Progress on global standards for car testing

Date: 29/01/1998

By Chris Johnstone

THE EU, Japan and the US look likely to agree soon on world standards for performance tests on cars and car parts which could save manufacturers millions of ecu a year, according to officials close to the negotiations.

They say that the talks in Geneva have made significant progress this month, bringing the prospect of a mid-year agreement within reach. This could result in all cars being tested according to the same rules, allowing a company to sell a single model world-wide.

Manufacturers say performance tests are currently one of the biggest barriers to cross-border trade in cars.

"There is a lot of money at stake in this. The same performance tests would save manufacturers a significant amount of money and also open up new markets. Some manufacturers do not even bother to try to export to some markets because of the costs of complying with the local performance tests," said one official involved in the negotiations.

Europe's car lobby, ACEA, said designing and engineering models for different markets added between 10% and 15% to production costs. "Manufacturers want to be able to build a global car," said a spokesman.

Many European car companies currently have to produce around 40 variations of the same model in order to sell their vehicles across the world.

Tests have been deliberately used to put a brake on imports, especially in developing and newly industrialised countries.

South Korea has proved a master of this type of action against European imports in the last few years, imposing rigorous tests which delay a car's launch on the local market for months.

Manufacturers are expected to be willing to adapt to new performance tests, even if the changes are radical and the short-term costs high.

"The long-term benefits of a single performance test will easily outweigh the costs," said an official.

The talks in Geneva between the world's three biggest trading powers are seeking to extend the United Nation's 1958 Economic Commission for Europe agreement which guarantees similar performance tests across the EU, most of central and eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and to create a separate mechanism for US involvement. Japan has already said it will sign up to the agreement this year.

US participation, however, is proving more problematic. Washington has yet to sign up to a parallel agreement which has been tailor-made to take account of its non-governmental system for enabling individual car manufacturers to certify that their products are fit for home and export markets.

In Europe, and most of the rest of the world, government clearance must be given before a car can be launched.

The extension of the existing UN agreement would be followed up by a sort of 'beauty contest' for performance tests.

Under a newly created procedure, countries would apply for their national performance tests to be recognised globally. If more than one test was put forward as a candidate to become the global standard, signatory countries would vote on the issue. This would ultimately result in global performance tests supplanting national ones.

One issue that still has to be resolved during negotiations in March, however, is that of EU worries about the US administration's inability to take a full part in the new process, given the constitutional restrictions on direct government involvement.