The legal standards governing emissions have become increasingly complex and opaque in recent years. Our whitepaper Emissions standards for vehicles: Euro 6, WLTP, Vecto and Co. provides an overview of the history of these regulations, the status in 2021, and upcoming changes. In addition to passenger cars, we cover light and heavy commercial vehicles.
With the current and future limit values, European legislators are setting the bar high for new vehicles. However, the ambitious requirements also open up opportunities for manufacturers. More realistic test procedures favor vehicles with low-emission powertrains. For example, the RDE (Real Driving Emission) method can be used to determine emissions during practical driving. To determine the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions of heavy commercial vehicles, the EU Commission publishes the simulation tool Vecto. Vecto can be adapted to the respective state of the art and enables direct comparison between different vehicle configurations.
Further tightening of fleet targets and limits is to be expected. In order to survive in global competition, vehicle manufacturers must prepare for the foreseeable development at an early stage and take targeted action.
