Even as incidents of fires in electric vehicles keep hitting the headlines, the one thing that seems to be common among all such accidents is that the automobile companies involved in them have been extremely economical with the truth.
Most of the companies have either gone uber defensive or come up with some explanation that seeks to wash off their responsibility. It is all unconvincing. But what if there is some thingy, like the black box in aeroplanes, to help find out the cause of any malfunctioning?
Well, that is what the National Highways for Electric Vehicles (NHEV) is trying to moot. NHEV, which is an organisation aimed at promoting electrification of India’s transportation systems, has come up with 12 safety recommendations related to battery swapping and charging infrastructure. One of the 12 suggestions is the one about an identification device in EVs that will help identifying the cause of battery failures and fires.
NHEV's 12 recommendations
The NHEV organised a brainstorming session on battery safety as well as battery swapping in EVs in India. The session saw the presence of NITI Aayog members and many key stakeholders from the EV industry.
The 12 recommendations could be split as four each on administrative, regulatory and technical ones. Regulatory aspects included identification of battery failure issues, volatile thermal behaviour and associated risks with an identification device to understand the root cause of failure, real-time verifiable exchange value for battery swapping, net metering of charging stations from electricity companies, and financing (by bank and NBFCs) of only those batteries that meet government standardisation.
Other suggestions include real time identification of batteries and their current ownership details with Unique Identification (UID), transparency in information exchange to customers regarding EV batteries, components and third-party damage coverage, user discretion regarding sharing their location & privacy, as well as ascertaining the financial stability of battery OEM to ensure the after sales service and assistance during the battering life.
The technical suggestions include provision of black-box like feature to monitor battery systems and identifying the issues that lead to battery failure, mandatory digital connectivity of the battery through e-sim or other means, monitoring the battery performance & recall in case of fault identification, and high accelerated lifetime testing (HALT) for critical battery performance and operating parameters.
Meanwhile, in a related development elsewhere, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has issued new performance standards for lithium-ion batteries to safeguard the consumers amid the rising EV fire episodes in the country.
The BIS, which comes under the Union Consumer Affairs Ministry, published the "performance standards for electronic vehicle batteries" in a bid to keep strict control over the manufacturing of EV batteries.
