Ministry of Road Transport and Highway on September 1 issued additional safety requirements related to battery cells, Battery Management systems (BMS), onboard chargers, battery pack design, and thermal propagation due to internal cell short circuit. The draft notification came in after the Ministry constituted an expert committee to recommend additional safety requirements in the existing battery safety standards in view of the recent EV fire. The notification to mandate amended standards for the respective categories of electric vehicles with effect from October 1, 2022, is in progress, the Ministry said in a statement.”Ministry also issued draft notification GSR 659 (E) on August 25, 2022, to amend Sub-rule 4 of Rule 124 of Central Motor Vehicles Rule (CMVR) 1989, for mandating Conformity of Production (COP) for traction batteries used in electric power train vehicles,” the statement added. The proposed regulation will be applicable with effect from October 1, 2022, and the government has asked for comments and suggestions from all stakeholders within a period of thirty days.
EV manufacturers such as Ola Electric, Pure EV, and Okinawa issued recalls for their electric vehicles earlier this year, in April, following fire occurrences in various parts of the country. Okinawa recalled 3,215 units of its EVs, followed by Pure EV, which recalled around 2,000 units of its EVs. Similarly, Ola Electric recalled 1,441 units. Meanwhile, during the Parliament session last month, the government informed that a total of 13,92,265 Electric Vehicles (EVs) are being used on the roads of India as on August 3, 2022. The total number of three-wheeler stands at 7,93,370. The total number of two-wheeler stands at 5,44,643. The number of four-wheelers and above stands at 54,252 as on 3rd August 2022, it said.
