Improvement of transparency in the field of car consumption
7.11.2014
Question for written answer E-008962-14
to the Commission
Rule 130
Luděk Niedermayer (PPE)
The growing gap between the ‘official consumption of passenger cars’ (based on the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)) and the real experience of drivers or even the real results for similar cars according to different methodologies (in the USA for example) is undermining the credibility of EU regulation and calling in question the progress that was made partly due to this regulation.
Car producers are now allowed to use ‘practices’ that make it easier for them to register a low level of official consumption which is impossible to reach in ‘real life’. Some of these measures were recently described in the ‘Mind the Gap’ report[1].
1. Is the Commission ready to take measures to at least close these gaps, which are hard to justify for car users and are now undermining the credibility of the system?
2. Following the failure to reach the new worldwide harmonised light vehicles test procedure (WLTP) standard, are there any plans to come up with a new, better methodology, at least in the EU?
3. While we have EU standards for consumption measurement, the rules for the assignment of an ‘energy life cycle’ for cars vary across the Member States, which means that energy life cycle is based on different values in different Member States, leading to different results that are very hard for consumers to understand. How will the Commission tackle this issue?
- [1] http://www.transportenvironment.org/publications/mind-gap-why-official-car-fuel-economy-figures-don%E2%80%99t-match-reality