General Motors committed a “corporate fraud” to make vehicles that violated emission rules and eventually forced the recall of 114,000 Chevrolet Taveras – a popular multi-utility vehicle – in India in July, a government appointed panel probing the issue has said in a report.
The “fraud” was carried out with “full knowledge and complicity” of some of its top management, who were there between 2005-2012, the report, cited by the Hindustan Times, said as it recommended strong punitive measures against the automaker.
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In July, GM India announced a recall of over 114,000 Taveras — one of the largest vehicle recalls in India to date — manufactured between 2005 and 2013 for failing to meet emission rules.
Before announcing the recall, GM India had admitted in a letter to the government that its internal probe has found that company employees replaced non compliant engines with those that were already approved and sent them for testing.
The company subsequently sacked several executives including its chief financial officer Anil Mehrotra plus officials in the US.
Separately, the government had ordered a three-member panel headed by Nitin Gokarn, CEO, National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRIP) to investigate and fix “culpability.”
The Gokarn-panel, however, left it to the road transport ministry to fix the size of the penalty.
P Balendran, vice president (corporate affairs), GM India told the Hindustan Times: “We will not be able to comment as we have not seen the report and also not heard from the government.”
The panel has also recommended a host of measures to make testing of vehicles more stringent and scientific.
This includes mandatory testing of vehicles to check conformity of production (CoP) at the production stage itself.
This will ensure that vehicles are compliant with type approval parameters from the start. Presently CoP is done only annually.
The probe panel, however, did not find any role of either government officials or Automotive Research Association of India, the testing agency, in perpetrating the violation.
Apart from CoP test done at the automaker, the committee has recommended that it should also be done at the dealer as well. If the vehicle fails compliance ‘norms’, as they are referred to in India, type approval should be withdrawn.
“All vehicles related details (like chassis number, details of engine) should have to be logged by the manufacturer at the production stage into Vahan –the online national register of vehicles across India started by the road transport ministry,” said an official.
Also the annual production plan of models due for CoP should be submitted to the test agency a month before the testing is to be done.
GM India restarted Tavera production this week.
