The transition to the WLTP cycle is to bring greater-than-expected impacts on purchase and ownership costs across Europe, latest research from JATO Dynamics indicates.

JATO warns that the gap between NEDC Correlated values and previous NEDC figures is bigger than expected.

As reported by Fleet World last autumn, the car data specialist has previously warned that the process of re-testing vehicles to comply with the new fuel economy cycle could bring significant tax increases for fleets.

Effective from last September, the WLTP cycle replaces the previous New European Drive Cycle (NEDC) to offer a more representative approach. All cars will need to be retested by September 2018 to produce WLTP data.

However, due to issues with NEDC-based taxation in the UK and CO2 targets for European carmakers, there’s a crossover period where both sets of data are required. These are calculated via the Co2mpas tool, which converts WLTP measurements to an NEDC equivalent.

Already Jato data has shown that the first NEDC Correlated figures are up to 18% higher than the previous NEDC fuel economy and CO2 emissions.

And JATO continues to warn about the impact for vehicle owners, including fleets.

A spokesperson commented: “WLTP is a seismic change in the automotive industry. We have observed that NEDC Correlated CO2 figures are higher than previous NEDC tested values, and the disparity could be greater than the industry expected. Furthermore, our initial findings suggest that the NEDC Correlated values are resulting in higher purchase and ownership taxes for the end user in some cases.”