Car Makers to face EU Clampdown

Published Date: 3rd Feb 2015

Europe will be the first place in world to force car makers to undergo a more realistic test in bid to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions

Europe has become the first place on the planet to force ‘real world’ emissions tests on car manufacturers, which opens up a new front in the fight against air pollution.

New regulations will show the tests to reveal what car’s emissions are when driving on roads and in traffic rather than laboratory-like conditions which is currently the case. Introduced by European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans, the tests are designed to enforce a limit of 80mg of nitrogen oxide per kilometre, a level met by only 1 out of 16 cars according to researchers.

Pollutants from diesel engines such as nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and particulates are thought to be responsible for at least one quarter of the 29,000 annual pollution-related deaths in the UK alone. That figure is likely to rise, when the committee on the medical effects of air pollutants publishes what it calls “strengthening evidence” of damage to public health from nitrogen oxide emissions later this year.

Campaigners say that new car makers also use tricks such as programming vehicles to go into a low emissions mode when their front wheels are spinning and their back wheels are stationary, as happens in such lab experiments.

But the current ‘New European Drive Cycle’ laboratory test for measuring these emissions is a quarter of a century old, and has been outpaced by technological developments in the car industry. Studies have shown that lab techniques to measure car emissions can easily be gamed with techniques such as taping up doors and windows to minimise air resistance, driving on unrealistically smooth roads, and testing at improbably high temperatures.

Campaigners say that car makers also use tricks such as programming vehicles to go into a low emissions mode when their front wheels are spinning and their back wheels are stationary, as happens in such lab experiments.

“The Commission is finalising a proposal to introduce a new emissions testing procedure which will allow proper assessment of the vehicles in real driving,” explained Lucia Caudet, a Commission spokesperson. The proposal still needs approval from other commissioners and a technical committee, but “we don’t expect any major internal hurdles,” an EU source commented.

“One key reason why air pollution kills 400,000 citizens annually is that carmakers cheat the tests for diesel cars, causing many times more pollution on the road,” announced Greg Archer, the clean vehicles manager for Transport and Environment. “The development of a new real-world driving emission test is an important step forward to tackling urban air pollution. EU states should now support the Commission’s proposals and ignore the whinging from carmakers that the rules are too tough.”