Over recent decades climate change and air pollution have become an increasingly important issue and so the transportation policies of many countries aim to make vehicles more efficient and promote the development and use of electric vehicles. According to the European Automotive Manufacturers Association, the registration of electric vehicles showed a substantial increase of 160.5%, that makes stakeholders assume a realistic market share for new electrically chargeable vehicles to be in the range of 2 to 8% by 2020 to 2025, based on today’s market.
Electric and hybrid vehicles are submitted to the same passive and active safety standards as fossil fuel engine vehicles and so they have to pass crash tests defined by homologation regulations or other consumer standards such as Euro NCAP. Electric and hybrid vehicles only have to fulfil a few specific extra requirements added to official standards; however they have a potential danger after severe crashes due to the risk of electric shock from the battery. Therefore, Applus IDIADA has defined a new internal protocol, to be applied during electric vehicle crash tests, in order to ensure the safety of workers and the infrastructure.
In this paper the internal safety protocol applied for EV crash tests that is used at Applus IDIADA crash test laboratory, is described and related with the principal risks of testing electrical vehicles. Moreover, an overview of the principal amendments of passive safety standards regarding EV’s is presented.