Additional battery safety norms for EVs from October 1

The central government has decided to implement mandatory standards for battery components and their testing, including cells of electric vehicles from October 1, 2022.

The norms will be valid for electric two-wheelers, three-wheelers, quadricycles and cars.

The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has said that amendments include additional safety requirements related to battery cells, battery management system, on-board charger, the design of battery pack and thermal propagation due to internal cell short circuit leading to fire.

The ministry has also invited comments from stakeholders on mandating conformity of production for traction batteries used in electric vehicles. This will involve random sampling of finished batteries from factories for tests to find whether the companies are complying with the standards while undertaking mass production of EV models. Currently, there is no such provision.

In the backdrop of number of cases of fire incidents observed in electric two wheelers in different parts of the country, MoRTH had constituted an expert committee chaired by Tata Narsingh Rao, Director, ARC, Hyderabad.

Several cases of electric scooters catching fire have been reported in the last few months from across the country.

As a result, Ola Electric had recalled over 1,400 electric scooters, Pure EV recalled 2,000 units of its ETrance+ and EPluto 7G scooters, while Okinawa Autotech has recalled 3,215 scooters.

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