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Opel Details Compliance Initiatives with Real Driving Emissions Standard

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2016 Opel Astra

Last December, Opel announced that it would begin taking steps in Q2 2016 to comply with Real Driving Emissions legislation prior to it taking effect in 2017. Opel is now elucidating details of its initiative prior to beginning initiatives in June and August of this year.

According to Opel, it will begin publishing fuel consumption numbers for the Opel Astra recorded under the Worldwide Harmonized Light Duty Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP) test cycle from the end of June onward. In order to ensure complete public transparency, Opel will publish these figures on a dedicated microsite.

“We at Opel strongly believe that the industry has to regain trust by increasing the transparency with customers and authorities. Opel takes this step towards RDE to show it can be done,” said Opel Group CEO Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann. “We announced in December in which direction we are going; now we are delivering the details. I ask the European Union as well as the EU member states and other European countries to accelerate alignment on test set-ups and test interpretations on real-driving-measurements to stop the existing uncertainty caused by test results that are hardly comparable.

In August, Opel will begin an additional initiative that will monitor and improve NOx ­emissions on Euro 6 diesel engines through the application of Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) technology. Prior to that, Opel will undertake a “customer satisfaction field action” that will involve 57,000 Euro 6 SCR vehicles already on the road, including the Zafira Tourer, Insignia, and Cascada.

“I strongly believe that diesel technology will only continue to play a major role in Europe if the industry sticks to the path of continuous improvement,” Dr. Neumann added. “That is one of the reasons why we decided to implement SCR-Technology to the entire diesel fleet starting as of 2018. With this we do not only talk about a strategy of regaining trust, we also talk about a strategy to preserve the advantage of Europe’s automotive industry in diesel technology.”