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Toyota will pay a fine of $ 180 million for failing to comply with Clean Air Act emissions reporting requirements from 2005 to 2015, according to a filing filed today by the US Department of Justice.
During this period, Toyota delayed the required filings regarding emissions defects and did not inform the EPA of the progress of recalls related to the emissions defects. This has resulted in higher emissions, higher costs for consumers, and greater profit for Toyota.
Emissions regulations are largely based on a “self-disclosure” system where manufacturers are responsible for filing reports detailing their compliance. During the 10-year period, Toyota delayed filing 78 emissions reports, some of which were sent up to eight years late. The company also failed to file 20 emissions recall reports and more than 200 quarterly emissions recall updates.
In a press release, the DOJ states:
Toyota’s driving has likely resulted in delayed or avoided recalls, with Toyota gaining a significant economic benefit, pushing costs on consumers and extending the running time of unrepaired vehicles with emission-related defects.
The “significant economic benefit” achieved by Toyota from these actions is never calculated or stated in the government’s complaint. From 2005 to 2015, Toyota sold between 1.5 and 2 million cars in the United States per year, which means that this fine is approximately $ 10 per car sold during that period (not taking into account the time value of the ‘silver). Looked at another way, Toyota’s single-year worldwide revenue for 2019 was $ 272 billion, more than 1,500 times higher than that fine for 10 years of non-compliance.
This is not the first time Toyota has been penalized for emissions violations. In 2003, the automaker was penalized $ 20 million for selling 2.2 million vehicles equipped with non-compliant on-board diagnostic systems. The consent decree that resolved this violation did not end until 2014 – nine years after the violations covered by today’s regulation began.
Today’s fine represents “the biggest civil sanction for violating EPA emissions reporting requirements,” though there have been larger fines against other automakers for others. offenses. VW had to pay around $ 25 billion and Daimler $ 2.2 billion for their inclusion of emission control devices in their cars over a period similar to Toyota’s violations.
In addition to the $ 180 million fine, Toyota will be forced to operate under injunction, ensuring it complies with emissions reporting requirements in the future.
Toyota’s green (washed) image
Toyota has long promoted an image of environmental responsibility, being one of the first automakers to introduce hybrid vehicles to the road. Its Prius has become the best-selling hybrid car in the United States and has become a widely recognized symbol of environmental responsibility.
But Toyota’s fleet emissions tell a different story. Its U.S. fleet includes many trucks and SUVs with above average emissions, giving them some of the worst overall emissions performance in the fleet. We’ve written before about the consistently low efficiency of Toyota’s fleet (although it is doing a bit better with updated numbers for 2019).
In addition to (and perhaps because of) its low efficiency, Toyota has been one of the more high-profile companies to join a lawsuit brought by the EPA, led by a fossil lobbyist, opposing higher efficiency standards, alongside GM, Fiat Chrysler and others. Lowering efficiency standards will kill Americans and cost them money, according to the EPA analysis.
The company also opposes electric vehicles and has run science-based anti-EV ads and broadcast other EV information on several occasions. Toyota currently does not sell battery electric vehicles and one fuel cell electric vehicle, the Toyota Mirai. Toyota’s roadmap shows some possible future electric vehicles, but we still have little information about them.
It seems likely that Toyota’s opposition to electric cars influenced Japan’s recently announced “gasoline car ban” in 2035. Toyota is by far the largest company in Japan (double the turnover of the second Honda). The proposed ban does not actually ban gasoline-powered cars, as it will still allow the sale of new hybrids, which get 100% of their energy inputs from gasoline.
Crucial moment
Toyota’s breaches occur in a similar time frame to that of the “dieselgate” emissions scandal that rocked VW and many other manufacturers. Dieselgate cheat devices were used by VW between 2009 and 2015, and Toyota’s emissions non-compliance was from 2005 to 2015.
But that same decade also saw governments around the world start to wake up and take action on what we’ve known for decades – that the world is warming rapidly due to human activity.
Transportation is one of the largest sources of emissions in the world and the largest sector of emissions in the United States, so automakers will play an important role in averting the worst catastrophes of the climate crisis in which the world is currently.
Instead, automakers have chosen to work against this effort by undermining the emissions reporting systems that governments need reliable data for if they are to develop emissions regulations that work for everyone. Toyota was hoping consumers would give them credit for their slightly cleaner Prius while ignoring low efficiency and emissions violations they spent a decade hiding from the government.
We need good data if we’re going to solve our problems and craft an international plan of action, and we don’t have time to waste cleaning up our act. Incomplete information, as a result of Toyota’s willful misrepresentation, can only harm efforts to resolve our collective problem.
Taking Electrek
We don’t know (and maybe can’t) know if this fine is enough to offset the total profit Toyota has made from their actions or the total increase in costs that consumers have incurred. But Toyota’s willingness to come to terms with the government instead of a fight suggests that it thinks it goes easily.
When people are convicted of fraud or theft, they do not (or should not) benefit. If someone stole $ 10,000 from a bank, they wouldn’t be fined $ 1,000 or told to continue their business. Yet companies that routinely violate environmental regulations too often receive this kind of treatment – not just in the automotive sector, but in other polluting industries as well. It must stop – and companies that break the rules should not be allowed to profit from it.
And from a deterrent perspective, fines have so far apparently been too low to incentivize compliance. Even though Toyota was fined for emissions violations in 2003, they started violating emissions regulations again in 2005, two years later, and that continued for another decade. It is obvious that the initial sanction was not sufficient. Today’s penalty, which is a small fraction of what Toyota does year over year, may also be too low.
But it’s not just Toyota – it’s starting to look like every manufacturer has been caught in some sort of emissions cheat scandal. And if so, there is clearly a problem with the enforcement mechanisms that the government has put in place, and those mechanisms could benefit from reform.
Since businesses seem unwilling to self-regulate, we need more independent eyes to hold them accountable. The costs of this additional regulation should fall on the automakers, who for too long have misjudged existing systems and increased costs to consumers and imposed environmental damage from which we all suffer.
Or hey, here’s an idea. Maybe we should switch to vehicles that don’t to have an exhaust pipe to take out emissions, which cannot have errors in the exhaust system or or other emission management systems because they do not produce exhaust at all. Then businesses won’t have to worry about installing cheat devices as there is no escape to cheat.
Since this problem is so prevalent among gasoline vehicles, maybe it is time to give up gasoline altogether.
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