Fleet average NOx standards and reporting requirements for light-duty vehicles: chapter 3

Chapter 3: Fleet Average NOx Standards

• 3.1 The exhaust emissions standards for light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles that are incorporated by reference from the United States' Code of Federal Regulations under sections 12 and 19 of the Regulations are based on "bins." What are bins?
• 3.2 What are the fleet average NO_x standards for fleets of vehicles?
• 3.3 Is a company's entire fleet of light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles subject to the fleet average NO_x standards?
• 3.4 How does a company demonstrate compliance with the fleet average NO_x standards?

3.1 The exhaust emissions standards for light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles that are incorporated by reference from the United States' Code of Federal Regulations under sections 12 and 19 of the Regulations are based on "bins." What are bins?

The exhaust emission standards for light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles align with those of the United States, and are commonly referred to as the U.S. Tier 2 emission standards. The standards are grouped into 11 "bins," with each bin having different standards for emission limits for oxides of nitrogen (NO_x), non-methane organic gases (NMOG), carbon monoxide (CO), formaldehyde and particulate matter (PM), as presented in Table 1. Companies are required to certify every vehicle to one of the 11 bins and the choices of bins to which each vehicle can be certified are restricted by the obligation to comply with the fleet average NO_x standards (see section 3.2).

Bins 9 and 10 were only available for the 2004 to 2006 model years for light-duty vehicles and light light-duty trucks, and up to and including 2008 for heavy light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles. Bins 8 through 10 contain additional temporary, less stringent standards for certain pollutants and for certain vehicles. Bin 11 is only for medium-duty passenger vehicles and is available for model years up to and including the 2008 model year. Beginning in the 2009 model year, applicable standards are limited to bins 1 to 8 for all light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles.

3.2 What are the fleet average NO_x standards for fleets of vehicles?

Sections 21 to 23 of the Regulations specify a phase-in period for the fleet average NO_x standards. Table 2 and Table 3 show the fleet average NO_x standards from 2004 to 2008 for light-duty vehicles and light light-duty trucks, and for heavy light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles, respectively. The fleet average NO_x standards establish a maximum limit for a company's NO_x emissions for a given model year, and that limit is based on the actual number of vehicles in the fleet. The fleet average NO_x standards also serve as the reference against which NO_x emission credits and deficits are generated (see Chapter 5).

In the 2009 model year and subsequent model years, a company's fleets of light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks (i.e., light light-duty trucks and heavy light-duty trucks) and medium-duty passenger vehicles are subject to a combined fleet average NO_x standard of 0.07 grams/mile.

3.3 Is a company's entire fleet of light-duty vehicles, light-duty trucks and medium-duty passenger vehicles subject to the fleet average NO_x standards?

As a general rule, the fleet average NO_x standards apply to a company's entire fleet of vehicles. However, as explained in Chapter 6 of this document, there are provisions in the Regulations that allow a company to exclude a specified group of vehicles from compliance with the fleet average NO_x standards.

3.4 How does a company demonstrate compliance with the fleet average NO_x standards?

A company demonstrates compliance with the fleet average NO_x standards in a model year in one of two ways:

• the company shows, in its end-of-model-year report to the Minister of the Environment, that its actual average NO_xvalues for its fleets of that model year, based on the actual number of vehicles, do not exceed the applicable fleet average NO_x standards set out in the Regulations; or
• the company applies emission credits against actual average NO_x values for its fleets, where those values exceed the applicable fleet average NO_x standards set out in the Regulations (see Chapter 5).