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COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO EMISSION MEASUREMENTS IN THE AUTOMOTIVE

SECTOR

THE SECRETARIAT

MISSION REPORT

EMIS Visit to the Joint Research Centre (JRC)

Ispra, Italy, 18-19 July 2016

As part of its working plan, the Committee of Inquiry into emission measurements in the automotive

sector (EMIS) organised a visit to the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and its VELA Labs in Ispra, Italy

in order to learn about the emissions tests conducted by the JRC and its involvement in the

development of the type-approval and emission measurements legislation. The visit took place on 18

and 19 July 2016.

The visit started at noon on Monday 18 July 2016 with an overview of the JRC activities, a short

initial discussion on the main subject matter of the mission, followed by a tour of all VELA Labs on-

site including a demonstration of NEDC test as well as a conduct of PEMS on-road test drive by

EMIS participants. The second day of the visit was dedicated to detailed discussion with the JRC

Director-General Mr Vladimir Šucha, former and current Directors of the JRC’s Institute for Energy

and Transport (IET) Mr Giovanni de Santi and Mr Piotr Szymanski as well as with experts from the

VELA Team.

The full list of participants and detailed visit programme are attached at the end of the present report.

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1. Monday, 18.07.2016

The first half day of the EMIS visit to the JRC was focused on practical demos throughout the nine

VELA Labs. The actual visits to the laboratories were preceded by a general presentation of the JRC

by Director General Šucha and a short initial discussion on JRC’s involvement in the development of

the type-approval and emission measurements legislation, which was the main subject for the second

half day.

Mr Šucha presented the main activities of the JRC through a tour of its Visitors Centre and a brief

facts & figures presentation. In a snapshot, the EU research hub is based in 6 different locations in 5

Member States. It has 1,500 core research staff with 83% holding a PhD degree, total staff is around

3,000. It hosts 42 large scale research facilities, more than 110 online databases and more than 100

economic, bio-physical and nuclear models. The JRC is independent from private, commercial or

national interests, policy neutral where 30% of activities cover policy preparation and 70% on

implementation. 80% of activities are co-designed with Commission partner DGs. Mr Šucha

explained the JRC Vision, Mission statement, organisation, knowledge and competences

management.

This general overview was followed up by a first short discussion between the JRC management

and EMIS Members, which was later on expanded during the second half day. It is for the first time

ever that the JRC gets a visit by an inquiry committee and members stressed the importance of its

input to the EMIS inquiry in helping clarifying some issues on which contradictory information has

been received from industry and experts. Some of the questions tackled were:

The future of diesel - the JRC interlocutors believe that diesel is to stay but changes are on the

way - the necessary technologies exist for the development of CO2 & NOx efficient diesel

engines, but that would come at a price especially costly for smaller-than-2-litre engines plus

higher maintenance costs; the VW scandal “helped” to boost technology diversification, in

particular towards electric and hydrogen cars.

Looking for defeat devices (DD) - to the question if no one ever asked the JRC to look for

possible DD, the JRC replied that even in the USA, DD were not discovered by EPA but VW

admitted themselves. There is only one case of DD being discovered in Germany once it was

known on which car model to look for it. Once a difference is discovered between a lab test

and real life results, there is a whole plethora of possible factors that could justify the

difference. Looking for a DD is way too complex and beyond JRC’s budget and IT expertise

to do without prior intelligence or hints that there is a DD installed. Even with the tests of

VW Euro 6 models conducted by the JRC in the past couple of months on behalf of DG

GROW, there is no specific search for DD currently done but the tests seek to find if there is

any abnormal behaviour of cars. All the tests conducted by JRC were done with the aim to

instruct the work on preparing the RDE legislation. The real problem is in fact that the testing

methodology in use is outdated. However, even with the RDE procedure in place there might

still be some scope for the use of DD, even if the incentive to do so would be hugely

decreased. According to Mr De Santi the problem could be solved if the OEMs were obliged

to declare when they are using the exceptions foreseen by Article 5(2) of Regulation

715/2007 and on which reason so that the TAA can decide to approve it or not.

Choice of testing procedure (PEMS) - Since the beginning the JRC suggested to choose

PEMS vs. other methodologies put forward by the industry but it took two years for the final

choice. That is why DG Falkenberg (DG ENV) wrote to DG Calleja (DG GROW), to hurry

up in the choice of the methodology and not in relation to the issue of DD.

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The first half day visit was completed with a tour of all the VELA Labs located at the Ispra site. The

VELA Labs comprise of two chemical and physical analysis labs plus seven emissions testing

facilities for motorbikes, light and heavy duty vehicles. The scientific work of the Labs underpins the

development of new and revision of old directives when it comes to emissions measurement

techniques and procedures.

VELA 1, 2, 3 is where pollutant and evaporative emissions from LDVs are measured. Mr Alois

Krasenbrink demonstrated the running of a NDEC test, which is a 20min test cycle run at +20 to

+30C temperature. He took the EMIS participants through the various stages of the test cycle

stressing the ease with which it is possible to detect it is a test cycle and not a realistic driving style.

In these labs Members could see 3 generations of PEMS equipment starting from year 2005 at 150kg

of total weight, going down to 107kg later and then 74kg - the weight of the model used today. It was

explained that the development of PEMS was slowed down in the first years, since there was just one

manufacturer at the start who discontinued production not seeing commercial sense in this and later

on resumed it.

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EMIS participants also had the opportunity to drive a car with PEMS equipment on the roads at the

Ispra site - results of the 6 test drives done were presented at the end of the visit on Tuesday 19 July.

VELA 4, 5, 6 is where emissions tests for heavy-duty engines are conducted (that also includes

engines for non-road and road mobile machinery). Tests are done to the engines only, as only they

are certified and not the whole vehicle (manufacturer of the vehicle is different to the manufacturer

of the engine). EMIS participants could see the latest Euro VI engine with SCR urea tanks - tests are

conducted both in the lab as well as on the road using PEMS.

VELA 7 is the latest emissions lab for overall heavy-duty vehicles. It is currently not known how

much CO2 emissions are produced by HDVs - these are neither measured nor reported. However,

DG CLIMA in cooperation with JRC has developed a new software for the estimate of HDV CO2

emissions called VECTO. In this labs data is being collected from the engine, gear box, tyre and put

into the VECTO software for such estimates.

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VELA 8+9 are new facilities for testing electric and hybrid vehicles. In VELA 8 work there is also

done in partnership with the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory - tests are done in both the US and

and Ispra and results compared. Tests are being conducted to monitor the status of the battery flows

to and from the engine in temperature brackets from -30C to +50C. VELA 9 is an electromagnetic

lab where again in collaboration with Aargon National Laboratory tests are performed in view of

setting standards for electric vehicles in approximately two years’ time.

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2. Tuesday, 19.07.2016

Following the completion of the first half day of the visit dedicated to the practical understanding of

the various tests and emissions research that the JRC conducts in its VELA Labs in Ispra, the second

half day was focused on an in-depth discussion about JRC’s policy involvement with its top

management and experts.

The first topic on the agenda was the recent changes in the JRC organigramme1, a subject that was

opened up during the EMIS hearing of the JRC on 19 April 2016. Mr Šucha stressed the need for

clarifying the matter that he perceived as wrongly interpreted outside the JRC. These changes, that

culminated in the beginning of April and were finalised in the beginning of July 2016, have in fact

been in the pipeline long before the VW case erupted and represent the biggest change in the JRC in

the last 20-25 years. The JRC is facing increasing demands for expertise form the Commission while

its budget has been declining over the years. Such trend has necessitated the reshuffling of staff from

Support function to Knowledge Production, opening up the JRC to better respond to EU policy

needs. In addition, Mr Šucha explained the limitations of the staff administration policy that requires

mandatory rotation of senior managers who could retain their posts for a maximum of 5+2 years.

That also contributed to the expected change at the Head of the IET whereby Mr Giovanni De Santi

reached 9 years as its Director, while Mr Piotr Szymanski reached 7 years as a Director in DG ENER

- hence the arrival of Mr Szymanski at the JRC, while Mr De Santi was allocated a very prominent

post in the Knowledge Management section at the JRC.

1 Mr Giovanni De Santi headed the IET as a Director from 2007 until 1 July 2016 when his post was taken over by Mr

Piotr Szymanski, while Mr De Santi took over the JRC Directorate “Competences”

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The second topic on the agenda for the day was the chronology for the development of PEMS test

and the RDE package and the involvement of the JRC in the European emissions legislation as

presented by Mr De Santi. The VELA Labs began to be established in the late 1990s as independent

labs supporting the European policy development. All European emissions standards were developed

there. The initial focus was on particulate matter (PM) emissions since the critical PM levels in any

countries resulted in political pressure to focus on their reduction. However, by 2005 DG ENV noted

that in spite of the Euro3/4 standards in place, concentrations of NOx were not decreasing as

expected. That was the trigger point for the RDE legislation - when cars behaved in reality

differently to what is expected, the conclusions were that the test cycle in use is inadequate and a

different approach of measuring on-road emissions was needed. The JRC signed an Administrative

Arrangement with DG ENV in August 2005 to start exploring the use of PEMS to monitor emissions

from light-duty vehicles (LDV). March 2007 saw the start of an experimental programme testing

Euro3/4 LDVs with first PEMS test results published in 2007 and 2009. In June 2009, Euro5

vehicles were added to the tests with a total of 12 vehicles tested by April 2010. The first internal

Commission discussion (JRC-ENV-ENTR) took place in September 2010 while the results were

presented at the workshop “Approach on Emission Legislation” in November 2010.

As a result, in January 2011, the RDE WG’s kick off meeting took place. In 2011, the RDE WG

discussed four candidate procedures for a future test:

1) complementary fixed driving cycles

2) emissions modelling

3) random driving cycles (ACEA)

4) PEMS on-road testing (JRC)

In October 2012 it was decided to opt for the PEMS test when another discussion started on how to

evaluate the PEMS data. Again three methods were proposed:

1) speed-binning by TNO

2) moving averaging window analysis by JRC

3) power-binning by TU Graz.

The TNO method was abandoned and the remaining two used to correlate the data. Consequently,

the very first out of four RDE regulatory packages was completed at the RDE WG level by

November 2014 and adopted by the TCMV in February 2015. In February 2015 work began on the

2nd package with JRC’s contribution in co-drafting the 2nd package adopted by the TCMV in

October 2015. January 2016 saw the start of the 3rd package, whose legislative drafting commenced

in July 2016. Work on the 4th package is expected to start at the end of 2016 throughout 2017, with

foreseen review by the JRC of the whole RDE procedure for 2017-2018.

In his concluding remarks Mr De Santi stressed the long history of JRC’s international collaborations

with the USA (EPA, CARB, Argonne National Laboratory), China, Japan, South Korea as well as

the UNECE. The JRC will host in Ispra the 2nd International Summit on Vehicle Emissions

Compliance Testing and Enforcement to take place on 22-23 September 2016.

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In the follow-up discussion a number of topics were touched upon and the predominant and recurring

one was the need to have searched for DD when all tests conducted by JRC pointed to differences

between official emissions figures and what was measured on the road. The JRC response to the

identified inadequacy of the NDEC test was to focus on improving the test in the legislation where it

is set in and persuading the Member States to change the test cycle. Even the few but very detailed

tests that the JRC conducted after 2010 were done in support of the RDE procedure and not to look

for DD. Those tests conducted in the past were only done at a cold start and only in the last three

months hot start tests were done on 3-4 cars.

The JRC clarified that when it comes to initiatives related to legislation, the JRC can only take these

upon the political mandate from the Commission - in other cases not concerning legislation, JRC

could initiate action on its own. However, in the case of type-approval (TA) testing, the JRC was

very open with all institutions, Commission, Parliament and Member States, about the results that

came out, yet no one ever raised the issue of DD. Looking for DD has never been an option as it is an

extremely difficult, lengthy process with unsure outcome. The U.S. EPA did not look for DD either

but they had the political mandate to exert pressure on VW to confess to this end. The JRC has much

more limited resources, which cannot be spent on DD search but would be better spent on devising

the RDE procedure which is expected to overall reduce the probability to use DD (95% of the cases

would be covered according to JRC assessment).

Another point that Mr De Santi stressed is that only RDE procedure will not be enough and an

essential game changer in the European type-approval (TA) would be to have post-market

downstream checks as in the USA and that should be properly set out in the 4th and last RDE

package.

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On the question why it took two years to select the new test procedure among the four options, Mr

Šucha responded that given the variety and number of stakeholders in the EU framework to be

consulted, two years is not an exaggerated period. In additional, PEMS as a technology for LDV is

very new and more work was needed to properly explain it to technical services that did not have

much experience with it. Industry is also an important stakeholder to be consulted - the automotive

sector is very sensitive and competitive and JRC is very transparent on its dealings with it via the

Memorandum of Understanding signed with ACEA.

The third thematic discussion on the second day was on the JRC’s potential role in the new type

approval framework following the Commission proposal. This topic links to what Mr De Santi

stressed in the earlier discussion about the importance of having a robust market surveillance system

with in-service checks. It will be a key for the new system that tests and inspections of vehicles in

circulation are carried out by both the Member States and the Commission with JRC expected to

undertake that task on behalf of the Commission. It could further be expected that the JRC represents

the Commission in the joint assessment team that will assess technical services before these are being

designated as well as that it carries out on-the-spot verification testing to check the performance of

the technical services in view of ensuring consistency across Europe. The new forum to be

established for exchange of information, good practice on enforcement and joint inspections will be

chaired by the Commission and it is within that frame that the JRC may be expected to coordinate

and mediate a network of national TA and market surveillance authorities. It could further promote

cooperation and exchanges with similar non-EU authorities.

These new tasks and the set target of testing 130 vehicles on average per year would require

additional resources to set up 2 new emission test facilities, 5 new PEMS units, 22 staff (including 12

lab technicians) running into estimated EUR11 million investment for facilities and EUR2 million

running costs per year.

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In the follow up discussion some Members suggested that possibly part of the fees that OEMs pay

for TA could cover the additional new costs at the EU level, although the response of the JRC was

that the link between OEMs and TAA needs to be preferably cut. The 130 vehicles per year as a

number is linked to the JRC resources and in any case will be complementary to what Member States

will be testing themselves - the EPA tests 300 per year and comparatively it has significantly much

higher resources.

On the issue of independent body a number of points were discussed. On one hand, to the question if

there should be independent TA authority, the JRC considers that too costly and politically

unacceptable to member states to consider at all right now. On the subject if JRC will retain its

independence if it is more and more involved in TA implementation, Mr Šucha clarified that JRC is

part of the COM and they work together to develop the new system. The JRC assured that it will not

lose its curiosity as investigating illegal acts is not the JRC researchers task but to ensure a

harmonised approach and quality to TA in the whole EU.

Mr. De Santi also pointed out that, differently from the EPA in the US, the JRC does not work as a

TAA (not enough staff and resources for that) and that its role is rather to do research and to give

technical and scientific support for the preparation of the legislation. In contrast to other areas, in the

automotive sector JRC has no mandate to follow the implementation of legislation in force (JRC

dedicates 70% of its activity to follow implementation, as Mr Šucha explained). In this area, instead,

implementation lies exclusively with the Member States and a different role of the JRC as authority

for market surveillance could be obtained only changing the legislation in place. Such authority

should have a clear mandate and a political backup to be strong enough to deal with the Member

States. This would be the only game changer in future. However Mr Šucha admitted that with the

new Commission proposal on TA the role of the Commission and of the JRC will be partly

reinforced so that cheating would be more difficult in future.

The question on improving the PEMS so it becomes more usable was also raised. The JRC does not

develop the PEMS units but has the weight to drive the manufacturers in certain direction. In any

case, what exists right now as PEMS technology does not allow much room for further improvement

unless a very new technology comes along. One of the consequences of the VW scandal is that now

the PEMS technology is used in the world (China for instance is asking for that). Without the work

of the Commission on PEMS, EPA could not have put VW under pressure as it happened.

Mr De Santi stressed that under the current legislation the EU car manufacturers are not obliged to

inform TAs that they are using the exceptions foreseen by Article 5(2) of the Regulation 715/2007,

as it is the case in the US. This novelty is now included in the new Commission proposal on TA.

This approach would be much more effective in his opinion than investing in the detection of

cheating software which is quite expensive and uncertain. Any such strategy used without having

informed (and having been authorised by) the TA would be considered as illegal (DD).

On the role of the EP in helping JRC better play its role, the hosts stressed the most important aspect

- that is support with the budget, support in the Horizon 2020 negotiations in the future and last but

not least, support for a speedy adoption of the new TA proposal.

On the role of JRC in the future TA framework, Mr Šucha clarified that the JRC would not act as a

TA but become as additional layer cooperating with the national TAs and targeting at testing 100-

130 vehicles per year. For this additional resources and facilities will be needed.

Standardised practices of national technical services should be introduced and ex ante standards

improved so that ex post controls would be less needed.

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According to Mr. De Santi only an independent market surveillance authority could ensure that the

system works properly and that the link between OEMs and TAs is cut.

The final presentation that closed down the visit was on the results of the PEMS drive tests

conducted by EMIS on the day before.

All JRC presentations from the visit can be found on the EMIS website.

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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

MEMBERS Political Group

Kathleen VAN BREMPT - Chair S&D

Pablo ZALBA BIDEGAIN EPP

Jens GIESEKE EPP

Róża Gräfin Von THUN UND HOHENSTEIN EPP

Massimiliano SALINI EPP

Massimo PAOLUCCI S&D

Christine REVAULT d'ALLONNES BONNEFOY S&D

Carlos ZORRINHO S&D

Julie GIRLING ECR

Bas EICKHOUT Greens/EFA

Neoklis SYLIKIOTIS GUE/NGL

ACCOMPANYING MEMBERS

Eleonora EVI EFDD

POLITICAL GROUP STAFF

Jan WISSWAESSER EPP

Agnieszka GREGORCZYK S&D

Thierry MASSON ALDE

Terhi LEHTONEN Greens/EFA

Fabrizio FABBRI EFDD

SECRETARIAT OF THE EMIS COMMITTEE

Elisa DAFFARRA

Emiliano IMERONI

Nora KOVACHEVA

INFORMATION OFFICE, ROME

Gian Paolo MENEGHINI

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FINAL PROGRAMME

Monday, 18 July 2016

14:30-14:45 Welcome to the Joint Research Centre

Vladimir Šucha, Director General JRC JRC Visitors' Centre

15:00-15:45 Discussion with Vladimir Šucha, Director General JRC

Room 3 – Building 36 15:45-16:15 Introduction to the VELA labs, testing methodologies and overview of the

afternoon lab programme Alois Krasenbrink, Head of Unit, VELA lab

Room 3 – Building 36 16:15-16:30 Coffee break and division in 2 groups

Visit of the VELA laboratory – Demonstration of tests Building 24

Run the NEDC “cold” test followed by a NEDC “hot” test Measure exhaust bag and modal, and parallel with PEMS Conduct PEMS on-road testing:

o demonstration drives with MEPs on board on JRC internal routes to show "trip to trip" variability

16:30-17:30 (Group 1) 17:45-18:45 (Group 2)

Visit of VELA 5/6/7 Buildings 24 & 69 17:30-18:00 (Group 1) 16:30-17:00 (Group 2) 18:00-18:30 Visit of Interoperability Laboratory – VELA 8/9

Building 18 18:00-18:45 (Group 1) 17:00-17:45 (Group 2) 18:45-19:15 Summary of Day 1 and Q & A session

Chair: Vladimír Šucha, Director General JRC Building 24

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Tuesday, 19 July 2016

09:30-10:15 Discussion with Directors Giovanni de Santi, Piotr Szymanski and experts from the VELA Team Chair: Vladimír Šucha, Director General JRC

Room 3 – Building 36 10:15-10:30 Coffee Break 10:30-12:45 Continuation of discussion with the Directors and the VELA Team experts Chair: Vladimír Šucha, Director General JRC

Room 3 – Building 36

General introduction to lab test and RDE test conditions NOx emissions reduction strategies; after-treatment technologies; technical

challenges Definition of defeat devices, off-cycle emissions, Role of JRC in the future type-approval framework International collaborations Presentation and interpretation of results obtained from tests on day 1

12:45-13:15 Summary of Day 2 and Q & A session

Chair: Vladimír Šucha, Director General JRC Room 3 – Building 36

Acronyms: VELA – Vehicle Emissions Laboratory NEDC – New European Driving Cycle PEMS – Portable Emission Measurement System RDE – Real Driving Emissions