The Dieselgate, a huge cheating scandal with polluting emissions, of which the Volkswagen group was the epicenter in 2015, and still today, will have had far-reaching consequences in the automotive world. We are thinking of course of the market shift towards petrol, but not only.
Today, another consequence is taking shape. Indeed, this scandal has highlighted the need to be able to control, at all times, and not only during approval, the compliance of vehicles and engines with respect to European and national regulatory requirements in terms of safety, health and environment. Because today, this control takes place only once, during the homologation, then “never again” thereafter.
The European Union has therefore decided to reinforce this surveillance, by imposing on all its Member States the obligation to have a control body, to “monitor the market for motor vehicles for the transport of passengers and goods, trailers , as well as separate systems, components, and separate technical units “. A little obscure as a formulation, but we understand the idea.
It is simple: to be able, at any time, to take a vehicle or an engine from production lines or in circulation, and carry out tests and conformity tests.
In France, this leads to the creation, via an ordinance dated June 10, 2020, and published in the official journal yesterday, June 11, of the SSMVM (Vehicle and Engine Market Monitoring Service), which will take up its functions on September 1, 2020. , like all its counterparts in the other countries of the Union. It is attached to the “climate and energy efficiency service” (SCEE) of the DGEC (Directorate General for Energy and Climate).
Its scope of action will be very broad. It will concern:
- Passenger transport vehicles (category M), goods transport vehicles (category N) and the trailers intended for them (category O), as well as the systems, components, separate technical units and parts and equipment intended for these vehicles
- Agricultural and forestry vehicles, tractors (category T and C), trailers (category R) and interchangeable towed machinery (category S), as well as systems, components, separate technical units and parts and equipment intended for these vehicles
- Two, three wheels and quadricycles (category L) as well as the systems, components, separate technical units and parts and equipment intended for these vehicles
- The special warning lights of certain vehicles
- Tire labeling
- Emissions of polluting gases and polluting particles from internal combustion engines intended for non-road mobile machinery (EMNR). The MNER category covers a wide variety of vehicles, ranging from small portable equipment (chainsaw, etc.) to railcars, locomotives and inland waterway vessels, including construction equipment, snowmobiles and generator sets.
A power of sanctions, and high sanctions!
Almost nothing will be able to fall between the cracks of the net of this new service “SSMVM”, therefore. He will have a budget of 5 million euros, and will have to present an annual test plan, of which it is communicated today that there will be a hundred interventions (documentary checks, tests and trials). They may also be triggered following complaints or “information received”. And the ordinance specifies that the agents who will be commissioned to carry out the controls will be able to call if necessary with “assistance to law enforcement officials for findings, samples or seizures“.
The role of this service is not only to inform or control. Depending on the results of the tests carried out, sanctions may be taken against the operators concerned (manufacturers, manufacturers, authorized representatives, importers or distributors). And they are not ridiculous.
Administrative sanctions can range from a warning to the destruction of products, including withdrawal from the market, imposed recall, suspension of placing on the market. And the associated fines can range up to € 300,000 per non-compliant engine, or € 1 million per non-compliant vehicle. And criminal sanctions can also be applied: maximum 3 years imprisonment, € 300,000 per non-compliant EMNR (non-road mobile vehicle) and € 1 million for motor vehicles.
And that’s not all. The order provides that “The amount of the fine may be increased, in proportion to the benefits derived from the non-compliance, to 10% of the average annual turnover, calculated on the last three annual turnover figures known on the date of the facts, when the products concerned have posed a danger to health, safety or the environment“This is exactly what was discussed at Dieselgate.
Finally, the controls and sanctions taken in one country will apply to the other European countries in the system.
The creation of this new service represents a big change in the way of checking the conformity of engines and vehicles. This weighs on the manufacturers a sword of Damocles, likely to dissuade them from playing with regulations after the fact. It is the principle of the random check of the caddies at the exit of the self-service cash desks, which makes renounce the “gruge” number of customers. Still it is necessary that the controls are indeed numerous enough so that the manufacturers say that the risk is too high to take it. The 5 million euros budget and the hundred checks planned are perhaps a little fair to date, knowing that there are tens of thousands of vehicles, two-wheelers, tricycles, tractors, trailers, engines, lights, tires … But the principle is excellent. We applaud him.
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