Toyota will pay a $ 180 million fine for failing to comply with the 2005-2015 Clean Air Act emissions reporting requirements, according to a document filed today by the U.S. Department of Justice.
During this period, Toyota delayed the required filings for emission defects and did not inform the EPA of progress on recalls related to emission defects. This resulted in higher emissions, higher costs for consumers and greater profit for Toyota.
Emission regulations largely depend on a “self-disclosure” system, where manufacturers are responsible for reporting on details of 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 did not submit 20 emissions recall reports and more than 200 quarterly updates on emissions recalls.
In a press release, the DOJ says:
Toyota’s conduct likely resulted in delayed or avoided recalls, with Toyota reaping significant economic benefit, driving costs to consumers and increasing the time that unrepaired vehicles with emissions-related defects remained on the road.
The “significant economic benefit” obtained by Toyota through these actions is never calculated or presented in the government’s claim. From 2005 to 2015, Toyota sold between 1.5 and 2 million cars in the United States per year, which means that this fine represents about $ 10 per car sold during that period (not counting the value of money over time) ). Put another way, Toyota’s 2019 global single-year revenue in 2019 was $ 272 billion, more than 1,500 times higher than this fine for 10 years of non-compliance.
This is not the first time that Toyota has been sanctioned for emissions violations. In 2003, the automaker was penalized US $ 20 million for selling 2.2 million vehicles with incompatible 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 agreement.
Today’s fine represents “the highest civil penalty for violating the EPA’s emissions reporting requirements”, although there have been larger fines against other automakers for other violations. VW had to pay ~ $ 25 billion and Daimler $ 2.2 billion for the inclusion of anti-emission testing devices in their cars during a period similar to the Toyota violations.
In addition to the $ 180 million fine, Toyota will be forced to operate under an injunction, ensuring that it complies with emissions reporting requirements going forward.
Toyota green (washed) image
Toyota has long fostered an image of environmental responsibility, being one of the first automakers to introduce hybrid vehicles on the roads. Your 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 another story. Their fleet in the US includes many trucks and SUVs with above average emissions, giving them some of the worst results in overall fleet emissions. We have already written about the consistently low efficiency of the Toyota fleet (although it is slightly better with the updated numbers for 2019).
In addition (and perhaps because of) its low efficiency, Toyota was one of the highest profile companies to file a lawsuit filed by the fossil lobbyist EPA who opposes higher efficiency standards, along with GM, Fiat Chrysler and others . Lowering efficiency standards will kill Americans and cost them money, according to EPA analysis.
The company is also opposed to electric vehicles and runs illiterate anti-EV ads in science and repeatedly spreads other information about EVs. Toyota currently sells electric vehicles without a battery and a 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 “ban on gas cars” in 2035. Toyota is Japan’s largest company by a large margin (double the 2nd Honda’s revenue). The proposed ban does not actually prohibit gasoline cars, as it will still allow the sale of new hybrids, which obtain 100% of their energy inputs from gasoline.
Crucial moment
Toyota’s breaches occur over a period of time similar to the “dieselgate” emissions scandal that rocked VW and many other manufacturers. Dieselgate cheating devices were used by VW between 2009 and 2015, and Toyota’s emissions noncompliance was from 2005 to 2015.
But this same decade has also seen governments around the world finally start to wake up and take some action on what we have known for decades – that the world is heating up rapidly due to human activity.
Transport 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 a big role in preventing the worst disasters of the climate crisis the world is in today.
Instead, automakers have chosen to work against this effort, undermining the emissions reporting systems from which governments need reliable data if they want to create emissions regulations that work for everyone. Toyota expected consumers to give them credit for its slightly cleaner Prius, ignoring its low efficiency and the violations of emissions rules that it spent a decade hiding from the government.
We need good data if we are to solve our problems and develop an international action plan, and we have no time to waste cleaning up our act. Incomplete information, as a result of deliberate incorrect reporting by Toyota, can only hamper efforts to resolve our collective problem.
Electrek’s Take
We do not know (and may not be able to) know whether this specific fine is sufficient to offset the total benefit that Toyota received from its actions or the total increase in costs that consumers have suffered from it. But Toyota’s willingness to make a deal with the government instead of resisting suggests that it thinks it is escaping easily.
When individuals are found guilty of fraud or theft, they cannot (or should not) profit from it. If someone stole $ 10,000 from a bank, they would not receive a $ 1,000 penalty and would not have to continue with their business. Still, companies that routinely violate environmental regulations receive this type of treatment very often – not only in the automotive sector, but also in other polluting industries. It must stop – and companies that break the rules should not profit from it.
And from the point of view of deterrence, the fines have so far been apparently too small to inspire compliance. Although Toyota was fined for emissions violations in 2003, it started to violate emissions regulations again in 2005, just two years later, and this continued for another decade. It is obvious that the original penalty was not enough. Today’s penalty, which represents a small fraction of what Toyota does year after year, can also be very low.
But it’s not just Toyota – it’s starting to look like every manufacturer has been caught up in some kind of emissions fraud scandal. And if that is the case, there is clearly a problem with the enforcement mechanisms that the government has, and those mechanisms could benefit from some reform.
Since companies are apparently not willing to self-regulate, we need more independent eyes to hold them accountable. The costs of this additional regulation must fall on the automotive companies, which have long cheated to overcome existing systems and have increased costs for consumers and imposed environmental damage that we all suffer from.
Or hey, here’s an idea. Maybe we should move to vehicles that are not even Tue an exhaust pipe for the emissions outlet, which cannot have errors in the exhaust system or other emission management systems because they do not produce exhaust at all. Thus, companies will not have to worry about installing cheating devices because there is no exhaustion to cheat.
Since this problem is so common among gas vehicles, it may be time to completely abandon gas.
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