Cummins to recall 600,000 Ram trucks over diesel defeat devices (2024)

It’s not uncommon for a few bills to roll in after the holidays — after all, that eight-foot stuffed bear won’t pay for itself – but the cheque that Cummins will have to write in the new year is a doozy. How much of a dent will it put in their coffers? Try US$1.675 billion – yes, with a ‘b’ – which works out to something like ten gazillion Canadian dollars (okay, or more like CDN$2.2 billion, but our point remains).

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This outlay has been commanded by the Justice Department south of the border as recompense for transgressions relating to emissions allegedly spewed by almost a million Ram trucks dating back over a decade. It is said this penalty is the largest one to date in terms of Clean Air Act violations, and the second-largest environmental penalty, save for BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill.

UPDATE January 11, 2024: Cummins will also have to recall some 600,000 Ram trucks, the Department of Justice said during the release of new details of the settlement January 10, and pay some US$325 million specifically to remedy damage to the environment, bringing the total financial penalty to more than US$2 billion (CDN$2.7 billion) “Stellantis deferred comment on the case to engine maker Cummins, which said in a statement that Wednesday’s actions do not involve any more financial commitments than those announced in December,” reports the Associated Press. Our original article continues below. —Ed.

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Specifically, the DoJ has taken umbrage with allegations that Cummins installed devices on certain diesel-powered Ram pickups units which “unlawfully altered hundreds of thousands of engines to bypass emissions tests in violation of the Clean Air Act,” according to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The devices could have, under certain circ*mstances, bypassed or disabled emissions controls such as emission sensors and onboard computers.

Under the microscope are roughly 630,000 Ram Heavy Duty models from 2013 to 2019; and a further 330,000 of the things from that date up to present day. A very stern attorney general added that estimates drafted by the DoJ suggest these defeat devices may have caused engines in these trucks “to produce thousands of tonnes of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides.”

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Alert readers will notice copious usage of the words “may have” and “allegedly” sprinkled throughout this post. That’s because whilst Cummins has agreed in principle to pay the fine, it maintains its innocence in the matter. “The company has seen no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith and does not admit wrongdoing,” it said in a statement.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s probably because the whole sordid tale has a whiff of Dieselgate about it. That was the debacle in which Volkswagen found itself paying through the nose after Those Meddling Kids discovered certain VW diesel-powered vehicles were spewing far more emissions than advertised.

In essence, those defeat devices were designed to recognize behaviour associated with the EPA’s instrumented testing and only went to work under those conditions, permitting favourable official emission ratings which didn’t jive with what was emitted under real-world driving conditions. This case appears similar.

VW was on the hook for US$1.45 billion in U.S. civil penalties (US$1.81 billion, adjusted for inflation) for jimmying with 11 million vehicles. It might seem than, on a per-unit basis, Ram’s penalty is far more severe, but it’s worth noting the German automaker is estimated to have splashed out approximately US$20 billion in total reparations.