Car brands that operate in Europe will soon be facing even stricter regulations as the second phase of WLTP (Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) kicks in this coming September with expanded tests applied to new cars and even selected customer vehicles with mileage up to 100,000 km.
The new phase will no doubt stretch the resources of car makers given that the transition from NEDC to WLTP was anything but smooth last year. To recap, WLTP was a long overdue update to regulations which gave consumers more accurate information (e.g. fuel efficiency and emissions) based on real-world driving data as opposed to NEDC, a standard introduced back in the 1980s. If you have had great difficulty achieving the fuel efficiency rating derived from NEDC, you wouldn’t be alone.
The new additions to WLTP include an evaporation test that measures what a vehicle emits (e.g. petrol vapours) when stationary and also random tests to be carried out on customer vehicles with mileage up to 100,000 km. Manufacturers such as Volkswagen will be deploying mobile labs so that measurements can be taken on-site. Meanwhile in Malaysia, we are still running largely on Euro 2M-compliant petrol with Euro 4M to be implemented by 1st January 2020. Let’s hope there will be no more postponements.
