The Spanish automotive press "Autopista.es" (which has a bad habit of using lots of empty words and maybe/couldbe scare tactics to get people to read articles that in the end don't matter) posted this article warning that, depending on how national car safety equipment compliance regulations are interpreted, "millions of cars" may no longer be able to pass annual(-ish) technical inspections (e.g. "ITV" in Spain, "TÜV" in Germany) once the mobile carriers put the final nails in the coffin of 2G signals, because "Cars homologated from 2018" were required to include "eCall", and many cars' eCall function has 2G-only hardware:

Autopista

Millones de coches pueden suspender pronto la ITV por un...

El apagón y la interrupción de las redes 2G va a paralizar el sistema eCall de muchos vehículos, y recordamos que es obligatorio ya en coches nuevos por norm...

My April 2020-manufactured last-of-the-2019 Octavia III facelift Scout does not have eCall.

But, I suppose this car was "homologated" prior to its 2017 year introduction, so the eCall requirement never applied to Octavia III facelift vehicles?

I consider it quite unlikely that any national car safety authority would make millions of vehicles unable to comply because this technology became obsolete. That would be like refusing to issue new road permits for cars older than three-point seatbelts or airbags, which as far as I know no country ever did.

saludos desde España,

-Jay

AI answer for uk

ITV in Spain?

The Autopista.es article pointed out that, while it will be up to the ministry to clarify whether 2G-being-dead-causing-failure-of-the-eCall-system should matter, it is presently a commonly checked thing in ITV inspections in Spain, and that until clarification is issued, someone somewhere will almost surely be told that they'd "failed". (This is Spain, after all. "The computer told me so"...). The article quoted a German car industry source as having specifically applied to the regulator to ensure that this won't cause a problem for these cars' TÜV tests.

[ I repeat my own assertion/ assumption that, of course it won't, because that would just be stupid. But, of course, no government anywhere has tried to push back on Microsoft telling owners to junk approximately 250 million computers, also a type of general crime against the consumer, but cars seem to have a bigger owner lobby than computers 😅 - see https://therestartproject.org/right-to-repair/lets-stop-microsoft-creating-millions-of-tonnes-of-e-waste-this-october/ and yes I'll get off my soapbox now ]

Back to the other question, was I correct in my understanding that "manufactured in 2020" was not the key to whether eCall was supposed to have been standardized into the car, but rather "homologated prior to entry to the market in 2017" (and eCall became required for cars homologated from 2018) ?

9 minutes ago, JayLibove said:

Back to the other question, was I correct in my understanding that "manufactured in 2020" was not the key to whether eCall was supposed to have been standardized into the car, but rather "homologated prior to entry to the market in 2017" (and eCall became required for cars homologated from 2018) ?

Regulation (EU) 2015/758 lays down a general obligation for new types of vehicles of categories M1 and N1 to be equipped with 112-based eCall in-vehicle systems as of 31 March 2018.

I suppose it would be possible for vehicles that were not "New types" to have been still registered without it.

I would expect given the time it took to implement the regulations manufacturers would have done it on Model Year so MY2018 which usually start being built earlier the year before in 2017 would have it.

But a MY2017 that had been sat around in a field or showroom unregisterd then sold in 2018 may not.

As of January 1, 2026, new cars launched in Europe must be equipped with the updated Next Generation eCall (NG eCall) system, which uses 4G and 5G networks. Cars being built now will have that one.

Edited 14 October, 202514 Oct by Stonekeeper