European Commission – PRESS RELEASES – Press release – Commission welcomes Member States – agreement on sturdy testing of air pollution emissions by cars
Commission welcomes Member States’ agreement on sturdy testing of air pollution emissions by cars
Brussels, twenty eight October 2015
Today Member States meeting in the Technical Committee of Motor Vehicles have voted by a large majority on the 2nd package of implementing measures to introduce real driving emissions tests for air pollutant emissions by diesel cars.
The problem right now, as the Commission has pointed out time and again, is that laboratory tests do not accurately reflect the amount of air pollution emitted during real driving conditions.
That is why the Commission has been working hard to bring light into this area. We have already reformed the way tests should be conducted so they reflect actual emissions in real driving conditions. Now, Member States have agreed that from one September two thousand seventeen these fresh real driving emissions (RDE) tests will determine whether a fresh car model is permitted to be put on the market.
Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska, responsible for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, said: “The EU is the very first and only region in the world to mandate these sturdy testing methods. And this is not the end of the story. We will complement this significant step with a revision of the framework regulation on type-approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles. We are working hard to present a proposal to strengthen the type-approval system and reinforce the independence of vehicle testing. We are listening to the many views voiced and ideas put forward, and I thank the European Parliament in particular for its valuable input.”
The technical regulatory committee gathering Member States representatives agreed today that the fresh RDE test will have a strapping influence on the type-approvals issued by the national type-approval authority (TAA) from September two thousand seventeen for all freshly approved types of vehicles (from September two thousand nineteen for all fresh vehicles).
Given technical thresholds to improving the real world emission spectacle of presently produced diesel cars in the short-term, Member States agreed that car manufacturers must reduce the divergence inbetween the regulatory limit that is tested in laboratory conditions and the values of the RDE procedure when the car is driven by a real driver on a real road (the so-called “conformity factor”) in two steps:
- in a very first step, car manufacturers will have to bring down the discrepancy to a conformity factor of maximum Two.1 (110%) for fresh models by September two thousand seventeen (for fresh vehicles by September 2019);
- in a 2nd step, this discrepancy will be brought down to a factor of 1.Five (50%), taking account of technical margins of error, by January two thousand twenty for all fresh models (by January two thousand twenty one for all fresh vehicles).
Today’s agreement by Member States on the permitted divergence inbetween the regulatory limit measured in real driving conditions and measured in laboratory conditions is still a significant reduction compared to the current discrepancy (400% on average).
Over the past few years, the Commission has been working with determination to tighten up both the actual NOx emissions thresholds and the testing procedures.
Nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions thresholds for diesel vehicles have been tightened as goes after (all application dates to fresh emission type approvals, application to all fresh vehicles always one year later):
- January 2000: five hundred mg/km (Euro3)
- January 2005: two hundred fifty mg/km (Euro Four)
- September 2009: one hundred eighty mg/km (Euro Five)
- September 2014: eighty mg/km (Euro 6)
Now, the introduction of fresh RDE testing methods is a further tightening of the screws. According to Commission data, presently produced Euro six diesel cars exceed the NOx limit 4-5 times (400%) on average in real driving conditions compared to laboratory testing.
The fresh RDE test procedure was voted in May two thousand fifteen by the relevant regulatory committee (Technical Committee of Motor Vehicles – TCMV) and will come into force early 2016. The RDE procedure will complement the laboratory based procedure to check that the emission levels of nitrogen oxides (NOx), and at a later stage also particle numbers (PN), measured during the laboratory test are confirmed in real driving conditions. This means that the car will be driven outside and on a real road according to random acceleration and deceleration patterns. The pollutant emissions will be measured by portable emission measuring systems (PEMS) that will be affixed to the car. RDE testing will significantly reduce the presently observed differences inbetween emissions measured in the laboratory, and those measured on road under real-world conditions, and to a good extent limit the risk of cheating with a defeat device. During the initial phase commencing January 2016, the portable RDE testing system will be used for monitoring purposes.
On twenty eight October 2015, the TCMV voted on the 2nd package of measures on the regulatory not-to-exceed (NTE) emission thresholds applicable in RDE testing, which needs to inject into force so that RDE testing has implications on the conformity certificate issued by the national type-approval authority (TAA).
The draft comitology regulation will now be sent to the European Parliament and the Council for regulatory scrutiny.
