A new, more realistic EU fuel economy test is set to be agreed around 2014 and introduced in 2020.
Few details are known yet, but the plan was revealed as part of the high-level Cars 21 summit held last week between car industry bosses and EU officials.
One of the messages from the summit was that “a new driving test cycle and test procedure for measuring fuel consumption and emissions should be developed that is more representative of real-world driving”.
The 2020 date is linked to the next stage of the fleet-average CO2 figure, which will drop to 95g/km by 2020.
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nice to see the EU acting
nice to see the EU acting quickly, only 8 years to wait for a new test to come in!
And if the new test is more accurate wont that mean CO2 outputs go up as a result? At the same time we are expecting to see an average of only 95g/km! If they keep the 95g/km target it will surely be even more difficult to reach if the test is more realistic.
Lets hope the next test doesnt artificially favour electric cars, hybrids, turbos, auto etc. perhaps in the end they will realise that for whole life costs of a car its best to have a sensibly big naturally aspirated petrol engine and a manual box, the very type of car its getting very hard to buy these days because of makers trying to pass the current test.
yeah, spot on artill
couldnt agree more.
I reckon manual gearboxes will only be in 'classic' cars by then, a new generation of drivers will probably have been weened on nothing but paddle autos unfortunately. Its likely by then that life cycle environmental cost will be a common parameter but currently long cycles are in direct contradiction to shareholders aspirations of high sales and profit alas...something needs to change