Fuel consumption rates of passenger cars in China: Labels versus real-world

Recently, China has implemented many policy measures to control the oil demand of on‐road vehicles. In 2010, China started to report the fuel consumption rates of light‐duty vehicles tested in laboratory and to require new vehicles to show the rates on window labels. In this study, we examined the differences between the test and real‐world fuel consumption of Chinese passenger cars by using the data reported by real‐world drivers on the internet voluntarily. The sales‐weighted average fuel consumption of new cars in China in 2009 was 7.80L/100km in laboratory and 9.02L/100km in real‐world, representing a difference of 15.5%. For the 153 individual car models examined, the real‐world fuel consumption rates were ‐8 to 60% different from the test values. The simulation results of the International Vehicle Emission model show that the real‐world driving cycles in 22 selected Chinese cities could result in ‐8 to 34% of changes in fuel consumption compared to the laboratory driving cycle. Further government effort on fuel consumption estimates adjustment, local driving cycle development, and real‐world data accumulation through communication with the public is needed to improve the accuracy of the labeling policy.