The figures have been published for three cars – the Peugeot 308, Citroën Grand C4 Picasso and DS 3 – and have been generated from a test procedure established with two non-governmental organizations, Transport & Environment (T&E) and France Nature Environment (FNE), and audited by Bureau Veritas.

The cars were driven on public roads near Paris (25.5 km urban, 39.7 km extra-urban, and 31.1 km motorway) and under real-life driving conditions, notably with passenger and luggage loads, road gradients, and use of air-conditioning systems.

The figures for the models were rated as 5.0l/100km for the Peugeot 308, 5.6l/100km for the Citroën Grand C4 Picasso and 4.9l/100km for the DS 3.

The initial measurements are comparable to those made by customers obtained from independent customer surveys and have been welcomed as showing that that the procedure conducted with Transport & Environment is scientifically robust and representative of a typical driver.

Before summer 2016 PSA will release official real-world fuel consumption figures for 30 Peugeot, Citroën and core DS models.

Greg Archer, clean vehicles director at Transport & Environment, said: “The test developed with PSA Peugeot Citroën is reproducible and representative. It confirms the fuel consumption of a tested model by a typical driver in real-world driving conditions. This test proves that the on-road tests are reliable and can be used to measure real CO2 emissions. This should become the benchmark for all carmakers advertising their vehicles’ fuel efficiency.”