Except as allowed by this section, we may void the certificate of any vehicle family certified to an FEL above the applicable standard for which you do not have sufficient credits by the deadline for submitting the final report.
(a) Your certificate for a vehicle family for which you do not have sufficient CO2 credits will not be void if you remedy the deficit with surplus credits within three model years. For example, if you have a credit deficit of 500 Mg for a vehicle family at the end of model year 2015, you must generate (or otherwise obtain) a surplus of at least 500 Mg in that same averaging set by the end of model year 2018.
(b) You may apply only surplus credits to your deficit. You may not apply credits to a deficit from an earlier model year if they were generated in a model year for which any of your vehicle families for that averaging set had an end-of-year credit deficit.
(c) If you do not remedy the deficit with surplus credits within three model years, we may void your certificate for that vehicle family. Note that voiding a certificate applies ab initio. Where the net deficit is less than the total amount of negative credits originally generated by the family, we will void the certificate only with respect to the number of vehicles needed to reach the amount of the net deficit. For example, if the original vehicle family generated 500 Mg of negative credits, and the manufacturer's net deficit after three years was 250 Mg, we would void the certificate with respect to half of the vehicles in the family.
(d) For purposes of calculating the statute of limitations, the following actions are all considered to occur at the expiration of the deadline for offsetting debits as specified in paragraph (a) of this section:
(1) Failing to meet the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section.
(2) Failing to satisfy the conditions upon which a certificate was issued relative to offsetting debits.
(3) Selling, offering for sale, introducing or delivering into U.S. commerce, or importing vehicles that are found not to be covered by a certificate as a result of failing to offset debits. [76 FR 57398, Sept. 15, 2011, as amended at 78 FR 36394, June 17, 2013]