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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