Tests on three Jaguar Land Rover models have shown the diesel engines used are meeting and beating Euro 6 emissions limits ahead of schedule.

The Jaguar E-Pace was rated as having 14mg/km of NOx in the real-world urban tests

The tests have been carried out by the newly launched AIR Index, an online database developed by a global alliance of academics and industry experts. It uses independently sourced test data to rank vehicles from A to E (dirtiest to cleanest) based on how much NOx they emit during on-road driving.

Results are now out for the Jaguar E-Pace, Land Rover Discovery Sport and Discovery and outgoing Range Rover Evoque, which mark the first cars proactively supplied for testing by a carmaker and have all been rated in the cleanest ‘A’ category in real-world urban testing carried out for the database.

Every car rated on the AIR Index is based on at least two independently sourced cars, over three separate tests, including at least five, 10km trips conducted on paved roads, using on-board Portable Emissions Measurement System (PEMS) testing equipment.

The test figures show that all four models are not only beating on-road emissions limits but even the laboratory ones.

Official NOx limits for diesels are set at 80mg/km under Euro 6. The RDE1 on-road test allows vehicles to emit 2.1 times more pollutants on the road (i.e. 160mg/km), and becomes mandatory for all new cars from 1 September 2019. While RDE2 limits this to 1.5 times (i.e. 120mg/km) from January 2021 for all new cars.

However, the results put the E-Pace at 14mg/km, the Discovery Sport at 34mg/km, the Evoque at 17mg/km and the Discovery at 33mg/km.

Massimo Fedeli, co-founder and operations director, Allow Independent Road-testing (AIR), said: “Jaguar Land Rover asked us to put a range of their new diesel cars to the test, and the evidence shows that their latest engines are extremely clean, with all of the four models tested achieving the AIR Index A rating, which means that they produce the lowest levels of NOx emissions in urban driving.

“One of the key things to observe from this set of AIR Index ratings is that perceptions of the emissions produced by particular vehicle types, such as SUVs, can be very misleading. In fact, Jaguar’s E-PACE and Land Rover’s Range Rover Evoque are amongst the cleanest cars on sale of any type, not just vehicles within the SUV segment. The perfect example is the Land Rover Discovery, which produced NOx emissions 20 times lower than a diesel Renault Clio supermini.”