COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) 2018/1832 of 5 November 2018 amending Directive 2007/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, Commission Regulation (EC) No 692/2008 and Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1151 for the purpose of improving the emission type approval tests and procedures for light passenger and commercial vehicles, including those for in-service conformity and real-driving emissions and introducing devices for monitoring the consumption of fuel and electric energy (Text with EEA relevance)

(1)

Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 is a separate act under the type-approval procedure laid down by Directive 2007/46/EC. It requires new light passenger and commercial vehicles to comply with certain emission limits and lays down additional requirements on access to vehicle repair and maintenance information. The specific technical provisions necessary to implement that Regulation are contained in Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/1151 (3), which replaces and repeals Commission Regulation (EC) No 692/2008 (4).

(2)

Some of the effects of Commission Regulation (EC) No 692/2008 remain until it is repealed as from 1 January 2022. However, it is necessary to clarify that such effects include the possibility to request extensions of existing type-approvals granted under this Regulation.

(3)

By Regulation (EU) 2017/1151, a new regulatory test procedure implementing the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) was introduced into Union legislation. The WLTP contains stricter and more detailed conditions for the execution of the emissions tests at type approval.

(4)

In addition, by Commission Regulations (EU) 2016/427 (5), (EU) 2016/646 (6) and (EU) 2017/1154 (7) a new methodology for testing vehicle emissions in real-driving conditions, the RDE test procedure, was introduced.

(5)

In order for the WLTP test to be possible, some margin of tolerance is necessary. However, the test tolerance should not be exploited to obtain results different from those associated with the execution of the test at set-point conditions. Therefore, in order to provide a level playing field among different vehicle manufacturers and to ensure that the measured CO2 and fuel consumption values are more in line with real life, a method to normalise the impact of specific test tolerances on CO2 and fuel consumption test results should be introduced.

(6)

The fuel and/or electric energy consumption values resulting from the regulatory laboratory test procedures should be complemented by information on the vehicles' average real-world consumption when used on the road. Such information, once anonymised, collected and aggregated, is essential for assessing that the regulatory test procedures adequately reflect the average real world CO2 emissions as well as the fuel and/or electric energy consumed. Moreover, the availability at the vehicle of instantaneous fuel consumption information should facilitate on-road testing.

(7)

To ensure a timely assessment of the representativeness of the new regulatory test procedures, in particular for vehicles with large market shares, the scope of the new requirements for on-board fuel consumption monitoring should be in a first instance limited to conventional and hybrid vehicles running on liquid fuels and to plug-in hybrid vehicles, as these are to-date the only powertrains covered by corresponding technical standards.

(8)

The quantity of fuel and/or electric energy used is already being determined and stored on board of most new vehicles; however, the devices presently used to monitor this information are not subject to standardised requirements. In order to ensure that the data provided by these devices are accessible and may serve as a harmonised basis for a comparison between different vehicle categories and manufacturers, basic type-approval requirements with regard to the devices should be laid down.

(9)

Regulation (EU) 2016/646 introduced the requirement for the manufacturers to declare the use of auxiliary emission strategies. In addition, Regulation (EU) 2017/1154 increased the supervision of emission strategies by the type approval authorities. However, the application of those requirements has highlighted the need to harmonise the application of the rules on auxiliary emission strategies by the different type approval authorities. Therefore it is appropriate to lay down a common format for the extended documentation package and a common methodology for the assessment of auxiliary emission strategies.

(10)

The decision to allow access, if requested, to the manufacturer's extended documentation package should be left to the national authorities and therefore the confidentiality clause linked to this document should be deleted from Regulation (EU) 2017/1151. This deletion should be without prejudice to the uniform application of the legislation throughout the Union, as well as the possibility for all parties to access all relevant information for conducting RDE testing.

(11)

After the introduction of the RDE tests at the stage of type approval, it is now necessary to update the rules on in-service conformity checks in order to ensure that the real driving emissions are also effectively limited during the normal life of the vehicles under normal conditions of use.

(12)

The application of the new RDE during in-service conformity checks will require more resources for the performance of the in-service conformity testing of a vehicle and the evaluation of its results. In order to balance the need to perform effective in-service conformity tests with the increased testing burden, the maximum number of vehicles in a statistical sample and the pass and fail criteria for the sample applicable to all in-service conformity testing should be adapted.

(13)

In-service conformity checks currently cover only pollutant emissions measured through the Type 1 test. However, in order to ensure that the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 715/2007 are met, they should be extended to tailpipe and evaporative emissions. Therefore, Type 4 and Type 6 tests should be introduced for the purposes of in-service conformity tests. Due to the cost and complexity of such tests, they should remain optional.

(14)

A review of the current in-service conformity tests, performed by the manufacturers, revealed that very few fails were reported to type approval authorities although recall campaigns and other voluntary actions related to emissions were implemented by the manufacturers. Therefore, it is necessary to introduce more transparency and control in the in-service conformity checks.

(15)

In order to control the in-service conformity process more effectively, type approval authorities should be responsible for performing tests and checks on a percentage of the approved vehicle types each year.

(16)

In order to facilitate the information flows generated by in-service conformity testing, as well as to assist type-approval authorities in the decision making process, an electronic platform should be developed by the Commission.

(17)

In order to improve the vehicle selection process for the testing by type-approval authorities, information is needed that could identify potential problems and vehicle types with high emissions. Remote sensing, simplified on-board emissions monitoring systems (SEMS) and testing with portable emission measurement systems (PEMS) should be recognised as valid tools for providing information to the type-approval authorities that can guide the selection of vehicles to test.

(18)

Ensuring the quality of the in-service conformity tests is essential. It is therefore necessary to lay down the rules on the accreditation of testing laboratories.

(19)

In order to allow testing, all relevant information needs to be publicly accessible. In addition, some of the information needed for the performance of in-service conformity checks should be easily available and should therefore be indicated in the certificate of conformity.

(20)

In order to increase the transparency of the in-service conformity process, type approval authorities should be required to publish an annual report with the results of their in-service conformity checks.

(21)

The methodologies prescribed in order to ensure that only trips made under normal conditions be considered valid RDE tests led to too many invalid tests and should therefore be reviewed and simplified.

(22)

A review of the methodologies for the evaluation of the pollutant emissions of a valid trip showed that the results of the two methods currently allowed are not consistent. A new simple and transparent methodology should therefore be laid down. The evaluation factors used in the new methodology should be kept under constant assessment by the Commission in order to reflect the actual state of the technology.

(23)

The use of plug-in hybrids, which are used partly in electric mode and partly with the internal combustion engine, should be duly taken into account for the purposes of RDE testing and therefore the calculated RDE emissions should reflect that advantage.

(24)

A new evaporative emissions test procedure has been developed at the level of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) which takes into account the technological progress in the control of evaporative emissions from petrol (gasoline) vehicles, adapts that procedure to the WLTP test procedure and introduces new provisions for sealed tanks. It is therefore appropriate to update the current Union rules on evaporative emissions tests to reflect the changes at the level of the UN/ECE.

(25)

Also under the auspices of the UN/ECE, the WLTP test procedure has been further improved and complemented with a series of new elements, including alternative ways to measure the road load parameters of a vehicle, more clear provisions for bi-fuel vehicles, improvements of the CO2 interpolation method, updates related to dual-axis dynamometer requirements and tyre rolling resistances. Those new developments should now be incorporated into Union legislation.

(26)

The practical experience with the application of the WLTP since its mandatory introduction for new vehicle types in the Union on 1 September 2017 has shown that this procedure should be further adapted to the Union type-approval system, in particular as regards the information to be included in the relevant documentation.

(27)

The changes in the type-approval documentation resulting from the amendments in this Regulation need to be reflected also in the certificate of conformity and the whole vehicle type-approval documentation in Directive 2007/46/EC.

(28)

It is therefore appropriate to amend Regulation (EU) 2017/1151, Regulation (EC) No 692/2008 and Directive 2007/46/EC accordingly.

(29)

The measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Technical Committee — Motor Vehicles,

(1)

Article 2 is amended as follows:

(2)

Article 3 is amended as follows:

(3)

the following Article 4a is inserted:

(4)

Article 5 is amended as follows:

(5)

Article 9 is amended as follows:

(6)

Article 15 is amended as follows:

(7)

Article 18bis is deleted;

(8)

Annex I is amended as set out in Annex I to this Regulation;

(9)

Annex II is amended as set out in Annex II to this Regulation;

(10)

Annex IIIA is amended as set out in Annex III to this Regulation;

(11)

in Annex V, point 2.3 is replaced by the following:

(12)

Annex VI is replaced by the text in Annex IV to this Regulation;

(13)

Annex VII is amended as follows:

(14)

in Annex VIII, point 3.3 is replaced by the following:

(15)

Annex IX is amended as set out in Annex V to this Regulation;

(16)

Annex XI is replaced by the text in Annex VI to this Regulation;

(17)

Annex XII is amended as set out in Annex VII to this Regulation;

(18)

in Annex XIV, in Appendix 1, the words ‘Annex I, Section 2.3.1 and 2.3.5 of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1151’ are replaced by the words ‘Annex I, Section 2.3.1 and 2.3.4 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1151’;

(19)

Annex XVI is replaced by the text in Annex VIII to this Regulation;

(20)

Annex XXI is amended as set out in Annex IX to this Regulation;

(21)

Annex XXII, as set out in Annex X to this Regulation, is added.

(1)

in the first subparagraph of Article 16a of Regulation (EC) No 692/2008, the following point (d) is added:

(2)

in Annex 1, Appendix 3 the following point 3.2.12.2.5.7 is added:

(3)

in Annex XII, point 4.4 is deleted.