Vehicle labels catch up with reality

Australia is finally replacing its outdated vehicle testing and labelling standard with one that better reflects real-world driving. Bryce Gaton looks at what the change means for consumers and the transition to cleaner vehicles.

Around the world, fuel economy, efficiency and emissions standards have been evolving. The old European test protocol NEDC (New European Driving Cycle) became infamous for producing totally unrealistic range, efficiency and emissions figures (as a rough guide, NEDC overestimates driving range and efficiency by 25% to 30%). As a result, in 2017, Europe adopted a new standard based on a more real-world driving cycle, called the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP, see note).

Quite some time ago, Australia adopted NEDC and an associated energy consumption labelling requirement—currently Australian Design Rule 81/02 – Fuel Consumption Labelling for Light Vehicles (or simply, ADR 81/02). Unfortunately, despite many government reports and external calls for change ever since Europe began the move to WLTP, ADR 81/02 has continued to use NEDC as the basis for reporting the range, efficiency and CO2 emissions found on the showroom window sticker of all new vehicles.

We have all heard the complaints (and read about the legal cases) relating to new car buyers being unable to get anywhere near the litres per 100km figures touted by manufacturers. Battery electric vehicle (BEV) buyers have to some degree been insulated from this as (with one or two exceptions) BEV manufacturers have been reporting WLTP figures here for some time.

This has not been the case for PHEVs (plug-in hybrid EVs), however. Most PHEVs here are still reported with NEDC numbers as they give significantly better sounding driving ranges. (Even if manufacturers wanted to report WLTP numbers for PHEVs; perhaps they have felt compelled to use ADR 81/02, lest they lose sales to their ’longer’ range opposition).

All this is changing—and not a minute too soon! As of 1 July this year, ADR 81/02 is being updated to create ADR 81/03—based on the WLTP test cycle for reporting.

From that date, the windscreen stickers of all newly introduced passenger car and light commercial vehicles up to 4.5t gross vehicle mass (GVM) must use a new style label showing WLTP figures (plus, by 1 July 2028, WLTP must be used for all pre-July 1 2026 models still being sold new).

To add further confidence in the data used for ADR 81/03 compliant labelling, the government has also provided $14 million to the Australian Automobile Association to test the on-road emissions and fuel consumption of a range of popular cars, SUVs and utes sold in Australia (realworld.org.au).

For vehicles under 4.5t GVM, the consumption and emissions numbers are also required to fit within the requirements of the NVES (New Vehicle Emissions Standards). As a result, we will see an ongoing reduction in fuel use and emissions by new models sold here as year-by-year the NVES requirements are tightened. In fact, since the introduction of the NVES in January 2025 we have seen a rise in the number of hybrid and PHEV versions of existing models (and the subsequent disappearance of many petrol-only versions), along with a significant decline in V8 options.

Perhaps unfortunately, two categories of vehicle have been created under the NVES. Type 1 vehicles are light passenger vehicles such as cars, SUVs and light off-road vehicles of 3.5t GVM or less. Type 2 vehicles are medium commercial vehicles and off-road passenger vehicles between 3.5 and 4.5 tonnes GVM. Type 2 vehicles get off with significantly higher NVES allowances for CO2 emissions than Type 1 (See Emissions targets table below). This two-tier system has been somewhat contentious, with many bodies calling for the same rules to apply to both categories to hasten the transition to low and zero emissions versions.

Be that as it may, from 1 July Australian showrooms will finally display windscreen stickers with range and consumption figures more closely aligned to reality. Gone will be the days when they displayed numbers that were N.E.D.C. – Not Even Darn Close.

Notes:
For Australian conditions, WLTP provides a reasonable guide to driving range and consumption if doing mostly urban and outer suburban driving, whilst the US EPA test cycle (with its longer, higher speed test cycle) is the better when doing more outer suburban to regional driving. However, test cycle numbers are only ever a guide: driving range and consumption are highly variable and dependent on (among other factors) driving style, terrain, load, towing and weather conditions.