Here we go again.
According to the Frankfurt state prosecutor’s office, German investigators have raided Hyundai and Kia facilities on suspicion they sold 210,000 diesel vehicles with illegal defeat devices.
According to a statement, the alleged engine software is believed to have originated from suppliers Bosch and Delphi Technologies, which was bought out by BorgWarner Inc. in October 2020.
Authorities inspected eight sites in Germany and Luxembourg.
The operation was planned and coordinated by The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, or Eurojust. With a network that connects prosecutors in the European Union to more than 50 jurisdictions worldwide, Eurojust, which has its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, pursues organized crossborder crime on behalf of the EU Member States and a dozen non-EU countries.
Hyundai is working with authorities, according to a company spokesperson.
A familiar story
But the list of automakers using diesel defeat devices in Europe and the U.S. continues to grow.
On June 3, Stellantis’ FCA US subsidiary announced a settlement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office admitting to criminal conspiracy after devising to rig emissions testing on more than 104,000 Ram 1500 pickup trucks and Jeep SUVs from the 2014 to 2016 model years, less than a fifth of the total of VW’s 600,000 vehicles. The company faces a $96.1 million fine and the return $203.6 million in profits earned from the models.
Daimler AG, manufacturer of Mercedes-Benz vehicles, agreed to pay $2.2 billion in October 2020 to resolve claims that emissions tests were rigged in approximately 250,0000 Mercedes-Benz vehicles and vans sold in the U.S.
BMW also paid German authorities a €10 million fine in 2018 for selling about 7,600 vehicles with diesel defeat devices. “We made a mistake some years ago,” said then-BMW CEO Harald Krüger at the time.
Of the automakers caught using diesel defeat devices, Volkswagen AG is the first that comes to mind, as the company produced 11 million vehicles, including Audi and Porsche models, with alleged “defeat devices” that allowed them to evade pollution tests, of which 600,000 were sold in the United States. VW has spent $33 billion, or €29 billion, on costs associated with the scandal, the majority of which was incurred in the United States in the form of fines, compensation, and repurchase programs.
Good comes from bad
Part of the agreement with U.S. prosecutors led to the creation of Electrify America LLC to hasten the development of a nationwide EV charging network.
On Tuesday, Volkswagen AG sold a minority stake of the company to Siemens AG in a deal worth $450 million in new funding, and one valuing the charging network at $2.45 billion. By 2026, Electrify America hopes to have 1,800 EV charging stations in the U.S. and Canada, more than double the current number.
Siemens’ factory in Wendell, North Carolina currently produces charging equipment for buses, trucks, and heavy-duty electric vehicles, used by such companies as Penske Truck Leasing.
Additionally, it also has sites in Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, and California that develops electric infrastructure equipment. Siemens plans to manufacture more than 1 million electric vehicle chargers for the United States over the next few years.
How diesel defeat devices worked
A number of European automakers have wrangled with government authorities over diesel defeat devices. The software, used in diesel engines, recognized when the automobile was undergoing testing. It then activated and the technology that cut emissions, which was then also reduced during routine driving, dramatically raising emissions above legal levels, either to conserve fuel or to enhance acceleration.
The California Air Resources Board learned of the diesel defeat devices in May 2014 after West Virginia University study revealed that, when tested outside the laboratory, some VW vehicles released nearly 40 times the legal amount of nitrogen oxides.
