Summary Report –WLTP Drafting Group- first meeting

Brussels, 19th March 2009

Commission comments in tracked changes

0. Participants

European Commission: Mr Steininger, Mr Asman
Japan: Mr Ichikawa, WLTP Technical Secretary
UK: Mr Parkin
Germany: Mr Redmann
France: Ms Lopez
NL: Mr Rijnders

Sweden: Mr Johansson
India: Mr Chenoy
USA, EPA: Ed Nam (phone)

FIA: MR van West
MLIT: Mr Matsuo
AEECC: Mr Bosteels
OICA: Mr Greening, Mr Schindler, Mr Coleman, Mr Hemmingway, Mr Sawada, Mr Teranuma, Mr Wakuda, Mr Moriya, Mr Steven, Mr Andary (phone), Ms Leveratto)

1. Welcome and adoption of the agenda

The objective of the 1st meeting was to get an agreed Roadmap, to be then circulated by the Technical Secretariat; comments to berequestedwithinthe following 6 weeks. Feedback to b e further discussed at the 2nd meeting foreseen for April 2009.

Agenda adopted.

An ad-hoc CIRCA group was created to circulate documents. Members need to register themselves in order to be able to access documents and latest news.

2. Explanation of "draft Roadmap"

Mr Ichikawa explained the draft Roadmap circulated on 27.02.09.

3. General feedback on draft Roadmap

EC circulated its comments via CIRCA website. See attachment.

UK circulated its comments via email; upload on CIRCA to follow. See attachment.

2 questions notably:
1. Regarding the format: for the sake of clarity a file format different from Power Point would be preferred. UK would rather suggest a presentation on Word.

2. Regarding the involvement of the industry in this process: it needs to be clarified.

Germanysupported the proposal of a Word document with more detailed explanation of the foreseen activities and an executive summary.

Mr Ichikawa had not foreseen any involvement of the industry in the data gathering. In Japan data were collected by a third party under government budget.

Mr Stevens recalled that, during the WHDC activities, the majority of the data came from industry. Therefore he could not understand the reasons of leaving the industry aside in WLTP.

Mr Schindler underlined that WLTP is an industry business and therefore industry should be given the possibility to supply data.

EC concluded that data from the industry have to be taken into account; government have however to control the data collection.

OBD

EC expressed the opinion that LD OBD issues should be excluded from the most urgent work towards the new test cycle but it should be addressed either at a later stage by the WLTP GTR or in a separate GTR.If the test cycle gets changed, however, this will have some implications on the ODB functionality, which will have to be taken into account and noted down on the project map.

UK supported working on OBD in a second phase of WLTP activities.

EC underlined that, however, that even if OBD requirements are not changed, OBD functions (i.e. reaction of the OBD system on manually introduced emission system malfunctions) will have to be demonstrated in the new test cycle. Possibly OBD functions could also be demonstrated in off-cycle tests. Therefore at a later stage of phase I (when the basic scheme of the new test cycle is established) a special working party should deal with this OBD demonstration aspects. the implication on OBD of the new cycle cannot not be disregarded. During the second phase it should be worked towards a global harmonisation of OBD; in EU this will be reflected in Euro 6 requirements

. The necessity of establishing a small group drafting the ODB gtr in the second phase should be discussed.

OCE

EC had concerns on separating off-cycle elementsfrom the development of the new test cycle, since theyare inherently linked. As "off-cycle elements” EC understand tests reflecting the real driving of the vehicle on the roadto be used to measure CO2 and other pollutants. Typically this would be a standardised test procedure measuring emissions on the road indeed, but also alternative approaches could be investigated.Off-cycle emission tests are particularly important for assessing emissions at a cold start, which vary strongly depending on the driving behaviour. EC put therefore strong emphasis on the off-cycle procedure to be drafted in the first phase (and not in the second phase, as on the draft). It should however be noted that off-cycle emissions can not assess all extreme situation leading to special challenges for emission control, e.g. low temperatures, which may continue to have be assessed by special test cycles.

Germany advised that random points in the general test cycle are not applicable; need a standard cycle for comparison.

UK gave fully support toEC and Germany.

NL stated that the two elements influence each other but are different. The cycle should be designed to cover all possible events under standardised conditions. OCE should address other conditions with more variability ambient and other conditions. Also NL was not in favour of integratinga test cycle andwithout OCE in the first phase.

Japan expressed his intention of developing an average test cycle taking into account all foreseeable driving conditions, a cycle as most representative as possible. Therefore there might should be no need for OCE. After having collected the data, however, if there are extreme conditions that cannot be reproduced in the test cycle, they should be addressed by an off-cycle test.

Mr Schindler asked how itcould be possible to take into account all foreseeable driving conditions in the cycle and to avoid the off-cycle test.How long would be the driving test be?

Mr Lopez expressed doubts on the feasibility of collecting all possible driving behaviours during the time foreseen for the first phase. She supported OCE developed in the second phase. First the representativeness of WLTP has to be checked and then the necessity of OCE.

Mr Stevens expressed doubts on the feasibility of covering all possible driving conditions of one category in one single cycle; dependence on vehicle classification grouping to be taken into account.

Japan expressed again its intention of elaborating one driving cycle but agreed that the need for off-cycle test could not be excluded since the beginning.

Mr Coleman: clear terminology definitionsince the beginningis needed in particular with regards to OCE, extreme operation, ambient conditions, defeat devices, etc. This could be used to decide on test cycle scope.

EC believes that the new driving cycle will never fully reflects all driving behaviours and therefore was in favour of developingan off-cycle test. Two sub-groups , working in parallel, could be established to develop the new test cycle and an "off-cycle" test in parallel. EC expressed his readiness to take a strong lead, using e.g. its experience with the PEMS procedure for heavy duty vehicles,if it necessary to develop the off cycle procedure., following its experience on heavy duty vehicles.The 2 groups will probably have the some people at the decisional level but different workforce collecting data.

The new driving cycle will have to achieve a compromise between reproducibility and representativeness; not easy! OCE could probably be an easier task.

US expressed its favour of working on test cycle and OCE together.Since a driving cycle cannot well represent e.g. an aggressive start, the “start” issue should be evaluated in an off cycle test.

MAC

EC defined the MAC test cycle developmentas of high priority due to political obligationsconcerning air conditioning performance. MAC should not be specifically included into OCE but should be covered by a specific test cycle. EC suggested including it in the first phase of WLTP developments. It could be envisaged, this task being performed by the EU (MAC procedure needed by 2012) and results being fed back intoWLTP process at a later stage.

UK supported MAC development in first phase but was against a specific MAC cycle. UK deemed MAC as an accessory, which should be treated as all other accessories, as ain term of their load in the main test cycle and not in NOT being part of a supplementary test. The specific load of the MAC would still have to be defined and would have to reflect average European conditions.The MAC load during the test should be defined, but it should be built into the cycle with all the other accessory loads and not being separate.

EC said that currently it envisages supported, again, MAC in first phase but in favour of having separate information on MAC and therefore a separate MAC test cycle, because only in such a way MAC specific performance can be established, which is essential to stimulate consumer choice towards more efficient MACs and providing data for possible future MAC regulation. It should also be noted that the relevance of MAC performance depends on the user habits and the geographical region, therefore it should be communicated separately from the vehicle performance measured on the main driving cycle. Obviously this advantage has to be assessed against possible test burden savings (albeit those are expected to be small).The intention is to have manufacturers developing more efficient air conditioning systems and customers being able to compare the impact on fuel consumption of an air conditioning system against another one, in order to choose the more efficient one.Consequently, the details of the MAC test, whether performed as part of the main driving cycle or in a separate test cycle, However it the necessity of a separate test canshould be further discussed in the sub-group dealing with this issue.

Mr Schindler supported MAC in first phase. The work done so far on both sides should be summarised and a single approach on MAC should be followed (not starting with one procedure at EU level and then changing it with WLTP).

Data collection of the new driving cycle

Ichikawa stated, Japan having already large amount of data.

Mr Steven asked how old the data is and if this takes into consideration new gearshifts, automatics, which recently changed significantly. Therefore new data is needed.

General consensus on the necessity of collecting new data, on analysing existing databases for consistency; reliability of more than 10 years old data to be evaluated.

Mr Chenoy stated that data should represent all regionsaadnd all vehicles, need for representative and balanced data.

EC: data collection and evaluation on their consistency should be done in each region separately. The possibility of using existing work on more realistic driving cycles (e.g. ARTEMIS project), together with in-use data, as a basis for the development of the new driving cycle should be investigated.

FIA Foundation volunteered to finance data sampling in South America but FIA would just deliver data, not analysis! South America is a continent not participating in WP29 but WLTP should have a world-wide approach. The initiative was welcomed.

Low ambient temperature test

EC expressed its favour of including at least a "simple" version of the low ambient temperature test in the first phase (not the second as on the draft roadmap), to keep WLTP in line with EU legislation development. The low ambient temperature test should not require the specification of a new driving cycle, but could be based (as today) on a part of the new general driving cycle with specifications of ambient conditions and reference fuels. If necessary, the test could be improved in the second phase II of the WLTP work.

Mr Schindler supported Mr Steven’s approach resulting from his presentation at the last meeting..[d1]

Driving modes for different vehicle categories

EC supported the possibility of introducing different driving modes for different vehicle categories (e.g. three categories defined by their power/mass ratio etc.), following motorcycle testing approach.

Mr Ichikawa was rather in favour of a unique harmonised driving mode.

Issue to be further discussed.

It was agreed that use of different modes will be decided once driving data from the different regions are available.

Random elements in WLTP

EC suggestedexpressed its favour ofintroducing random elements into the new driving cycle, at leastif no off-cycle test is defined at the first phase.

Timescale

EC expressed some doubts on the completion of the second phase by 2014, therefore suggested to start this phase IIas soon as possible and to partiallyperform it in parallel to phaseI. Of course in case of conflict of resources (e.g. availability of experts) priority should be given to task I.

Durability and in-service conformity

EC expressed his favour of including durability and in-service conformity in the secondphase of WLTP work.

Japan had not yet a final position on whether it is a matter under 58 or 98 agreement.

Conclusion: it has to be decided by AC3.

4. Detailed discussion on draft Roadmap

Mr Schindler introduced Mr Coleman’stransposition of the the Power Point roadmap by Ichikawa into a Microsoft Project. The document was accepted as basis for developing the WLTP roadmap.

After a thorough consideration of the draft Roadmap, the group decided the following:

  • OBD: following previous discussion, it was decided to have an extra work item OBD. It will be included into phase 1 but activities will start one year after beginning of the project.
  • Definition of the boundaries of type approval needed.
  • MAC to be covered by the test cycle.a separate issue from OEC.
  • Both CO2 and fuel consumption should be included in the scope.
  • The central box “test procedure” should mention exhaust emissions of pollutantsand CO2.
  • Limit values: France was not in favour of having them in the gtr. Mr Schindler: this could be introduced into a phase 3, called “limit values and correlation”; it has to be decided later, whether activities on phase 3 will be endorsed.
  • The term “new driving cycle” will be replaced by “worldwide harmonised light duty driving cycle”.
  • Fuel properties/reference fuel:
    2 phases were agreed:
    first, fuels available on the market will be taken into account and,
    second, duringthe phase 3 discussion on limit values, a reference fuel will be decided upon.
  • The new test cycle should also be applicable topossible for hybrid vehicles, probably with special conditions.
  • The test procedure also needs to include gearshift prescriptions.
  • Common terminology needs to clearly include definitions. Members asked to comments the previously circulated OICA paper.
  • Definition of Round Robin test to be added to the OICA Terminology document.
  • EC: OCE should establish the performance of a vehicle on the road under real driving conditions and should not be linked to the driving cycleunderstood as a "more demanding or dynamic" additional driving cycle.
  • Sub-groupsto be set up:
  • DNC (Development of New driving Cycle)
  • DTP (Development of Test Procedure)
  • OCE (Off-Cycle Emissions)
  • Text drafting group
  • MAC (Mobile Air Conditions)
  • A first round of validation tests will be performed using the new test cycle but the old test procedure, then
    a second round of validation tests will be performed using the new test cycle and the new test procedure.
  • It still has to be decided if validation 1 can only start following GRPE decision based on the preparation report (eg. June 2011); Ichikawa did not agree with ACEA’s proposal.
  • It has to be clarified what “correlation” means.
  • After starting the Round Robin test, the test should not be changed anymore; therefore “small modifications” will be removed from slide 25.
    “Correlation” should start after the Round Robin, most likely during the phase 3; therefore removed from slide 25.
  • ISO work has to be completed before by June 2012, i.e. before RR tests start.
  • It still needs to be clarified the necessity of having durability, if a reasonable in-service conformity is introduced (high costs!). Industry against adding durability.UKand Francesupported this view. It depends also on the decision of AC3 whether in-use conformity will be part of this work or not. Slide 35 to be reviewed accordingly.

5. Conclusion and next actions

  • Discussion on the budget was postponed to the next meeting for time reasons.
  • Mr Coleman volunteered to reflect today conclusions in his Microsoft Project doc and to circulate an update project plan as a pdf-file by the end of week 13, as the basis for further discussion.
  • Mr Ichikawa to prepare a Word doc with an explanation of the activities foreseen in the draft roadmap and to circulate it in 3 weeks time.
  • Members asked to complete and update Inf Doc WLTP-02-11 on terminology, which was already presented by OICA in January 2009.
  • Revised docs will be sent by EC to UNECE (Romain Hubert) for circulation and request for comments by GRPE members.
  • The next meeting of the WLTP Drafting Group will take place in Brussels on 27 and 28 April.

6. Other business

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[d1]The context of this statement is not clear, it should be better explained.