With two back to back fire incidents first with Tata Nexon and now Okinawa has again thrown open the safety issue, even as BIS has come up with updated safety standard for the EV batteries.
With Smart City Motors, an Okinawa dealership in Mangaluru catching fire today, the incident has again opened the debate on safety of electric vehicles. This happens to be the second time for Okinawa to face a situation when an entire dealership has caught fire.
Earlier, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MORTH) had launched a probe where the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) was tasked to investigate the fire incidents.
Based on the investigation it was found that EV makers need to come up with fire resistant battery designs and robust EV modules. DRDO has said the fault lies with the poor quality of materials used by the manufacturers
EV manufacturer Okinawa released a statement stating that the company is aware of the incident in Mangalore and it blames the incident on the “Electric short circuit that caused the fire as informed by the dealer. Safety is at the core of Okinawa Autotech and we want to assure that the highest standards of safety are maintained in our dealerships across the country.” The statement has said
While the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), is in the process of updating its existing standards, the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has come up with the “IS 17855: 2022" benchmark for lithium-ion traction battery packs. Also, the systems of electrically-propelled road vehicles have been harmonized with ISO 12405-4: 2018 standard.
The updated standard has raised the bar for performance of the battery packs and systems for either high power or high energy application taking into account various temperature settings in which the electric vehicles have to perform.
BIS is also in the works of coming up with two more standards related to batteries of various goods and passenger vehicles.
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