Hyundai and Kia have agreed to settle with 33 states after a four-year legal battle over the brands’ inflated fuel-economy estimates.
In total, the Korean automakers will pay $41.2 million to resolve consumer protection claims among the 33 state attorneys general and the District of Columbia, which launched investigations after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the automakers had overstated estimates on 900,000 cars in November 2012. Most infamous was Hyundai’s advertisement of a 40-mpg Elantra (and its ironic dismissal of rival brands over their low-volume “eco” trims), which turned out to be completely false. Hyundai and Kia were forced to lower EPA highway estimates between 1 and 6 mpg after they admitted to errors during coasting-test procedures. Cars from the 2011, 2012, and 2013 model years were affected. Initially, Hyundai and Kia began mailing prepaid debit cards to all affected owners to compensate for their extra fuel costs with the rating change, plus a 15 percent premium, over the lifetime of ownership, although this required customers to visit their dealers every year to have their odometers checked. A separate class-action lawsuit forced Hyundai to offer lump-sum payouts totaling $255 million (originally $395 million before it was lowered by a federal judge last year). This doesn’t include the $350 million settlement with the EPA, including $214 million in forfeited greenhouse-gas emissions credits. All told, H...