©Nick ter Haar via Unsplash

The European emission standards regulate the pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions of passenger cars and commercial vehicles in the context of type approval and periodic emissions testing in the European area. The European Commission is now planning the successor to the currently applicable emissions standard. With the Post Euro 6/VI emissions regulation the European Commission can pioneer and further reduce pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions in road transport. To achieve this, however, the new regulations will have to take more account of emissions than before over the entire service life of a vehicle. To this end, the exhaust emissions test must be optimised as part of periodic technical monitoring. The EU Commission's announcements  in the context of the planned impact assessment to date are not sufficient for this. They a lack of a clear commitment that emission defects in motor vehicles must be treated at the same level as safety defects. This is because their damage potential, even if not directly visible, is actually much higher.

There is a need for action in the following areas:

• Periodic emissions testing makes a significant contribution to environmental and climate protection. It ensures that the emission behaviour of motor vehicles does not deteriorate significantly over the entire period of use.
• Emission defects, such as damage, aging, wear and tear and unauthorized manipulation or deactivation of emission-critical systems must be recognized as safety defects. Road safety and environmental compatibility are inseparably linked.
• Many pollutant emissions from motor vehicles are unregulated but do have negative effects on health and the environment. Here, it is important to find a technology-neutral approach to the valid assessment of all relevant pollutants, such as micro-particles, ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4) and formaldehydes.
• Nitrogen oxide emissions are a fundamental problem in the European Union. For this reason, it would appear necessary to integrate the monitoring of NOx emissions into the periodic exhaust emissions test in future.

The complete recommendations for action by the TÜV association, DEKRA, the ASA association and ZDK are summarised in the industry position paper below.