Dieselgate 2.0: 600K Ram trucks recalled, Cummins to pay $2 billion
Well, it’s like 2015 all over again, but this time it involves Ram pickup trucks. And a lot of them. Engine maker Cummins is recalling 600,000 Ram trucks as part of a huge $2 billion settlement with both federal and California authorities for using illegal software to cheat results of diesel emissions tests.
The settlement was reached in December, but new details emerged yesterday noting that Cummins had agreed to pay $1.675 billion in civil penalties – the largest ever to be paid under the Clean Air Act – in addition to $325 million to remedy environmental damage, the AP reports. The total bill is more than $2 billion, in what federal and California authorities called a landmark settlement.
“Let this settlement be a lesson: We won’t let greedy corporations cheat their way to success and run over the health and well-being of consumers and our environment along the way,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told reporters yesterday.
The scope of the scandal is mind-blowing, with Stellantis-owned Ram cranking out hundreds of thousands of Ram 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks over the past decade all equipped with Cummins diesel engines and their illegal software, known as defeat devices. According to the report, the software limited nitrogen oxide pollution during emissions tests, but then let the pollution fly during “normal operations,” the government said.
From 2013 to 2019, about 630,000 pickups from the 2013 through 2019 model years were equipped with the software, all of which are being recalled. Stellantis had no comment on the case.
Cummins, however, said that the engines that are being recalled didn’t necessarily exceed emissions limits, the AP wrote. But rather the software couldn’t detect if they did, so the punishment is more for not reporting the software.
But estimates suggest otherwise, saying that all of those trucks produced “thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides,” US Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement.
Electrek’s Take
Well, we certainly don’t have to tell Electrek readers about diesel and its effects on our health and the planet. But it’s pretty crazy to think just how far the auto industry will go to keep these engines running for nothing more than pure profit. It’s been seven years since Volkswagen had its turn, pleading guilty to criminal felony counts after US investigations into its use of illegal software to cheat emissions tests. Volkswagen installed 11 million vehicles around the world with the software, allowing the cars to emit 40 times the pollution than the standards allowed. VW agreed to pay $2.8 billion in criminal fines and $1.5 billion in civil resolutions.
Fiat Chrysler pulled a similar stunt in 2019, after more than 100,000 EcoDiesel Ram 1500 and Jeep Grand Cherokee vehicles were sold with defeat devices installed. The automaker paid $305 million to settle the claims. In 2020, Daimler paid $857 million in penalties for violating the Clean Air Act.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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