in a vehicle’s engine is a serious violation of the law, which can result in harmful pollution in the air we breathe. All auto makers must play by the same rules.”
Very similar to the VW scandal…
Fiat’s denial
To no surprise, Fiat Chrysler CEO, Sergio Marchionne, defended his company by saying that nothing illegal had been done.
Nr Marchionne said:
“There was never any intent of creating conditions that were designed to defeat the testing process. This is absolute nonsense.”
In January 2017, the automaker said it would demonstrate that it would undergo tests to show that the technology was justified and show they were not “defeat devices” like those seen in the VW scandal.
The Italian-American auto-maker maintains they haven’t done anything wrong and that they didn’t intentionally mislead regulators.
Lawsuit
A lawsuit alleged that the auto-maker failed to disclose the software labelled as “auxiliary emissions controls” in the 2014 to 2016 Fiat Chrysler diesel vehicles.
Authorities said:
“This results in cars that meet emission standards in the laboratory and during standard EPA testing, but during certain normal on-road driving emit oxides of nitrogen (NOx) that are much higher than the EPA-compliant level.”
Fiat proposed a recall and fix of the 104,000 vehicles. Again, all very similar to the VW scandal…
We’ll continue to keep a close eye on what happens here in the U.K. with regards to Fiat-Chrysler vehicles, and whether there is anything to investigate further.
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