On the backdrop of back-to-back EV battery fire incidents popping all across the country, the National Highways for Electric Vehicles (NHEV) has suggested few safety recommendations related to EV batteries and charging infrastructure.
The suggestions also include installing a black-box-like feature to monitor EV batteries and its systems and identifying the issues that lead to battery failure.
The organization has issued 12 guidelines that include identifying battery failure issues along with problems regarding battery fires through an identification device.
“Four recommendations regarding regulatory aspects were also made. These are identification of battery failure issues, volatile thermal behavior 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 Discoms, and financing (by bank and NBFCs) of only those batteries that meet government standardisation,” the NHEV said in a statement.
The NHEV meeting was attended by a Niti Aayog Member and Honorary Chair NHEV Knowledge Group, V.K. Saraswat, and key stakeholders from the EV industry.
“NHEV Working Group decided to place these 12 recommendations before the policy think tank and government along with four new short-term pilots announced,” said Abhijeet Sinha, National Project Director, NHEV.
In another meeting, the charge points operator’s (CPO) society also announced that 4,000-5,000 EV chargers will be installed at 2,000 locations in the central Delhi district.
The recommendations come as the government has ordered a probe into Tata Motors’ Nexon EV fire incident in Mumbai.
The company termed it as an “isolated thermal incident”.
The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), which was earlier tasked with investigating electric two-wheeler fire incidents by the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry, is leading the probe into Nexon EV fire.
The DRDO probe had earlier found serious defects in the EV two-wheeler batteries.
These defects occurred because the electric two-wheeler manufacturers like Okinawa Autotech, Pure EV, Jitendra Electric Vehicles, Ola Electric and Boom Motors may have used “lower-grade materials to cut costs”.
The BIS, which comes under the Union Consumer Affairs Ministry, published the “performance standards for electronic vehicle batteries” in a bid to keep a strict control over the manufacturing of EV batteries.
The new BIS standard called “IS 17855: 2022” has been designed for lithium-ion traction battery packs and systems of electrically-propelled road vehicles.
