Brussels, 15/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission's proposal to provide the European Union with the new Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedures (WLTP) was adopted by experts from the 28 member states at the Motor-Vehicle Technical Committee (committee procedures) on Tuesday evening 14 June.
This technical regulation for the WLTP was developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), one of the five regional UN commissions whose goal is to promote comprehensive economic integration at a European level. It seeks to replace the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), whose major shortcomings were highlighted with the Volkswagen scandal involving its defeat device software (see EUROPE 11554 and 11399). The new procedures introduced will therefore help create conditions that simulate real driving conditions more realistically, particularly with regard to CO2 emissions and will subsequently complete the new real driving emissions (RDE) framework for nitric oxide (NOx) currently being examined by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, co-legislators on this dossier (see EUROPE 11497).
The text will now be sent to the European Parliament and Council as part of committee procedures. If the text is approved, the new WLTP will be compulsory for all new vehicles as from September 2017, the same time the RDE tests come into force. The WLTP will then be extended to all new vehicles as from September 2018.
This announcement was welcomed by the Transport & Environment Organisation, which congratulated the Commissioner for the Internal Market and Industry, Elzbieta Bienkowska, on her perseverance. Nonetheless, the organisation points out that the laboratory tests still remain under representative of real conditions and that by 2025, CO2 emission rates will still be 30% higher than those measured in laboratories. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)