The Green Vehicle Guide is supposed to be an easy way for consumers to compare the fuel economy and electric driving range of all the cars sold in Australia, but due to a loophole that allows car makers to submit figures from either the WLTP or NEDC testing cycle, it is impossible to compare EVs accurately
For example, I wanted to compare the Volvo EX30 to its platform sibling the Zeekr X and this is what the GVG presents:
It says the Zeekr X has more range than the Volvo EX30, but if you go to the Zeekr website, they don’t say 540km anywhere. They say the RWD version actually has 445km of range.
Volvo’s website also gives WLTP range, the same as the GVG.
Other car makers confuse things too. Xpeng’s G6 Long Range sates 570km range on their website, but 625km on the GVG. BYD do the opposite and list 650km range on their website for the Seal Premium, but submitted 570km for the GVG. I could almost understand a bunch of older cars having NEDC ratings, but the Zeekr and Xpeng are barely in showrooms, why are they still submitting NEDC ratings?!
The GVG’s website says that “as the results displayed in the GVG are based on a standardised drive cycle, different vehicle models can be compared with confidence” - this is not true. If I want to compare a few cars and see which one has more range or better efficiency or even which one has less fuel lifecycle CO2 emissions, how am I supposed to know if one car maker submitted NEDC and the other submitted WLTP?
That same page says that all cars are tested against Australian Design Rule (ADR) 81/02. According to the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard impact analysis document from March 2024, “ADR 81/02 adopts United Nations (UN) Regulation No. 101, which uses a test cycle known as the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC)” - so why are car makers submitting WLTP figures?
In an interview from July 2024 with the GM for PR at Hyundai Australia, it’s explained that even though the regulations say Hyundai are supposed to test against NEDC as per ADR 81/02, most car makers are submitting the WLTP figures as that’s what they’ve been tested on overseas and don’t want to do the testing locally for NEDC.
Why doesn’t the government just mandate WLTP ratings? Page 43 of the NEVS impact statement says that “it is not feasible to mandate WLTP testing for all new vehicles until the Euro 6d noxious emissions standards are fully implemented for new vehicles in July 2028”, so it’s okay to keep submitting NEDC testing cycle results and comply with the legislation.
That’s why we have some manufacturers submitting NEDC (which is what ADR 81/02 says and is a bigger number for the window sticker) and some submitting WLTP (because they don’t see the value paying for an obsolete test cycle for a single small country) and nothing’s gonna change for 3 and a half years. What a shitshow.