Volkswagen was fined by Mexico for failing to obtain proper environmental certifications for its vehicles equipped with diesel engines.
Mexican authorities have cracked down on Volkswagen AG, dishing out nearly $9 million in fines for VW’s failure to obtain the proper environmental certificates for 2016 vehicles equipped with diesel engines.
VW failed to verify emissions standards compliance for almost 46,000 vehicles for the 2016 model year it sold in the country, Mexican officials said.
The Mexican Attorney General’s Office for Environmental Protection said federal inspectors found that 45,494 Audi, Bentley, Porsche, Seat and VW vehicles for 2016 lacked the environmental compliance certificates required for sale when they visited the automaker’s offices this past December, which was three months after VW admitted it had installed defeat devices on more than 11 million vehicles sold around the world.
South Korea also has imposed fines on VW and the automaker also faces substantial fines in the Europe.
In addition, VW could face additional fines as Mexican authorities continue to investigate violated the country’s air quality standards on vehicles sold between 2009 and 2015.
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Mexico has stringent air quality regulations, which have been designed to improve the air quality of Mexico City, the home to more than 22 million people, who have faced severe air pollution problems for decades.
In the 1990s, the United Nations said Mexico City had the worst air pollution on earth. But last year, the Harvard Gazette described the air quality as comparable to that of Los Angeles as the result of a broad crackdown on sources of pollution across the federal state of Mexico City.
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said that nearly 500,000 Volkswagen cars sold in the country between 2009 and 2015 had “defeat device” software installed that was specifically designed to detect when a car is being tested for emissions and lower. The result was that out on the road vehicles equipped with the device released up to 40 times more pollution than allowed by the rules.
As a result, the EPA and the state of California are demanding VW recall and fix or replace thousands of vehicles in addition to paying fines that will total in the billions of dollars.
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VW has acknowledged that “discrepancies” in the software that controls emissions in some diesel-engine models affects some 11 million vehicles around the world. The scandal also led to a sweeping shakeup of VW’s senior management, a steep decline in the value of the company’s stock and a raft of lawsuits from shareholders and consumers that will cost millions in attorney’s fees to defend and or settle.