New standard – new rules

11 July 2024

The EU Council adopted the new Euro 7 emission standard in April, and it came into force at the end of May. What changes will Euro 7 bring, when will the new standard apply to which types of vehicles, and to what extent does it cover electric cars for the first time in addition to petrol and diesel vehicles? We address the most important questions.

Euro 7 applies stricter limits for various pollutants to lorries and buses. For example, the limit values for nitrogen oxides, which can cause respiratory diseases, will be more than halved in laboratory tests from the current 460 milligrams per kilowatt hour to a maximum of 200 milligrams. A maximum of 260 milligrams is allowed for road tests. The limit values for particulate matter will be reduced from ten to eight milligrams. “Complying with these new limit values, especially in on-road testing, is going to be challenging for manufacturers, but it’s doable,” says Stephan Nentwig, Team Leader for Type Approval Commercial Vehicles at TÜV NORD Mobilität.

The emission limits for nitrogen oxides and particulate matter for private cars and light commercial vehicles have been adopted unchanged from the current Euro 6 standard. However, the limit values for particulate matter now apply to all petrol engines and not only to those engines with direct injection, as used to be the case. In the future, Euro 7 will also include smaller particles of ten nanometres as well as those measuring 23 nanometres, as is currently the case. These smaller particles occur primarily in petrol engines, especially those with direct injection, explains Helge Schmidt, exhaust emissions expert at TÜV NORD: “In this respect, petrol vehicles, which currently make up most of the passenger cars and light commercial vehicles on the road, will have to meet somewhat stricter requirements in the future.”

For the first time, Euro 7 has its sights set on total vehicle emissions: The fine dust particles from brake abrasion, and the microplastics generated from tyre wear will also be regulated in the future. The EU aims to reduce the pollution of the environment and oceans by microplastics by 30 percent by 2030. This means that vehicles that do not produce exhaust gases, i.e. fully electric cars and fuel cell vehicles, are also covered by the standard. “In this respect, Euro 7 will continue to have an effect even when no new combustion engines are registered in the EU,” Schmidt explains.

While particulate matter emissions from exhaust gases have been significantly reduced over the past decades due to ever stricter limits and ever better exhaust gas scrubbing systems, those from brakes and tyres have remained relatively stable. This is a problem especially in urban stop-and-go traffic. “Brake particle emissions and dust from tyre abrasion will soon exceed the particulate emissions from combustion engines,” says Schmidt. “As a result, the overall reduction in particulate matter emissions in transport has flatlined, especially as the number of vehicles continues to rise. So, a regulation to cover abrasion emissions was urgently needed.”

Euro 7 sets a minimum service life for electric car traction batteries. This is intended to strengthen consumer confidence and make it easier to switch to an electric vehicle. The idea is for the batteries still to have 80 percent of their original capacity after five years or 100,000 kilometres. After eight years or 160,000 kilometres, this figure should be 72 percent.

Euro 7 is also intended to provide an answer to the question of how far the various electric car models will go between charges in winter. This is because battery electrochemistry works more slowly in cold temperatures, and the interior of the vehicle also needs to be heated. This comes at the expense of range – where how much is lost depends on the vehicle. As well as the previous WLTP measurement, a low-temperature test at minus 7 degrees is therefore also set to become mandatory as part of Euro 7. “This will create transparency for consumers while also promoting technological competition among manufacturers to offer the highest possible winter ranges,” says Stephan Nentwig from TÜV NORD.

Euro 7 came into force on 29 May 2024. For cars and light commercial vehicles that receive type approval for the first time, the new standard will apply 30 months after it came into force, that is from 29 November 2026. Twelve months later, that is at the end of November 2027, it will also apply to all newly registered passenger cars and light commercial vehicles. For buses and lorries, a period of four years for new type approvals and five years for all other models is envisaged for the switch to Euro 7, which means that they will have to meet the new requirements from the end of May 2028 and May 2029 respectively.

In fact, the EU Commission had originally planned stricter limit values, but its proposal was significantly watered down by both the EU Parliament and the member states. The argument of member states such as France, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary was that, since no new combustion engines are to be registered in the EU in 2035, manufacturers will have to concentrate all their resources on the development of zero-emission vehicles. This line of argument is understandable, says emissions expert Schmidt. However, an emission standard is never set in stone for all time, says the expert. “Like Euro 5 or Euro 6, Euro 7 will continue to be developed and adapted to keep pace with changing technical developments.”