Hino fined for emissions fraud
Hino Motors, a subsidiary of Toyota, has been ordered to pay US$1.6 billion – or around NZ$2.78b – in penalties, after pleading guilty to a multi-year emissions fraud scheme in America, says the US Justice Department.
A court in Detroit accepted the truck and engine manufacturer’s guilty plea. It handed down a US$521.76 million fine and five years’ probation during which it will be prohibited from importing diesel engines it has manufactured into the US.
The court also entered a US$1.087b forfeiture money judgement against the company on March 19.
In January, Hino said it would plead guilty over excess engine emissions in more than 105,000 US vehicles in that country from 2010-22.
A company-commissioned panel stated in 2022 that Hino had falsified emissions data on some engines going back to at least 2003.
The settlement includes a mitigation programme, valued at US$155m to offset excess air emissions from the violations by replacing marine and locomotive engines, and a recall programme, valued at US$144.2m, to fix engines in 2017-19 heavy-duty trucks, states the US Environmental Protection Agency's
Hino admitted that between 2010 and 2019, it used “illicit short-cuts” and submitted false applications for engine-certification approvals and altered emissions test data, conducted tests improperly and fabricated data without conducting any underlying tests.
Over the past decade, several carmakers have admitted to selling vehicles with excess diesel emissions. Volkswagen paid more than US$20b in fines, penalties and settlements after it admitted in 2015 it had cheated emissions tests by installing “defeat devices” and software in nearly 11 million units globally.
