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ECWVTA is based on European Commission Directives and provides for the approval of whole vehicles, vehicle systems and separate components.  Currently ECWVTA applies to cars, motor cycles and agricultural vehicles and over the next few years is to extend to other vehicles.

The majority of business affected will be the manufacturers of vehicles in the categories outlined below. It will apply mainly to those who complete vehicles i.e. take a chassis and build a body of any description on it before selling it to the customer.

It is also likely to affect importers who bring vehicles, from the same categories, in from both inside and outside Europe.

The classes of vehicles that will be affected are generally regarded as commercial vehicles and are as follows:

M2 & M3 – Buses and Coaches

N2 & N3 – Goods Vehicles

O1-O4 – Trailers (light and heavy)

(More detailed definitions are included at Annex A.)

Mandatory ECWVTA for cars (M1 class) has been in place since January 1998. Optional ECWVTA is available for light goods vehicles and this will become mandatory within the framework of the RFD. National small series and individual vehicle approval schemes are available for both in Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

As it stands the legislation is still with the European Parliament and no definite dates for introduction have been firmly set at the time of writing. However it is likely to come into force sometime around summer 2007 with the first vehicles that will require ECWVTA being around winter 2009 to allow businesses to adjust to the changes. There will also be a period to allow member states to transpose the EC Directive into their national legislation. It should be noted that these dates are a guide and are subject to change.

The RFD sets out phased introductions for the different categories of vehicle requiring ECWVTA and, on introduction, vehicles from that category will require a Certificate of Conformity in order to enter into service. For a vehicle to gain a Certificate of Conformity the vehicle type must be subject to the Type Approval process in which extensive testing (including destructive testing) is carried out to ensure that the vehicle meets rigorous safety and environment standards. Once a vehicle type is approved then the manufacturer’s production line must be subjected to a Conformity of Production Assessment. Only when it has passed this can the manufacturer issue Certificates of Conformity for vehicles that are produced on that production line. For ECWVTA the testing process is expensive and is really only suited to large volumes of vehicles were the cost can be recovered easily.

The UK Government realises that there are significant number of small to medium businesses throughout the UK that build vehicles in numbers that would not make ECWVTA viable. Currently the Government is considering whether to implement two additional schemes in parallel with ECWVTA – Small Series Type Approval and Individual Vehicle Type Approval. If the Government decides to go ahead with these schemes then they will be made available through national legislation in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Similar schemes may be implemented in other member states if they choose to. Both schemes will provide an alternative route to approval and will result in the issue of a certificate to allow a vehicle to enter service.

Currently the discussions as to what the UK does with regards small series and individual approvals are going on at Ministerial level within the Government though it is quite likely that these schemes will be provided in some form.

In anticipation both DoE (NI) and its agency DVTA have started work in preparing themselves to provide these services. However as the Government is providing this service to local industry it is vital that local industry tells us what it needs.