Real Driving Emissions: real challenges for the automotive industry

Real Driving Emissions serves to confirm WLTP results in real life, thereby ensuring that cars deliver low polluting emissions, such as NOx or particles, on the road as well as in the laboratory. In fact, Europe is the first region in the world to introduce real driving emissions testing, marking a major leap in the testing of car emissions.

Under RDE, a vehicle is driven on public roads and exposed to a wide range of different conditions. Specific equipment installed on the vehicle collects data to verify that legislative caps for pollutants are not exceeded. Driving conditions include:

• Low and high altitudes
• Year-round temperatures
• Additional vehicle payload
• Uphill and downhill driving
• Urban roads (low speed)
• Rural roads (medium speed)
• Motorways (high speed)

This regulation introduces new challenges for OEMs and the automotive industry, making reliable partners more important than ever. Over the past 10 years, Applus+ has developed in-depth experience in testing car emissions, with over 300 RDE tests performed since the first official RDE regulations were introduced.

The combination of our experience and know-how allows us to offer a complete integrated service that complies with the latest requirements of the RDE regulation, even the forthcoming 4th package of the regulation applicable since 1st January 2019. This ensures that our automotive clients have access to the technical support needed to ensure regulatory compliance.

Apart from different locations to test RDE Europe-wide (France, Italy, Germany) , currently we are working on other markets where RDE methodology and regulation is applicable or under development, like China or Brazil.

Thanks to our broad knowledge base, we can deliver a diversified service, from PEMS testing for light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles, to validated routes available worldwide in moderate and extended altitude and ambient temperature conditions, including highway sections. We also offer complementary services in single locations for full project execution (WLTP running resistance test, WLTP emissions test, PEMS-CVS validation tests).

By IDIADA Division