Yahoo Autos Porsche to Pay a $600 Million Fine for Diesel Cheating
Porsche will pay $600 million in fines covering its involvement in the diesel-emissions scandal that first erupted in 2015 at parent company Volkswagen.
Porsche announced last year that it will no longer have diesels in its lineup.
Owners of diesel-powered Porsche vehicles-in the U.S., that's just the 2013–2016 Cayenne diesel-can still file for damages until the end of this year and get repairs under recall.
The German government has fined Porsche nearly $600 million to resolve the sports-car and SUV maker's use of emissions-cheating diesel engines, according to a statement released by the Volkswagen Group.
The Stuttgart prosecutor's office slapped Porsche for "negligent breach of duty" in skirting German emissions laws-prompted initially by the United States when the scandal broke in 2015-and arrived at that nine-digit total based on Porsche's current profits. Those profits, at nearly 18 percent per car, are among the industry's highest and double that of Audi.
While marking the end of civil fines against the company, the payment does not absolve former Porsche executives from ongoing criminal investigations. Former R&D chief Wolfgang Hatz was arrested in September 2017 and released after nine months on a $3.5 million bond. His investigation is ongoing. The Porsche investigation was first reported in June 2017. The automaker said it will not appeal.
Until last year, when Porsche announced it would drop diesels entirely, Porsche had used the Volkswagen-developed 3.0-liter turbo-diesel V-6 in its Cayenne, Panamera, and Macan SUVs since 2009. The only U.S. Porsche models equipped with this engine were the 2013–2016 Cayenne diesel. Owners of the diesel vehicles are eligible for compensation from VW and Bosch, the maker of the defeat device, by registering as claimants through December 31, 2019. These vehicles are also still eligible for repairs under various recalls.
To date, the Volkswagen Group has paid more than $30 billion in criminal and civil fines, penalties, vehicle buybacks, and more charges as a result of the emissions scandal. In the United States, two former VW employees are in prison, with another five under indictment. Former CEO Martin Winterkorn is awaiting a criminal trial.
In February, prosecutors in Munich fined BMW $9.5 million for diesel emissions but did not find evidence of a VW-style defeat device in the 8000 cars they investigated. Daimler has also been under German investigation since February for possible emissions fraud.
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