Trending:

EV fire incidents: Govt says 'extra vigilant' about safety, standard of vehicles

Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Heavy Industries, Krishan Pal Gurjar, said that the government has taken a serious note of the battery explosion incidents in electric two-wheelers, and an expert panel is looking into it.

ET Now Digital

Updated Aug 4, 2022, 14:08 IST

EV fire

The government on Thursday again assured that it is taking the recent EV fire incidents very seriously and an expert panel has been looking into the issue in a holistic manner.

The minister informed that out of 6,656 EVs recalled, Okinawa Autotech recalled 3,215 units, PureEV recalled 2,000 EVs and Ola Electric recalled 1,441 units.

"The expert committee has been given the responsibility to tackle the safety-related recent issues of electric vehicles. Testing of components for EVs is done as per relevant standards, as specified in Rule 126 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rule, 1989 to ensure compliance," Gurjar informed.

The expert committee was "constituted with independent experts from DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru and Naval Science & Technological Laboratory (NSTL), Visakhapatnam to tackle the safety related recent issues of electric vehicles," the minister said in his reply.

He said that the government is vigilant about the safety standards of electric vehicles.

The data came as Ather Energy sold a mere 1,279 EV two-wheelers for the full month of July from selling 3,829 vehicles in June -- a massive drop in numbers -- followed by Ola Electric which sold 3,852 vehicles from 5,891 vehicles in June.

The drop in EV two-wheeler sales, according to industry experts, is due to the fear among consumers regarding the safety of EV two-wheelers in light of several battery fire and explosion incidents in the recent past.

Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari last month told Parliament that all those EV two-wheelers companies have been served show-cause notices whose vehicles caught fire owing to battery issues.

Latest News