Hyundai Motor America and Kia Motors America agreed this week to pay $100 million—the largest civil penalty ever secured under the Clean Air Act—for making inaccurate representations of their vehicles’ performance and emissions.

 As part of the settlement, Hyundai and Kia also will be required to implement rigorous new procedures, including training and enhanced audit testing of their vehicles, to prevent such violations from happening in the future.

Under the Clean Air Act, car manufacturers must test representative vehicles in order to ensure that they meet certain greenhouse gas emission standards.  These manufacturers then must apply to the Environmental Protection Agency for what is called a Certificate of Conformity.  Through this process, car companies provide assurances to the EPA that any car like the test vehicle will also meet the necessary emission standards.  

According to the allegations, Hyundai and Kia misrepresented to the EPA a key vehicle characteristic—known as the “road load force”—of each of six car models when it applied for certificates for those vehicles. “Because they used inaccurately low numbers to demonstrate compliance with emissions standards—cherry-picking data and conducting tests in ways that did not reflect good engineering judgment—Hyundai and Kia calculated higher fuel economy and lower greenhouse gas emissions than these vehicles actually have,” the Justice Department stated.  

Hyundai and Kia then reported the lower greenhouse gas emission numbers to the EPA in their applications, effectively claiming more GHG emission credits than they were entitled to. Because of these misrepresentations, the Hyundai and Kia vehicles in question are uncertified, meaning that each one sold constitutes a separate violation of the Clean Air Act. 

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