PERSPECTIVES ON THE EVOLUTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE ...

Automotive Industry in China
3. Legal environment and market requirements
Before being able to sell a motor vehicle in a market, it needs to have a Type
certificate according to the standards of the country where it will be sold. Different
countries give different certificates. In order to get those certificates you have to go
through what is called the homologation process.
There are many different homologation processes: U.S. has the self-certification
according to the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards issued by the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In Europe the national laws coexist with the
two European systems of homologation: the European Union directives and the
United Nations Economic Commission for Europe regulations.
Apart from these homologations, there are independent organisms that go further than
the legislation and give advice about the safety performance of cars. These organisms
are for example in Europe de EuroNCAP and in China the ChinaNCAP. There have
been cases where the car manufacturers have decided to stop selling one car model
that passed the homologation process but had a low punctuation in the EuroNCAP,
and therefore damaged the manufacturer’s brand.
In this chapter we are going to analyze:
The European Union directives (The European Whole Vehicle Type Approval
(EWVTA)).
The United Nation Economic Commission for Europe (UN ECE) regulations.
The NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) selfcertification
in U.S.
The EuroNCAP.
Port of Barcelona Chair of Logistics 22