California Air Resources Board

Please select download for the California complaint. All other documents are available below.

The following documents are related to the settlement reached by California Air Resources Board and the California Attorney General with Daimler, AG and Mercedes-Benz USA, for the use of illegal defeat devices in model year 2009-2016 diesel passenger cars and Sprinter delivery vans.

The devices affected vehicle operations in a way that allowed a vehicle to pass certification testing, but then shut down vehicle emissions control equipment during actual on-road driving. As a result, the vehicles emitted several times the legal emissions of NO_x. The amount of excess emissions depended on the vehicle model. NO_x is an air pollutant that contributes to the formation of ozone and particulate matter. It can greatly aggravate health problems such as asthma and cardio-pulmonary disease, and is a particularly serious and expensive problem in California. 

Defeat devices are illegal auxiliary emissions control devices, or AECD’s. Under certain, specific conditions AECDs are allowed, but they must be disclosed to regulators. Daimler did not disclose the existence of the AECDs in this case. The basis of the case is that failure, and the excess emissions. 

Daimler is paying California $285.6 million dollars in penalties, violations and mitigation. 

The company will repair the vehicles at no cost to owners.