PHOENIX — Attorney General Kris Mayes filed suit Thursday against the maker of diesel engines and the car company that installed them in their pickup trucks, accusing both of defrauding Arizona consumers by selling vehicles that actually polluted more than advertised.
In the legal papers, Mayes contends that Fiat Chrysler America promoted and sold trucks as having “clean” diesel engines made by Cummins Inc. In fact, they did pass both EPA standards and state emissions tests.
But she said the only reason that happened is because the vehicles had a “defeat device” that would sense when they were being tested, a device that artificially reduced pollutants during testing below what occurs in normal driving conditions.
Cummins already agreed to a nearly $1.7 billion settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board. It also agreed to recall more than 600,000 Ram 2500 and Ram 3500 pickup trucks with that diesel engine and spend another $325 million to extend warranties and take other action.
What’s different here, according to a spokesman for Mayes, is Arizona is seeking financial relief on behalf of customers who purchased those vehicles. Richie Taylor said there were about 23,000 such vehicles sold in the state.
The lawsuit is similar to one filed in 2016 against Volkswagen by Mark Brnovich, the prior attorney general, over similar allegations of not-as-advertised clean burning diesel engines.
That ended with about 11,000 Arizonans each able to claim up to $1,000. That was above anything buyers were able to get directly from VW as part of a separate nationwide settlement the company struck with the company.
What now has to happen in this new case, Taylor said, is those who purchased the affected vehicles have to file consumer fraud complaints with the Attorney General’s Office to be eligible for any verdict or settlement.
Even if the buyers have had the vehicles repaired by Cummins — or even if they no longer have them — there is still the possibility of financial compensation. The key is Arizonans paid more for these allegedly clean-burning diesel vehicles.
“They paid a premium that they never should have had to pay — and probably wouldn’t have paid had they known there was an illegal emissions control device inside their car,” Mayes told Capitol Media Services on Thursday. The lawsuit pegs that premium at upwards of $9,000 compared with identical gas-powered vehicles.
“These folks obviously wanted a clean-burning truck and they didn’t get it,” she said. “And so we’re trying to get that premium back.”
Mayes said the failure to disclose the defeat devices and the marketing of so-called clean-burning vehicles — she says FCA, now known as Stelantis was in on it — was deliberate.
“These two companies took advantage of Arizonans’ rightful desire to buy cleaner cars,” she said.
“We have an enormous air quality problem and Arizonans are trying to do their part to deal with it,” the attorney general continued. “They shouldn’t be deceived and cheated in that process.”
All that, the lawsuit says, fits under the definition of what constitutes consumer fraud in state law.
How much that compensation might be in this case, Taylor said, is not known.
At the heart of the issue are the benefits and drawbacks of diesel. It starts with the fact the engines are more powerful.
The lawsuit quotes Car & Driver magazine, which says you would need an 8-liter gas engines to get the same amount of power as a 6-liter diesel engine.
There also is the fact diesel engines are more efficient.
“Each gallon of diesel fuel produces more energy than a gallon of traditional gasoline, allowing vehicles with diesel engines to achieve higher gas mileage,” the legal papers state.
But there is a flip side.
“In addition to being more expensive, diesel fuel engines are more harmful to the environment than gasoline engines in that, among other things, they emit substantially more particulate matter and NOx (oxides of nitrogen) than gasoline engines,” according to the lawsuit. “Controlling diesel engine emissions requires tradeoffs — power and performance are often sacrificed to ensure compliance with emissions regulations.”
What the defeat devices do is allow the companies to have their diesel vehicles pass EPA emissions testing and receive the legally required “certificates of conformity” necessary to sell them in the United States.
There was no immediate response from either Cummins or FCA.
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