Cheating emissions controls are crimes against humanity and should be punished as such

Most readers will not be familiar with the logo of the company shown in the illustration: Cummins, but it is one of the most irresponsible and despicable firms you will ever meet.

Its Cummins Engines division makes diesel engines for pickup trucks, primarily for the automotive giant Stellantis. Between 2013 and 2019 it installed emissions defeat devices to falsify the metrics of its engines so they would pass inspections while continuing to emit sky-high amounts of nitrogen oxides and other pollutants directly responsible not only for the climate emergency, but also for respiratory diseases such as asthma.

Now, as a result of a settlement for violations of the Clean Air Act, the company must pay a fine of $1.675 million (its annual profit was $2.15 billion in 2022) and proceed to remove the device and correct the emissions of the more than 630,000 affected RAM vehicles. This is an out-of-court settlement, which means that Cummins can issue a press release which is a pack of lies: the company does not admit wrongdoing and says no one in the company acted in bad faith. Like most criminals and mass murderers, its managers are also huge hypocrites.

It is yet another re-working of Volkswagen’s dieselgate, similar to others that brands such as Renault…