Electric vehicle safety standards will focus on industry chaos or elimination next year

Photojournalist/Ren Yuming has even exposed the safety hazards of the General Motors Chevrolet Volt, one of the more mature mass-produced electric vehicles in the industry, which casts a shadow over the global new energy automotive industry.

In the Chinese market in particular, almost all automakers hope to take advantage of the new energy vehicle project. However, because the industry itself has not yet formed a norm in the research, development, production, and battery management of electric vehicles, mixed companies are flooded throughout the industry. , The safety of electric vehicle products is worrying.

"First Financial Daily" recently learned from related departments that next year will be the timeline for the introduction of China's electric vehicle safety standards. This will play a role in clearing the chaos in the industry.

Frequent safety hazards In May of this year, a Volt EV suffered a battery damage during the impact test. Three weeks later, the battery caught fire, igniting the car and the other three cars in the garage. This prompted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration NHTSA to investigate the safety of Volt electric vehicles at the end of November.

American automotive analysts believe that the impact of this incident is not limited to the Chevrolet Volt, but may also give customers a psychological shadow and wonder if they want to buy an electric car. This crisis of confidence will weaken consumer confidence in new technologies.

In order to restore consumer confidence, GM promised last week that if any Volt owners worry about potential fire hazards during the company’s safety investigation, the company will buy back the car from the owners. So far, GM sold a total of 6,142 Volt cars this year.

Chinese consumers are no strangers to electric vehicle safety accidents. In April of this year, an electric taxi produced by a Zotye automobile spontaneously ignited on the streets of Hangzhou.

Not only that, in cities such as Shandong and Jiangsu, where low-speed electric vehicles are prevalent, two cases of driver deaths have occurred due to problems with the compatibility of electric vehicle batteries.

"The biggest feature of electric vehicles is that they have a battery system, a set of high-voltage systems, and there is potential danger in high-voltage batteries." Chief Engineer, Institute of Automotive Standardization, China Automotive Technology and Research Center (hereinafter referred to as "China Automobile Center") Zhou Rong said in an interview with this newspaper.

According to Zhou Rong's analysis, the hidden dangers in the safety of electric vehicles are mainly concentrated in four aspects: high-energy power batteries have potential fire hazards; electric vehicles have high-voltage, high-current loops; if the human body contacts, it will cause harm; when a collision occurs, Because the quality of electric vehicles is about 200kg more than that of traditional cars, the damage caused to people is extremely great; finally, the impact of battery waves on the human body is the last, and the electric vehicle's transmission power is tens of thousands of times that of mobile phones.

Collision Criteria and International Synchronously From the current industrial development process, electric vehicles have encountered various problems in the process of promotion and application. The most important issue is that the battery problem does not break through to fully meet the needs of automobiles.

The temptation of the new energy concept's huge interest has led to the emergence of hundreds of automotive battery manufacturers in the country in the past few years. Due to low battery entry barriers, the industry has become a mixed presence, and there are many problems in quality supervision, sales, and recycling supervision. Loopholes.

“There are three safety standards related to electric vehicles that are currently in use in China, namely for on-board energy storage devices, functional safety and fault protection, and personnel electric shock protection. However, these three standards for electric vehicles were all enacted in 2001. At that time, the level of scientific research at the time has been ten years in the past and many aspects have fallen behind.” Zhou Rong said frankly.

The failure of the industry standards to advance with the times is one of the important reasons for the chaos in the electric vehicle industry. However, the situation where the policy is not in place will improve next year.

According to Zhou Rong, safety standards for electric vehicles are now being revised and revised versions will be completed and announced next year. "Especially according to the development of battery technology in recent years, add some content."

In fact, in the formulation of safety collision standards for electric vehicles, our country’s progress is almost in sync with international authorities. "Now the standardization international organization ISO is also doing the standardization research of electric vehicle safety collision in August this year, so our country is in sync with the international in this respect." Zhou Rong said.

It is worth mentioning that China is the first country in the world to put forward safety requirements for fuel cell vehicles (GB/T 24549-2009). Many of the fuel cell safety regulations to be promulgated by relevant international agencies are elements from China.

The China National Automobile Industry Center is doing a separate standard for the collision of electric vehicles. It has already set up a project and plans to finish it next year.

According to the relevant person in charge, the whole idea is for pure electric vehicles, first research on frontal crashes, and improve side collisions and back collisions on this basis. It is reported that China Automobile Center has completed the collision test of more than 30 domestic electric vehicles of its own brand, providing data support for the standards introduced next year. The safe collision standard will put forward detailed and operable requirements for the collision of the vehicle and reasonably prevent accidents such as explosion and fire in the test.

According to the reporter's understanding, domestic mainstream auto companies have also joined the standard setting process. Therefore, China's auto safety standards will be based on the domestic technical level of the industry standards, and there will be no excessively high standards, inhibition of independent brand car companies. The situation of development appears.

It is worth noting that although the relevant departments are actively setting industry thresholds, according to the reporter's understanding, at present there are as many as 46 industry standards involving electric vehicles in China, which are all recommended standards and are not mandatory. Although 26 of the 46 standards have been quoted by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in its announcement management, they have the effect of mandatory standards, but a large number of standards are not binding on the industry.

When the electric vehicle industry is surging, the problem of lack of industry supervision faced by vehicle manufacturers and power battery companies remains severe.