Figure 1 shows that the official WLTP type-approval CO₂ emission values are more representative of real-world values than the ones from the previous NEDC test procedure. Our analysis shows a divergence of 7.7% for WLTP in 2018 compared to 32.7% for NEDC. However, the gap between real-world and official CO₂ emissions increased by over 80% in the 5 years since the introduction of the WLTP, reaching 14.1% in 2022.

Figure 1. Divergence between real-world and type-approval CO₂ emission values for internal combustion engine and hybrid passenger cars registered in Germany. Data sources: European Environmental Agency (EEA) and spritmonitor.de

This growing gap diminishes the effectiveness of the European Union’s CO₂ standards in reducing tailpipe CO₂ emissions from cars and vans. This is because CO₂ reduction goals are implemented by setting lower targets for official CO₂ emissions. The growing gap between official and real-world emission values, however, leads to a lower reduction in real-world CO₂ emissions than intended by the regulators.

Figure 2 compares the reduction in official versus real-world CO₂ emissions between 2009 and 2022. While official CO2 emission values decreased by 19.5%,real-world emissions decreased by only 5.8% over the same period due to the growing gap.

Figure 2. Reduction of internal combustion engine and hybrid car type-approval and real-world CO₂ emissions since the adoption of CO₂ standards in the EU in 2009 and 2022. WLTP CO₂ emissions in 2022 were converted to NEDC-equivalent values using a conversion factor of 1.21.

The analysis is based on official CO₂ emission data reported by the European Environment Agency (EEA) combined with real-world fuel-consumption information from more than 160,000 combustion engine and conventional hybrid cars reported by consumers on the spritmonitor.de platform.

The European Commission has been tasked through the CO₂ standards regulation with developing a mechanism or process that prevents this gap from growing. For this purpose, real-world fuel consumption data recorded by on-board fuel and energy consumption monitoring (OBFCM) devices should be used. However, while the availability of OBFCM data will allow the implementation of such a mechanism by 2027, regulators foresee this measure starting in 2030.

Based on the analysis, the authors offer the following recommendations to prevent the gap from growing and mitigate excess CO₂ emissions caused by a growing gap, using reliable and transparent data:

• The European Commission could develop a mechanism that prevents further growth of the gap, and a proposal for such a mechanism is provided in this paper. The described mechanism intends to both mitigate the growing gap and compensate for the excess real-world CO2 emissions released prior to the introduction of a correction mechanism.
• The availability of OBFCM real-world consumption data would support applying the correction mechanism starting in 2027.
• Real-world fuel consumption estimates could be displayed on vehicle efficiency labels for consumers.
• Anonymized OBFCM data could be made publicly available.
• OBFCM could be made mandatory for electric vehicles to ensure the availability of real-world energy consumption data.

Read more in our press release in German and English.

The post  On the way to ‘real-world’ CO2 values? The European passenger car market after 5 years of WLTP appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

Real-world refueling records for WLTP type-approved vehicles show a CO₂ gap of 14% compared to the type-approval value. This is compared to a high of around 40% for NEDC type-approved vehicles. In other words, WLTP type-approved vehicles from the year 2018, on average, emit about 14% more CO₂ under real-world driving conditions than suggested by the official WLTP figures and therefore come with a significantly more realistic indication of their behavior than NEDC type-approved vehicles of the same year.

However, due to the small amount of data available in 2018, these results should be regarded only as preliminary findings and should not be extrapolated to future years. It also is likely that the observed average WLTP-NEDC CO₂ ratio and the average real-world gap will notably change for vehicles type-approved from 2019 onward due to a revision of the WLTP-NEDC correlation procedure, as well as provisions in the post-2020 CO₂ standards, aiming to close earlier regulatory loopholes that allowed and may have incentivized manufacturers to artificially increase the WLTP-NEDC CO₂ ratio.

Based on this analysis, policymakers should take a number of steps to ensure CO₂ emissions are controlled as the regulations intended. These include:

• Increasing data transparency by making both the measured and declared CO₂ values of vehicles publicly accessible.
• Continuing to monitor type-approval NEDC and WLTP values and closely scrutinizing the underlying reasons for the observed WLTP-NEDC CO₂ ratio.
• Implementing correction mechanisms that would lower a manufacturer target value from 2021 onward in case an intentional inflation of the WLTP-NEDC CO₂ ratio is observed.
• Ensuring real-word CO₂ reduction by assessing how data from fuel consumption meters may be used to prevent the real-world gap from growing, and the feasibility of adjusting each manufacturer’s average CO₂ emissions to its real-world performance.

The post On the way to “real-world” CO2 values: The European passenger car market in its first year after introducing the WLTP appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

The update shows that in 2017, for the first time in years, the average gap between official fuel consumption figures and actual fuel use for new cars in the EU did not increase, but rather stabilized at 39 percent. Despite the recent slowdown, the discrepancy between official measurements of vehicle efficiency and actual performance of new cars in everyday driving has more than quadrupled since 2001.

Between 2001 and 2017, average official CO₂ emission values of new European cars decreased from 170 g/km to 119 g/km over the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC), a 30 per cent decline. But the official CO₂ emission values are determined in a controlled laboratory environment. The gap between real-world and official CO₂ emission values grew steadily between the early 2000s and 2016, effectively cancelling out two-thirds of the on-paper efficiency improvements since 2001.

For an average consumer, the current gap level translates into unexpected fuel expenses of approximately 400 euros per year. Because vehicle taxation schemes and incentive schemes for low-carbon cars are based on official CO₂ values, the gap may also lead to significant losses of tax revenue and misallocation of public funds.

A number of reasons may have contributed to the change in the previous upward trend in the gap. There is currently limited regulatory pressure on car makers to increase vehicle efficiency, as the next set of CO₂ targets will not apply until 2020. Furthermore, increased scrutiny on the real-world performance of vehicles may have acted as a deterrent to further test optimization. The decline in diesel shares of new car registrations also plays a role in the stabilization of the gap, as diesel vehicles tend to exhibit a higher gap than their gasoline counterparts.

The WLTP test procedure, introduced for new vehicle types in September 2017, will likely produce more realistic CO₂ emission values. But there are indications that a substantial divergence could remain in future years. In response, as part of the 2025 and 2030 CO₂ standards, the European Commission is required to assess how data from fuel consumption meters can be used to prevent the real-world gap from growing, by June 2023 at the latest. In 2027, the European Commission must furthermore assess the feasibility of adjusting each manufacturer’s average CO₂ emissions for its real-world performance, beginning in 2030.

View or download (PDF) the press release (English, German).

The post From laboratory to road: A 2018 update appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

Since 2001, average official CO2 emission values of new European passenger cars have decreased by 30%. The rate of decline tripled after the EU introduced CO2 emission standards in 2009.

But the official CO2 emission values are determined by laboratory tests. As previous From Laboratory to Road studies, published in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016, showed, the gap between real-world and official CO2 emission values increased over time and effectively cancelled out two-thirds of the on-paper efficiency improvements since 2001.

For an average consumer, the gap now translates into additional fuel expenses on the order of 400 euros per year. Because vehicle taxation schemes and incentive schemes for low-carbon cars are based on official CO2 values, the gap may also lead to significant losses of tax revenue and misallocation of public funds.

This 2017 update of From Laboratory to Road study highlights the urgent need for improved test procedures and regulatory enforcement. The EU began to phase in a new test procedure, the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), in September 2017. While it is expected to reduce the gap, the WLTP has its own shortcomings and should therefore be complemented by other forms of vehicle testing: random conformity testing of production vehicles by independent bodies and on-road testing of CO2 emissions. Large-scale collection of real-world fuel consumption measurements is needed to monitor progress.

View or download (PDF) the press release (English, German).

The post From laboratory to road: A 2017 update appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called label values, which are designed to represent real-world conditions, offered the most realistic fuel consumption figures in the analysis, with virtually no gap at all in 2014. These label values show that it is possible to produce realistic point estimates of fuel consumption that, on average, match what consumers experience on the road.

The ICCT monitors the gap between real-world and official CO₂ emission values of new European passenger cars in the From Laboratory to Road series. This study extends the analysis beyond the borders of Europe, yielding a number of valuable policy insights.

A side-by-side comparison of policies and divergence estimates highlights some aspects that are key to effective fuel efficiency standards:

• Independent retesting: Independent retesting of laboratory measurements was identified as a best practice. All markets have some form of compliance program in place, but the United States has the most extensive program, covering the full lifetime of vehicles by verifying coastdown measurements, testing production-line vehicles, and conducting in-use surveillance tests.
• Policy enforcement: The comparatively low growth in the U.S. gap indicates that stringent policy enforcement, such as levying penalties on manufacturers that misstate fuel economy values, acts as a deterrent to gaming. In contrast, the EU has seen the largest growth in the gap from 2001 to 2014 and lacks a central authority to issue vehicle recalls and to impose financial penalties.
• Real-world standards: CO₂ and fuel economy standards should be based on test values that, on average, correspond to real-world measurements. Policies that fail to account for the divergence will overestimate fuel savings and climate change mitigation benefits. Using an adjustment factor to approximate on-road values, as is done in the United States, is an approach that does not require extensive overhauls of vehicle testing procedures to account for real-world CO₂ emissions. Other approaches for measuring on-road emissions is using portable emissions measurement system equipment. More realistic test cycles and more rigorous procedures for laboratory testing could also furnish more realistic CO₂ values.
• Real-world measurements: Measuring real-world fuel consumption is a key recommendation because these data are needed to evaluate the efficacy of CO₂ and fuel economy standards. Bulk on-road fuel consumption data can be measured using web services. As the only government-run example of such services, the MyMPG tool on FuelEconomy.gov stands out as a best-practice example. These data can be used to estimate fleet-wide real-world CO₂ emission values and gauge policy impacts. Using data loggers connected to vehicles’ on-board diagnostics ports is another option for real-world fuel consumption data collection. The growing divergence between official and on-road CO₂ emission values is troubling because it represents a decoupling of regulated metrics and real-world impacts. Recommendations presented in this study illustrate that solutions are available to close or at least manage the gap.

The growing divergence between official and on-road CO₂ emission values is troubling because it represents a decoupling of regulated metrics and real-world impacts. Recommendations presented in this study illustrate that solutions are available to close or at least manage the gap.

The post From laboratory to road international: A comparison of official and real-world fuel consumption and CO2 values for passenger cars in Europe, the United States, China, and Japan appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

Since 2001 average official CO₂ emission values of new European passenger cars have decreased by 29%. The rate of decline quadrupled after the EU introduced CO₂ emission standards in 2009.

But the official vehicle CO₂ emission values are determined by laboratory tests. As previous “From Laboratory to Road” reports, published in 2013, 2014, and 2015, showed, there is a gap between real-world and official CO₂ values that has been increasing over time.

For an average consumer the gap now translates into additional fuel expenses on the order of €450 per year. Since vehicle taxation schemes and incentive schemes for low-carbon cars are based on official CO₂ values, the gap may also lead to significant losses of tax revenue and a misallocation of public funds.

This update discusses a number of reasons for the increasing gap. Flexibilities in the type-approval procedure allow for unrealistically low driving resistances and unrepresentative conditions during laboratory testing (these flexibilities account for the majority of the gap in 2015). Fuel-saving technologies such as stop/start systems and hybrid powertrains also prove more effective at reducing CO₂ emissions during laboratory testing than during real-world driving. Lastly, the type-approval process fails to take into consideration auxiliary devices such as air conditioning and entertainment systems. These devices consume energy during real-world driving and thus contribute to the gap.

The key implication of the study is the urgent need for improved test procedures. While a new type-approval procedure, the Worldwide harmonized Light vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP), will be introduced in the EU in 2017, the WLTP will not close the gap on its own. On-road tests, similar to the Real Driving Emissions (RDE) test procedure for air pollutants, and in-use conformity tests of randomly selected production vehicles should also be introduced.

View or download (PDF) the press release.

The post From laboratory to road: A 2016 update appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

Since 2001 average type-approval CO₂ emission values of new European passenger cars have decreased by 27 percent. The rate of decline quadrupled after the EU introduced CO₂ emission standards in 2009.

But the official vehicle CO₂ emission values are determined by laboratory tests. As previous “From Laboratory to Road” reports, published in 2013 and 2014, showed, there is a gap between the real-world and official CO₂ values that has been increasing over time.

For an average consumer the gap now translates into additional fuel expenses on the order of €450 per year. Since vehicle-taxation schemes and incentive schemes for low-carbon cars are based on official CO₂ values, the gap may also lead to significant losses of tax revenue and a misallocation of public funds.

This update identifes a number of reasons for the increasing gap. Flexibilities in the type-approval procedure allow for unrealistically low driving resistances and unrepresentative conditions during laboratory testing (these flexibilities account for the majority of the gap in 2014). Fuel-saving technologies such as stop-start systems and hybrid powertrains also prove more effective at reducing CO₂ emissions during laboratory testing than during real-world driving. Lastly, the type-approval process fails to take into consideration auxiliary devices such as air conditioning and entertainment systems. These devices consume energy during real-world driving and thus contribute to the gap.

The key implication of the study is the urgent need for improved test procedures. While a new type-approval procedure, the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP), will be introduced in the EU in 2017, the WLTP will not close the gap on its own. On-road tests, similar to the Real-Driving Emissions (RDE) test procedure for air pollutants, and in-use conformity tests of randomly selected production vehicles should also be introduced.

The post From laboratory to road: A 2015 update appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

But beneath this apparent success there is cause for concern. The basis for the regulation are results obtained under laboratory conditions using the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)—the so-called certification or “type-approval” values. To make real progress, however, the results recorded in the laboratory must translate dependably into CO₂ reductions and fuel-consumption savings experienced on the road.

This study, which builds on and extends an analysis begun in 2012 and continued in 2013, demonstrates that the year-over-year improvements reported via the type-approval tests are not reliably matched in everyday driving—and that the gap between fuel consumption measured under laboratory settings and real-world road conditions is getting wider.

The study analyzes eight different data sets covering as many as 13 model years, including both private and company cars, from Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, and Switzerland—fuel consumption and CO₂ emission data from more than half a million vehicles in total. It finds that the average discrepancy between type-approval and on-road CO₂ emissions increased from around 8 percent in 2001 to about 38 percent in 2013. The increase in recent years was especially steep.

For an average consumer, the discrepancy translates into increased fuel costs on the order of €450 per year. Since most EU member states base their vehicle taxation schemes at least partly on type-approval CO₂ emissions, it implies significant loss of tax revenues. And it more than halves the reductions in CO₂ emissions from passenger cars officially achieved by the EU over the past ten years.

The study underscores the importance of implementing the new Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), a more appropriate test that will produce more realistic type-approval values. The WLTP was adopted in March 2014, and the European Commission is currently preparing its implementation for the type-approval of new cars in the European Union from 2017 on. At the same time, the study highlights the need to complement the WLTP with additional measures—most importantly, some form of in-service conformity testing, to ensure that reasonable emission values are achieved not for a single test vehicle alone but for any car sold to a consumer and driven on the road.

The post From laboratory to road: A 2014 update appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.

This analysis, aggregating several large sets of on-road driving data from various European countries, shows that that expected correspondence between type-approval and real-world values is not as strong as it should be, and is getting progressively weaker. While the average discrepancy between type-approval and on-road CO₂ emissions was below 10 percent in 2001, by 2011 it had increased to around 25 percent.

The observed increase of the gap is most likely due to a combination of factors:

• increasing application of technologies that show a higher benefit in type-approval tests than under real-world driving conditions (for example, start-stop technology)
• increasing use of ‘flexibilities’ (permitted variances) in the type-approval procedure (for example, during coast-down testing)
• external factors changing over time (for example, increased use of air conditioning)

The increase in the gap was especially pronounced after 2007–2008, when a number of European Union Member States switched to a CO₂-based vehicle taxation system and a mandatory EU CO₂ regulation for new cars was introduced.

The public policy implications are significant. The growing gap between reported efficiencies and actual driving experience halves the expected benefits of Europe’s passenger vehicle CO₂ regulations. It creates a risk that consumers will lose faith in type-approval fuel consumption values, which in turn may undermine government efforts to encourage the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles through labeling and tax policy. For tax authorities, the gap between type-approval and real-world CO₂ values translates into a gap between actual and potential revenues from vehicle taxes. And increasing discrepancies between type-approval and on-road CO₂ emissions can result in a competitive disadvantage for some vehicle manufacturers, as it tilts the playing field.

The post From Laboratory to Road appeared first on International Council on Clean Transportation.