EC Motor Vehicles Working Group report
On July 5, 2016, the European Commission’s Motor Vehicles Working Group met in Brussels and discussed the following topics:
- Approval of the Draft Summary Report of the 131st meeting of the Working Group “Motor Vehicles” held on 16 February 2016
- Presentation by the Commission services on the AVAS requirements to be detailed in Regulation (EU) No 540/2014
- Tightening of the tyre limits – presentation by the Netherlands
- Update on the Communication to the European Parliament and the Council regarding reporting on advanced vehicle safety features, in relation to the revision of the General Safety and Pedestrian Safety Regulations
- Update on the Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council on the operation of the system of access to vehicle repair and maintenance information
To read the summary report, please click here.
Documents can be downloaded here from the CIRCABC Group.
AVAS Requirements
The Commission presented the first draft of the delegated act (DA) on the Acoustic Vehicle Alerting System (AVAS) installed on M and N category vehicles, which will detail the AVAS requirements already laid down in Annex VIII to Regulation (EU) No 540/2014 on the sound level of motor vehicles.
In the presentation, the Commission highlighted a number of technical requirements will be retained through reference to the UN R138, such as:
- the AVAS sound generation in forward and reverse vehicle motions, adding from UN R138 the requirements on testing, min vehicle sound level and frequency shift when no AVAS in reverse, due to vehicle warning alarm
- the AVAS sound attenuation, adding from UN R138 the Min sound level & frequency shift requirements
- the sound produced, adding from UN R138 the frequency shift requirement, driver selectable sounds possibility and optional stationary noise possibility conformal to the attenuation requirements
The Commission invited attendees to send comments in writing and informed that they will continue working on the delegated act (DA) to ensure the consistency of the EC and UN work. The DA will be discussed to in the MVWG and in a specially created MS Experts Group.
Tightening of the tyre limits
M+P consulting engineers (studying and developing solutions related to noise, vibrations and air quality, represented by Mr Erik de Graaf), presented, on behalf of the Netherlands, statistics on tyre performance with respect to the corresponding limits in GSR (Regulation (EC) No 661/2009) and in Regulation (EC) No 1222/2009 on tyres labelling.
They reported that the statistical analysis was performed on the basis of the tyres labels in the VACO database, section of the Netherlands. It has been focused on the C1, C2 and C3 tyres for summer, winter and special use and their corresponding top 7 brands and top 7 sizes, which represent 90% of the tyres sold in the Netherlands, and for which road performance and OEM tyres have been considered.
Among their findings, M+P consulting reported that the sound emission levels of those tyres have been found to have been reduced between 2007 and 2013, whilst their fuel efficiency, wet grip and sound emission have improved from 2013 to 2016.
Update on the Communication regarding reporting on advanced vehicle safety features
The Commission informed attendees of the status of the Communication and the key safety issues covered by the review of the General Safety and Pedestrian Safety legislation. Notably, the revised implementation time table and bundling of certain measures were clarified. It was further explained that the adoption of the Communication was foreseen over the summer and pending inter-service consultation input from other Commission services and cabinets.
Update on the Commission report on the operation of the system of access to vehicle repair and maintenance information
The Commission also made a short presentation on the outline of the draft report on access to vehicle RMI, its key recommendations, timetable for adoption and other additional work to be carried out in the field of access to vehicle RMI.
Attachments
In: CLEPA News, Connectivity & Automation, Environment & Energy, Growth & Competitiveness, Safety