An Investigation of Electric Vehicle Battery Safety Standards with Indian Perspective

Electric Vehicle battery failure may lead to the release of toxic gas with fire and in some cases lead to explosion. To take care of these safety issues well defined standards and their regular upgradation is done based on recommendation of Automotive Industry Standards Committee (AISC) through Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI). Electric vehicles that are compliance with these standards are also facing safety issues. The aim of the research is to further strengthen the standards so that a vehicle complying standards boosts the sentiments of the customers. In the present work four Electric Vehicle safety standards set by Automotive Industry Standards (AIS) were critically reviewed. These standards are AIS-197 that covers Bharat New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), AIS-038 which is related to EV safety and construction, AIS 48 which provides standardization on safety requirements of traction batteries & AIS 156 that takes care of requirements of a vehicle electrical safety and safety of rechargeable electrical energy storage system (REESS). The world standards that were consulted while preparing these standards were also reviewed. Each examined standard is compared for finding the weak feature for further upgradation. A comparison of these standards with world standards are made. Shortcoming identified and future areas which requires attention are suggested.