When European drivers get into their cars as of Saturday (September 1), they may be surprised to learn that overnight their cherished vehicles have become about 20 percent less fuel-efficient and 20 percent more polluting than when they last turned the key.

Read more: Study: Most EU carmakers report false CO2 emissions

Not that many of them are expected to worry about their car's worse ecological footprint. But what those buying a car next week or later may find more difficult to contend with is a car tax bill that could be up to 70 percent higher than for an identical car bought, say, last week or earlier.

That's the figure calculated by the German ADAC motorists' association for Volkswagen's VW up! The GTI model, whose annual taxes are set to rise from €50 ($58) per year to €85 in Germany on an overnight increase in its emissions from 110 grams per kilometer (g/km) to 128g/km.

How come? Well, the car you own after September 1 is obviously still the same as it was in August. But its official — on paper — efficiency and environmental ratings are certified through a new, tougher standard, called the Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP). In addition, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and particulate emissions are verified by the Real Driving Emissions (RDE) test which, as its name suggests, is conducted on real roads.

That the new WLTP protocol arrives so soon after Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal is mostly coincidence. But VW's cheating sped up implementation, and opposition from the auto industry faded quickly.

Dieselgate: A timeline The disaster unfolds — September 2015 About two weeks after Volkswagen admitted behind closed doors to US environmental regulators that it had installed cheating software in some 11 million of its diesel vehicles worldwide, the Environmental Protection Agency shared that information with the public. It was September 18, 2015. The ensuing crisis would eventually take a few unexpected turns.

Dieselgate: A timeline The boss must go, long live the boss — September 2015 Volkswagen's then-CEO Martin Winterkorn (above) had little choice but to step down several days after news of the scandal broke. In September 2015, he tendered his resignation, but retained his other posts within the Volkswagen Group. Winterkorn's successor was Matthias Müller. Until taking the reins at VW, Müller had been the chairman at Porsche, a VW subsidiary.

Dieselgate: A timeline Raiding headquarters — October 2015 Regulators in the US weren't the only ones investigating VW. Authorities in Lower Saxony, the German state in which VW is based, were also scrutinizing the company. On October 8 2015, state prosecutors raided VW's headquarters along with several other corporate locations.

Dieselgate: A timeline Hell breaks loose — January 2016 On January 4, 2016, the US government filed a lawsuit against VW in Detroit, accusing the German automaker of fraud and violations of American climate protection regulations. The lawsuit sought up to $46 billion for violations of the Clean Air Act.

Dieselgate: A timeline Quit or forced out? — March 2016 In March 2016, the head of VW in the US, Michael Horn, resigned. In the initial days and weeks after the scandal broke, he was the one US authorities turned to for information. He issued an official apology on behalf of the automaker, asking for the public's forgiveness.

Dieselgate: A timeline Settlement — October 2016 On October 25 2016, a US judge approved a final settlement that would have VW pay $15.3 billion. In addition, affected cars would be retrofitted with better, non-deceptive hardware and software, or else VW would buy them back completely from customers.

Dieselgate: A timeline Imitators — July 2017 When dieselgate first emerged in 2015, analysts said it was likely other car makers were also cheating tests. But it wasn't until 2017 that other companies were targeted in probes. In July, German authorities launched investigations into luxury car makers Porsche and Daimler for allegedly cheating emissions tests. Others, such as Audi and Chrysler, have also been hit by similar allegations.

Dieselgate: A timeline Public still supportive — December 2017 Despite dieselgate, VW has managed to keep the emissions scandal from utterly tarnishing its image. According to several polls, between 55 to 67 percent of Germans continue to trust the automaker. In the US, polls show that roughly 50 percent still believe the German company produces worthwhile vehicles.

Dieselgate: A timeline Fuming over monkeys — January 2018 In late January, however, VW suffered another heavy blow over reports that the company experimented on monkeys and made the animals inhale diesel fumes. To make matters worse, a separate experiment that had humans inhale relatively harmless nitrogen dioxide was revealed at the same time. Some media wrongly interpreted this to mean humans were also inhaling toxic fumes.

Dieselgate: A timeline Canadian court demands millions — January 2020 Years after the scandal that caused Volkswagen to pay CAN$2.4 billion (US$1.83 billion), a court in Toronto order a further fine of CAN$196.5 million. Volkswagen pleaded guilty of violating in environmental laws. Prosecutor Tom Lemon noted that the fine was "26 times the highest fine ever for a Canadian environmental offence." Author: Dirk Kaufmann, Elliot Douglas



Closer to reality

Until September 1, cars to be type-approved for European markets had to pass a test called the New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) designed in the 1980s and introduced in 1996.

The NEDC is based on a theoretical driving profile and consists of two drive cycles, urban and extra urban. However, the testing procedure fails to take into account options such as larger wheels or any items that increase the standard curb weight. Neither does it account for what is now common standard equipment such as heated seats, air conditioning, four-wheel drive and heated windows.

Discussions about the new regulations began in November 2007, when concerns at the mismatch between the NEDC emissions testing and achievable real-world figures first hit the headlines

The WLTP takes all of those factors into consideration, and more. Although also being carried out in a laboratory, the new test cycles are based on real-world driving data and split into four parts — low, medium, high and extra-high average speeds. Each speed range will comprise a variety of phases, including stops, acceleration and braking. While NEDC relied on fixed gear shift points, WLTP specifies different shift points for each vehicle.

Moreover, a complementary Real Driving Emissions (RDE) test has been introduced, which, as the name suggests, is not laboratory-based. Although the procedure sets the types of roads and topography, it can be performed on any roads anywhere in the world. It is this aspect that poses the toughest challenge for manufacturers.

Delays and rising costs

According to car industry officials, it takes twice as long to complete WLTP test cycles than under the old NEDC. What's more, the amount of back-office organization, paperwork and administration has soared exponentially — costs that will inevitably be passed on to the customer.

German carmaker Volkswagen (VW), for example, has already warned that the time-consuming testing procedures will cost it "billions" in the second half of the year, and that it expects significant weaker sales due to delays in type approvals.

Read more: VW finds a use for Berlin's unfinished airport

For premium carmaker Daimler, model certification has also become a challenge. "Today you have to get many more vehicles through than in the past. But the authorities are only prepared to do the tests to a certain extent. It's stuck in a bottleneck and the [WLTP] marker doesn't wait," said Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche.

French auto group PSA appears to be the only major automaker to meet the deadline, claiming that all of its vehicles are now compliant with WLTP protocols. "Our technological choices to treat pollutant emissions allow us to offer to our customers compliant and environmentally friendly vehicles," Gilles Le Borgne, executive vice president for quality and engineering, said on August 29.

Smaller carmakers, are simplifying their ranges they want to have type-approved. "We will go to single-type approval. We don't have the flexibility to cope with such strict measures. We should be back to where we need to be by the end of the year," Suzuki UK said in a statement.

VW has parked around 8,000 cars at Berlin's unfinished BER airport, waiting to get approvals from the German Transport Authority for its yet untested models. Worldwide up to 250,000 VW cars await delivery to customers

Industry's reputation restored?

With the new regulations, Europe can now credibly claim that it has the toughest emissions regulations in the world. But despite its claim the WLTP standard is only being adopted in full by the EU, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Turkey and Israel. Other countries like China are adopting elements of the regulations, notably around diesel engines. And the United States and Brazil are going their own way.

What's safe to say is that the WLTP won't help the climate very much; it just gives a clearer picture of how polluting our cars really are. The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) has estimated that fuel consumption and CO2 figures will increase by 22 percent on average — meaning first and foremost a welcome windfall for treasuries all over Europe.

Read more: What the emissions scandal means for the environment

And tax income tied to cars' CO2 emissions could be even higher than currently estimated, according to recent reports about emissions manipulations regarding the new WLTP standard.

In July, the European Commission said it had found evidence that carmakers were using "tricks" to make test results look worse than they actually are.

The EU executive cited a "clear risk" that manufacturers were artificially increasing the readings under WLTP, ahead of an important new emissions baseline to be set in 2020.

Last November, Brussels demanded that carmakers cut emissions by 15 percent between 2020 and 2025, and 30 percent by 2030. Higher emissions under the WLTP protocol would subsequently mean less ambitious cuts for carmakers that would be easier to reach over the period.

Among the things the Commission said it didn't want to see were tests carried out with depleted batteries, so that additional fuel was consumed, disabled stop-start functions and "gear-shifting strategies," in which cars were driven in gears that would cause a "significant" rise in CO2 emissions.

So, while the Commission said it would "monitor and support proper implementation" of WLTP, lucky are those, who've bought a new car more recently.