Study finds 12-30% fuel consumption gap between certified and real-world use in China
02 January 2019
A team from the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation (iCET) reports that while average certified fuel consumption (FC) decreased by 15% between 2008 and 2017, real-world FC remained unchanged, resulting in a fuel consumption gap increase from 12% to 30%. The paper is published in the journal Energy Policy.
The gap between certified and real-world passenger vehicle emissions is widening and has driven vehicle policy transitions in the US and in Europe, particularly in the wake of emissions measurement scandals.
Since carbon dioxide emissions are highly correlated with fuel consumption (FC), fuel consumption regulation is a useful policy instrument to combat climate change. Although the Chinese government set fuel economy standards in 2004, like many countries it does not conduct testing to confirm real-world FC rates comply with the standards.
—Dror et al.
The team used a dataset of real-world FC measurements self-reported by more than 1 million vehicle owners in China between 2008 and 2017 through a dedicated mobile phone application.
By comparing this user-generated FC data with FC certification data, the researchers identified a FC gap and its characteristics, including: vehicle model year, transmission type, segment, weight bin, and market share.
The paper concludes that use of a local test-cycle, authoritative data collection, and stronger enforcement may be useful policy tools for reducing China’s real-world vehicle energy consumption.
Resources
Maya Ben Dror, Lanzhi Qin, Feng An (2018) “The gap between certified and real-world passenger vehicle fuel consumption in China measured using a mobile phone application data,” Energy Policy, Volume 128, Pages 8-16 10.1016/j.enpol.2018.12.039
"real-world FC remained unchanged,"
This seems to be a worldwide problem - it is much easier to fudge the numbers than improve the economy.
The same happened in Europe - the US may be better with more rigorous testing.
The testing entities need to up their game by tightening up the rules and then testing in a more realistic manner.
The car manufacturers will cheat as much as they are let so don't let them. Put a Dane or Norwegian in charge of the European effort - the French and Germans are too much in the pockets of their motoring industries.
Better still, all (new) cars could monitor their own fuel consumption and miles driven and report to the government once or twice a year. The data could be anonomysed so the reg number was not sent, but, IMO it doesn't matter much because there is really no such thing as privacy in motoring in advanced countries any more.
Posted by: mahonj | 02 January 2019 at 12:36 PM