EU: ‘In-service verification’ of CO2 emissions for HDV

 

The EU Commission has published a draft delegated regulation concerning the verification procedure of CO2 emissions from heavy-duty vehicles (lorries and tractors).

Approval authorities and vehicle manufacturers must ensure that the CO2 emissions recorded in vehicle documents (e.g. certificate of conformity or individual approval certificate) correspond to test results for that vehicle.

This initiative sets the criteria for procedures to check this, through ‘in-service verification’. These procedures should make it possible to detect any strategy used to artificially improve the vehicles’ CO2 performance or fuel consumption in the type-approval test.

The recorded CO2 emissions and fuel consumption figures in the customer information file need validation through the testing procedures outlined in Regulation (EU) 2017/2400. However, to confirm the absence of strategies artificially enhancing the vehicle’s performance during tests or in the calculations for certifying CO2 emissions and fuel consumption, supplementary and specific tests must also be conducted.

To minimize the risk of a conflict of interest, a technical service uninvolved in the certification tests for CO2 emissions and fuel consumption properties of relevant vehicle components, separate technical units, and systems should conduct the in-service verification tests. Air drag tests must take place either at the technical service’s facility or an accredited laboratory, excluding witness testing at the manufacturer’s facility.

To enable the approval authority to draw conclusions for all relevant vehicles based on sampled test results, it is essential to establish an appropriate statistical evaluation method. Manufacturers are responsible for ensuring that the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption values in customer information files align with the actual in-service performance of vehicles, a verification to be conducted by the approval authority. To fund these in-service verification activities adequately, the approval authority should levy proportional fees on manufacturers. To minimize testing expenses and burdens, whenever feasible and suitable, the same vehicles or tests should be employed for both in-service verification of CO2 emissions and conformity checks for pollutant emissions.

The full text of the draft is available HERE.

To find out more about vehicle regulations and vehicle compliance in the EU, please contact the Institute for Global Automotive Regulatory Research directly.