Cheating is something that has always been frowned upon. Despite this, it remains a constant and recurring theme in the Automotive World. On today’s episode of automotive cheaters, Toyota has been implicated for cheating diesel emissions. But before we get into that, let’s take a trip down memory lane to the last big automotive cheating scandal.
Volkswagen’s Emission Scandal
In 2017, Volkswagen was caught literally cheating on a test and it cost them money, as well as their reputation. The Volkswagen case was dubbed the ‘diesel dupe’. It involved the use of a ‘defeat device’ with a software to detect when the cars were being tested. Once a test was detected, the vehicles would change the performance accordingly to reduce emissions and improve results. But the software turned the equipment down during regular driving, increasing emissions far above legal limits.
Volkswagen’s exact reason for cheating diesel emissions test could not be ascertained. But it is most likely aimed at saving fuel or improving the car’s performance. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) eventually found out and issued a heavy fine of 14.7 billion USD (approximately 22 trillion naira). Toyota, on the other hand, has been handed a 1.6 billion USD (approximately 2 trillion naira) settlement fine. Compared to Volkswagen’s fine, Toyota is only paying a fraction of that. But it does not undermine the reality of it being a huge sum of money.
Toyota Dances with the Law
The culprit in this case is not directly Toyota, but a subsidiary called Hino Motors. This Toyota subsidiary assembles trucks in the US. Hino Motors pleaded guilty to submitting false and fraudulent CO2 emissions test data to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). To make up for its wrongdoing, the company will have to recall certain engines used in 2017-2019 trucks to bring them into compliance. The Hino Motors case is one in a myriad of cases against Toyota that all began with irregularities at Daihatsu, another brand within the Toyota Group. It then spread to several Toyota models and ultimately resulted in temporary production shutdowns.
I guess the moral of this story is that cheating is all fun until when caught and faced with the repercussions. It is quite sad that automotive giants like Volkswagen and Toyota are involved in such sustainability-related scandals, despite the global effort to tackle global warming. Hopefully, other automotive giants learn from this. Do you think these fines are enough punishment, considering how much money these automotive giants make?
