The push being made by the European Commission’s Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles (TCMV) for Real Driving Emissions (RDE) testing requirements is continuing to move forward, based on recent news.
Member states of the TCMV recently gave support to the proposal — which has been in development since all the way back in January 2011. (Who said government moved slowly?) The current target date for implementation is 2017, with implementation coming as part of the EU6c Emission Regulation.
To provide some further context here, the goal of implementing RDE testing requirements is to make emissions measurements far closer to the actual emissions that result from real-world driving. As it stands now, emissions standards are fairly easily gamed by manufacturers. Real-world emissions generally far exceed those claimed by manufacturers (especially with regard to diesel vehicles, and especially with regard to NOx and particulate matter emissions), as much recent research has shown.
A rebuttal (of sorts) recently came from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which referred to the RDE regulation proposal as being “very incomplete.”
The Secretary General of the ACEA, Erik Jonnaert, commented: “ACEA calls on the Commission to urgently deliver a complete proposal for Real Driving Emissions by June or July at the latest for a positive decision in the regulatory committee. We need to make more progress on clarifying all testing conditions to ensure a robust RDE regulation could commence from September 2017. Automobile manufacturers remain concerned about the piecemeal approach the Commission is taking in preparing this proposal. This is not smart regulation. We need clarity in advance so that we can plan the development and design of vehicles in line with the new requirements.”