pinguhk

According to the NHTSA, more than $37 million in fines were collected last year for cars sold in 2007 from manufacturers that failed to meet current CAFE standards. Of the six manufacturers that paid fines, Mercedes-Benz was hit the hardest, racking up an astounding $28.9 million bill that was paid in December. That's a huge figure, especially in this troubled automotive market, but it's actually a bit smaller than the $30.3 million fine paid by DaimlerChrysler the previous year -- a figure that still holds the record. Go Daimler!

Other marques that failed to meet CAFE requirements included Volkswagen, which was hit with a $4.5 million sum, along with Porsche and Maserati, both of which paid fees of $1.2 million and Ferrari, which managed to skate by with a relatively paltry $1.1 million fine.

With increasingly strict regulations expected in the near future, these fines don't exactly bode well for the manufacturers of higher-end luxury vehicles, and the fact that the timing for these requirements is still undecided makes it even tougher to plan for them.

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/08/mercede...iciency-crimes/

that cool BMW did not pay any

BetterMakeWay

Yes and relating this news with the ones that BMW has to catch up with sales/incomes of Mercedes or Audi well i think by doing things the right way they actually did catch up a little. I'm happy BMW is very cerebral about the car making business but i'm sad that it's sometimes too cerebral (like the decision to dump the R&D of the E92 M3 CSL in favor of the R&D of the X5 M and X6 M, just because BMW thinks it will bring more revenues <<which it probably will>>)

SolanNo1

I recall having read in the WSJ (?) a week or two ago that it almost makes better financial sense for the automakers to pay the fine rather than spend $$$$$ in R&D etc to conform with the CAFE requirements.