Secretary Anthony Foxx

Press Conference Call
NHTSA Enforcement Action: Fiat Chrysler
July 27, 2015

Thank you all for joining the call. One of my priorities has been to make NHTSA a much more muscular agency. Last year, NHTSA recalled more vehicles than it had in three decades and collected more in civil fines than it had in its entire 43-year history. And we are continuing to make progress under Administrator Mark Rosekind’s leadership. We are continuing to be very aggressive when it comes to ensuring that automakers are following the rules and that vehicles with defects are fixed.

As part of this effort, on July 2nd, NHTSA held an unprecedented public hearing to lay out their case against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. NHTSA had examined 23 safety recalls involving more than 11 million defective vehicles.

And here is what they found. They found that Fiat Chrysler had failed to meet its legal obligation. And even worse, Fiat Chrysler had failed in meeting its most important obligation of all, which is to protect the safety of America’s drivers.

Let me share with you some of these failures. These included recall remedies that weren’t actually remedies. They didn’t fix the safety defects. These included failures to give consumers the information they need to take action on recalls; failures to produce the parts needed to fix defects and to make those repairs available to consumers; and failures to provide NHTSA the information it needs to make sure the traveling public is safe.

This pattern represents an unacceptable risk to safety. And today we are announcing enforcement action against Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to address that risk. Let me also share that, in a consent order, Fiat Chrysler has acknowledged multiple violations of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act. The company has agreed to unprecedented federal oversight of its recall practices, and to take a series of steps designed to improve not only its own performance, but the entire auto industry’s, as well.

The company has agreed to pay a $105 million fine. That is the largest civil penalty in NHTSA’s history. I want to mention two reasons this action is so significant for DOT, NHTSA, and the public we protect.

First, consumers are at the heart of this enforcement action. Owners of the more than 500,000 Chrysler vehicles that can veer suddenly out of control will have the opportunity to sell those vehicles back to Chrysler for significantly more than market value. Owners of the more than 1 million Jeeps with fuel tanks prone to deadly fires will receive a cash incentive to get them repaired, or they’ll be able to trade them in for significantly more than their market value. And under the consent order’s requirements, Fiat Chrysler must find better ways to reach customers and help them get their vehicles repaired.

Second, these steps reinforce our department’s message that merely identifying defects is not enough. We launch recall efforts because we know lives are at stake and we want to fix the problem. Manufacturers that fail in their duties to fix these defects will pay a price.

Today, Fiat Chrysler is acknowledging their failures and committing to work with NHTSA to do a much better job. The safety of millions of their customers is on the line, and we will make sure they follow through.

Now I’ll turn it over to Mark to give you more details on the consent order’s provisions.

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