Ford Motor Co. announced on Thursday that it would be lowering fuel economy ratings for six of its cars, and provide goodwill payments of $125 to $1,050 per vehicle to those affected by the change.
This is the first time that the company will lower the fuel economy ratings for their cars, which includes the 2013 and 2014 hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles and most of the Fiesta 2014 units.
"We apologize to our customers and will provide goodwill payments to affected owners," Ford CEO Alan Mulally said in a statement, as reported by Reuters. "We also are taking steps to improve our processes and prevent issues like this from happening again."
Last year, Ford also restated the fuel economy ratings for their C-Max hybrid. In their ads, the number two carmaker in the United States claimed that the hybrid had a rating of at least 7 miles per gallon. But, soon after its market debut, the company received complaints that the C-Max's fuel economy rating was way below than the rating mentioned in the ad.
Ford was not the only company that miscalculated their cars' fuel economy ratings. In 2012, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found out that Kia Motors Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co. inflated their cars' fuel economy rating by a mile per gallon. In December 2013, the carmakers were required to pay $395 million as settlement for the lawsuits filed regarding the cars' fuel economy rating.
In the case of Ford, they found out that an error occurred during the cars' initial testing. The company then told EPA about it. After investigations, the federal agency ordered Ford to correct the fuel economy rating of their cars within 15 days.
The announcement also restored another issue related to the EPA's auditing process.
"At the very least we expect tighter auditing of the process, so that substantial discrepancies over a sizable number of vehicles do not occur in the future," Jack R. Nerad, editorial director at Kelley Blue Book's KBB.com, told the New York Times. "Certainly this will gain attention in Congress as well."
