According to a study, the difference between manufacturer information and the actual CO2 emissions of new cars has increased significantly. Experts see politics as being required.
According to a study by the environmental research association ICCT, the difference between manufacturer information and actual CO2 emissions for new cars has increased. According to the experts, the values in real operation in 2022 were on average 14.1 percent higher than those stated by the car manufacturers. In 2018 the difference was an average of 7.7 percent.
For the analysis, the researchers compared official CO2 emissions data from the European Environment Agency (EEA) with real consumption data from more than 160,000 cars. The latter then served as a measure of actual CO2 emissions. The vehicle types examined were combustion engines and conventional hybrid vehicles.
Growing differences should counteracted become
The reason for the differences: The official CO2 emissions of new vehicle models are determined in a controlled laboratory environment. For this purpose, the WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicles Test Procedure) was introduced in the European Union in 2017. This is more thorough than the previous NEDC procedure and therefore provides more realistic values for pollutant emissions and fuel consumption.
In the first year after the changeover, the difference between the laboratory and real values fell from 32.7 percent to 7.7 percent. Now the distance increases again afterwards. According to ICCT senior scientist and co-author Jan Dornoff, this trend undermines EU efforts to reduce transport-related CO2 emissions through stricter targets. Unless countermeasures are taken, the official CO2 emission values will increasingly lose their relevance to actual emissions.
Since 2010, the EU Passenger Car CO2 Regulation has required car manufacturers to report the CO2 emissions of their vehicles and pay taxes if they exceed certain limits. New cars should be operated in a climate-neutral manner by 2035.
A Correction mechanism would be helpful
According to the study authors, official CO2 emissions values fell by around 7.3 percent between 2018 and 2022. In real operation on the road, only less than a third of the reduction of 2.3 percent remained. To compensate for this, the researchers suggest using the data from the consumption measuring devices that have been required in new vehicles since the beginning of 2021.
ICCT Managing Director Peter Mock said: “This allows a correction mechanism to be set up that ensures that the official CO2 emissions values that manufacturers must meet in the coming years are updated so that they actually correspond to those originally intended and stipulated by law meet reduction targets.”
The researchers also assume that the development of CO2 emissions from the new car fleet in Germany is also a good indicator of developments at EU level. In the study, they justify this, among other things, by the fact that the German vehicle market is the largest in Europe and the fleet composition for non-electric cars largely corresponds to the EU average.