Stellantis is the parent company for Jeep, Dodge, Fiat and a number of other manufactures. Its the combined merger of Fiat Chrysler and a French company called PSA. They are in Hot water within the USA for being caught with a defeat devise in many of the Dodge and Jeep products sold in the USA. This is the same strategy VW had used to beat emissions testing many years earlier and they to got caught.
The Company has reportedly agreed to plead guilty to criminal conspiracy charges relating to emissions requirements on over 100,000 diesel-powered Ram and Jeep products sold in the United States. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) was previously on the hook for $800 million in civil penalties over a so-called “defeat device” equipped to the automaker’s 3.0-liter turbo-diesel engine. Allegations began in 2017 as regulators were hunting for compliance violations in the wake of Volkswagen’s massive emissions scandal from a couple of years earlier.
FCA has already paid roughly $300 million to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Department of Transportation (DOT), and CARB. Additional fines were given to the State of California, Customs and Border Protection, and various state attorneys general. But it was also required to pay to outfit 20,000 units with new catalytic converters while also spending hundreds of millions on software updates and payments to owners.
The investigation into FCA began as far back as 2017 and research conducted by West Virginia University showed that some of the EcoDiesel motors it tested emitted anywhere between 8 and 25 times the allowable amount of nitrogen dioxide. It also claimed that some of the vehicles that had been recalled were still putting out more unwanted gasses under real-world conditions than they would have in a laboratory. At the time, FCA said the study was tainted due to it having been “commissioned by a plaintiffs’ law firm.”
The accusations are more or less what happened with Volkswagen. The Knock on effect from the VW scandal was regulators globally cracked down on diesel engine manufacturers which then results in manufacturers distancing themselves from the fuel. This is possibly why Jeep and FCA has announced a lack of diesel engines in its future line ups.
This then begs the question. Do our Australian delivered vehicles have the same “cheating” devise fitted?
