On Tuesday 14 July, the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) officially supported an immediate reduction to 1.32 in the conformity factor used to determine the conformity of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles with the Euro 6 nitrogen oxide (NOx) emission limits; this is compared to the European Commission’s proposal of 1.43 (see EUROPE 12389/8).
Adopted by a large majority (55 votes in favour, 14 against and 11 abstentions) the amended report by Esther de Lange (EPP, Netherlands) on the proposal to revise the regulation (715/2007) on emissions testing of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, MEPs also advocated annual downward revisions of the conformity factor as based on assessments undertaken by the Joint Research Centre (JRC).
This factor allows vehicle manufacturers to address the uncertainties in technical measurements associated with the use of portable emissions measurement systems (PEMS) under real driving conditions by defining a permissible deviation from the regulatory emission limit that is tested in the laboratory.
At the end of the vote, Mrs de Lange said in particular: “We have to be realistic about the discrepancy between emissions measured in laboratories and those measured in real-driving conditions [...] At the same time, it’s important to show ambition by gradual lowering the value for the conformity factor”.
By adopting the de Lange report, MEPs also called for the conformity factor to cease to apply on 30 September 2022. After that date, the raw data from tests under real driving conditions would then be used to determine the conformity of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles with EU emission limits.
“A large majority of MEPs on the Environment Committee voted to end the conformity factor [...] which had allowed manufacturers to cheat it by allowing pollutants to exceed European emission standards”, said a delighted Pascal Canfin (Renew Europe, France) and Chair of the ENVI Committee.
The report finally calls on the European Commission to put in place, as of June 2021, stricter requirements for PEMS used for real-world driving testing, while calling on it to rapidly propose the implementation of new (post-Euro 6) emission standards that are more demanding for manufacturers.
Describing the vote as “a big step forward for air quality in European cities”, Mr Canfin hopes that the text will be adopted at the European Parliament’s September plenary session. (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)