Easier with autogas plant registration
7.8.2023
From 1 July 2023, a completely new law on approval systems for vehicles and their equipment entered into force. Work on it has been controversial since 2021, but it has also brought some clear benefits to the autogas industry.
Why the Homologation Act?
Until now, the process of homologation of vehicles, as well as autogas installations, has been regulated in Poland within the framework of the Law on Road Traffic, adopted in 1997 and repeatedly amended. However, recent changes in European law - including Regulation 2018/858 and Directives 2021/1716 and 2021/1717 - introducing changes to the approval process, as well as the need to implement into Polish law a parallel path of approval of a gas installation based on UN Regulation No. 115, have created the need to separate the issue of approval into the new legal act. The new law is intended to ensure full compliance of Polish legislation with international legislation and prevent the imposition of penalties on Poland for failure to implement EU legislation. He wrote about the need for a new homologation law from the perspective of the automotive industry at the end of 2022, among others. Jakub Faryś, President of the Polish Automotive Industry Association.
Approval certificates in the registration of vehicles with a gas installation
During the work on the law, the problem submitted for regulation became a significant problem for users of cars powered by autogas. Until now, in the case of some municipal transport departments, there was a problem related to the interpretation of the regulations when registering such vehicles: the authorities did not want to accept as attachments extracts from type-approval certificates signed mechanically (so-called facsimile), but required paper originals, which caused delays and costs. At the request of a member of POGP, AC SA, the new law contains a more detailed provision with the following wording:
Article 42. An operator installing an additional gas supply system of a vehicle shall issue to the vehicle owner an extract from the type-approval certificate referred to in Article 31 (3) for each vehicle in which such installation has been installed. An extract from the certificate may be signed with a signature mirrored by a mechanical method.
The new provision explicitly allows copies of the approval certificate as meeting the requirements of the Act for the purpose of making an entry in the vehicle registration certificate after the installation of the autogas system. At the request of the chairman of the Autogas Commission, the Ministry of Infrastructure issued an interpretation confirming that such documents should be honored by the competent authorities for the registration of vehicles.
