DVSA explains 2018 MOT test changes
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New research from KwikFit has revealed almost half of drivers would like to see tests take into account how the electricity used to charge a car has been generated. A total of 45 percent of road users said how electricity is used should definitely be monitored in tests with just one quarter disagreeing with the proposals.
The number of drivers agreeing with the proposals rises to 51 percent among owners with cars less than three years old.
Younger drivers were also more likely to support the measure with 36 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds backing the proposals.
Despite the interest, KwikFit warns the practicalities of assessing electric supply would be “significant” for garages and would require “major developments” to tests.
This would require information from the charging systems to be relayed to the vehicles which would then be measured by testing equipment.
Eric Smith, MOT scheme manager said testing electric car emissions would require “multi-industry standards to be set up”.
The changes have not been officially proposed and the updates are unlikely to be introduced in the very near future.
However, Mr Smith confirmed there was now support for testing emissions for fully-electric cars in the same way petrol and diesel emissions are currently assessed.
He said: “While the move to electric vehicles is undeniably positive in reducing overall emissions from individual vehicles, we must not forget the importance of ensuring that the energy used by EVs is generated as cleanly as possible.
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“To develop the MOT to assess the source of electricity used by EVs would require multi-industry standards to be set up, and the test may not be the best way to ensure drivers are opting for cleaner energy.
“However, this research does highlight that millions of drivers believe there should be a way of testing overall emissions for vehicles using electricity.
“It’s worth remembering that currently hybrid vehicles are not tested for emissions in the MOT, even though they still run on petrol or diesel for some of the time, so perhaps the first change to make should be to include emissions testing for hybrids.”
Under the current measure, electric cars will skip the emissions and noise check when they enter a garage.
However, stricter rules for diesel car emissions were put into effect by the DVSA ahead of the 2018 MOT rules changes.
Drivers will now receive a “Major” fault in their MOT test if garages can see smoke of any colour coming from a car’s exhaust.
A car will also fail if there is any evidence the Diesel Particulate Filter has been tampered with in any way.
BookMygarage revealed the introduction of new emissions checks had seen a spike in the number of cars failing their test.
Data from the specialist revealed 1.3million vehicles in total had failed their MOT emissions checks over 12 months
This was 70 percent higher than before the tougher measures were introduced.
The data revealed almost 850,000 petrol cars were caught out by emissions failures between 2019 and 2020.
A further 420,537 diesel cars were also affected compared to just 123,500 per year before the updates were introduced.
Jessica Potts, head of marketing at BookMyGarage said the updates had “mostly affected” diesel vehicles.
She said: “The regulations have mostly impacted diesel cars, causing more than triple the number to fail, compared to petrol car failures which have only increased by a third.”
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