Don't panic - we are not moving to WLTP CO₂ figures just yet. Emissions will continue to be shown as NEDCequivalent until April 2020. However the figures for fuel consumption will be based on the raw WLTP figures from 1st January 2019. Consumers would like to see more accurate fuel consumption figures and this is acheived with WLTP. On the other hand they don't want to be taxed on higher CO₂ figures, and would prefer the lower ones produced by the NEDC equivalent basis for as long as possible.

So car manufacturers will now start to show us figures that are inconsistent in attempt to get the best of both worlds i.e more realistic MPG with lowerered CO₂ via the CO2mpas tool. In fact there are two ways in which the figures are going to be inconsistent over the next 15 months:

1. Fuel consumption is to be based on WLTP testing whereas only the CO2 figures from the test will be translated into the NEDCequivalent. Up till now, all cars tested since September 2017 had both sets of figures correlated to the NEDC equivalent.
2. The impact of options will be taken into account in the WLTP fuel consumption figures, but will be ignored for the purposes of CO2. There is no detailed legislation to cover this, but the government is likely to allow CO₂ figures to be kept as low as possible. There is a justification in that the CO₂ figures used in EU fleet averaging are based on the old NEDC scales without taking options into account.

The new Range Rover Evoque is the first car to have published WLTP fuel consumption figures. Looking at the 2.0 D150 SE FWD for example we can see:

NEDC equivalent = 52.3 mpg
WLTP (TEL)        = 44.9 mpg
WLTP (TEH)       = 42.1 mpg

TEL refers to the lowest/most economical figures (with the lightest set of options) and TEH refers to the highest/least economical figures (with the heaviest set of options).

(NB the equivalent engine in the previous Evoque had a combined fuel economy of NEDC = 56.5mpg )

Clearly the new figures have a much better chance of being realistic. There are also figures for four different drive cycles to study should prospective buyers be interested.

Meanwhile company car drivers will hope the government has a look at rebasing company car tax April 2021. For instance the CO₂ in the above case would jump from 115g/km old NEDC to 155g/km WLTP TEH and the appropriate percentage for 2020/21 would move to the maximum 37%. A similar change on other vehicles could take the majority of petrol and diesel cars into the maximum BIK bracket.