In the United States, automotive companies disclose their complete fuel calibration processes to authorities and regulatory agencies. This is not so in Europe, and it creates a division between real-world and tested fuel economies.
Opel has recently called for greater transparency between calibration processes and regulatory agencies, and heightened calls for harmony between North American and European emissions tests and ratings, something General Motors itself has proposed, too.
To show Opel’s commitment to being upfront with its emissions testings and policies, the brand will begin voluntarily publishing numbers recorded under the Worldwide Harmonized Light Duty Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), a fuel cycle that will eventually replace the current New European Driving Cycle (NEDC).
The WLTP provides a much closer read to real-world fuel economy, and has been developed through a set of stringent tests to mimic fuel consumption and CO2 emissions in real-life road traffic.
Adding to Opel’s announcement is the future implementation of SCR technology, which it plans to utilize very soon with its already Euro 6 compliant engines. In an effort to reduce NOx emissions further, the technology will provide greater standards during Real Driving Emissions testing, and falls in line with future RDE calls for cleaner vehicles.
“Our analyses in the last months show that we have no devices that tell us if our vehicles are in a test cycle or not. Nevertheless, we also believe that we are capable of further improving the effectiveness of reduction of oxides of nitrogen emissions from our Euro 6 diesels with SCR technology and so we are making an improvement towards future RDE specifications,” said Opel CEO, Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann. “We will use SCR as the mainstream system for Euro 6 diesel going forward as we continue to develop improved technologies to explore higher efficiencies.”
Comment
This is quite refreshing to see. All it takes is one manufacturer to shout out “we are not cheating the system” and many will follow.
Although it is good to see the NEDC fizzling out of existence, because of its loopholes which in tern allowed manufactures to cheat the system and effectively allow them to build cars that performed well under testing, rather than real life driving condition, it still begs the questions, how much of an improvement will the WLTP be? I have no doubt that it will be a big improvement in comparison, but I think the main question is, how much of an improvement will it actually be?
I feel that until cars are physically tested on the road, it will become very difficult to simulate their mpg and CO2 figures accurately. For example, how can you test for cornering, climbing hills and the real start stop conditions in urban areas etc? Testing the cars on the road would also practically eliminate any chances of manufactures manipulating the test, such as over inflating tyres etc. Why aren’t they testing these cars on the roads?
Note to the author: I also found this interesting infographic based on Which’s? finding that might be of interest http://www.vanleasing.com/why-vehicles-dont-reach-mpg.html