US Sues FCA For Cheating Diesel Engines, Seeks $4.6 Billion In Fines

The US DOJ is specifically calling out FCA's VM Motori wing, which designed the diesel engines that are the subject of investigation. It claims to have emails and other documents from the company that cover the engine's technical aspects and will use these as evidence that FCA is cheating. If the company is caught, it could face fines as high as $44,539 per vehicle, totaling $4.6 billion. Compared to the $25 billion Volkswagen had to spend in the US to remedy the issue, this is chump change. However, it's worth noting that Volkswagen is the world's largest automaker and can absorb that sort of financial impact better than FCA, which was still saddled with $5.1 billion of debt at the end of 2016.

The investigator's findings reflect an increase in scrutiny after Dieselgate, and the increasing difficulty surrounding the design and build process of compliant diesel engines has led many automakers toback off of selling oil burners to the US entirely. It's too early to tell how this will affect FCA given that the court battle has just commenced, but we hope two things happen. One, that FCA and other automakersstop the culture of cheating(that is if FCA is actually doing so) and two, that our favorite Fiat Chrysler vehicles remain untouched by the fallout if the outcome lands in favor of the regulators.