Major American Carmaker Pleads Guilty To New Dieselgate

It’s important to note FCA has already agreed to plead guilty to a criminal conspiracy charge The autos conglomerate will be admitting it circumvented emissions requirements for north of 100,000 Jeep and Ram models in the United States. Fines for that will amount to roughly $300 million. The sum lands at a time that couldn’t be worse for a brand struggling to recover its production capacity in light of global supply chain woes. A hearing for the charges levied against Stellantis will take place on June 10th.

Filings state the charges for Stellantis/FCA are a clear violation of the Clean Air Act, a document that holds automakers and the EPA to a certain standard when producing vehicles. That document has remained largely unchanged since the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Additionally, FCA will be forfeiting property somewhere in the ballpark of $200 million. However, what that property is remains unclear. Our best bet, for now, is unused engines that have been ruled in non-compliance with the Clean Air Act. Affected diesel vehicles span from 2014 to 2016, so perhaps some of those engines are still sitting unused somewhere.