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EV fire incidents: Industry may go for black box type system

The Charge Point Operators Society (CPOS) of India has recommended a black box system in electric vehicle (EV) batteries to keep track of any untoward incidents that lead to EV fires.

ET Now Digital

Updated Jun 27, 2022, 21:43 IST

(Representational image)

Photo : BCCL

Amid rising incidents of fire in electric vehicles, e-mobility industry may look at installing a black box kind of system. The Charge Point Operators Society (CPOS) of India has recommended a black box system in electric vehicle (EV) batteries to keep track of any untoward incidents that lead to EV fires.

In engineering, a black box is a device, system, or object which produces useful information without revealing any information about its internal workings

CPOS is an industry body representing EV charging station companies. It claims to have 21 members with over 3000 EV charging points in place. On Monday, the members of the society also committed to install 4000-5000 EV chargers as a pilot project over 2000 locations in Central Delhi.

The safety recommendations have been made for battery swapping and charging infrastructure. They follow the draft battery swapping policy floated by Niti Aayog.

“Battery monitoring systems should also have a black box feature to capture the root cause of failure or fire to minimise post-incident investigations,” CPOS said. This should be done to help identify the battery failures, volatile thermal behaviour and associated risks.

It has also been proposed to make e-sim or data connectivity mandatory to help monitor the EV battery’s daily behavioural data.

CPOS has also recommended that there should be mandatory battery performance and timely recall. Further, users need to be updated in real time about the status of the batteries they are being swapped with and the risks associated with EVs.

Recentky a video went viral showing Tata Motors Nexon EV catching fire on Mumbai road, prompting the automaker to initiate a 'detailed investigation' to know the reason behind the incident.

In the EV two-wheeler segment, there have been many such incidents in the re-cent past when vehicles caught fire.

Electric two-wheeler makers such as Ola Electric, Okinawa Autotech and Pure EV recalled their scooters in the wake many such incidents.

These fire incidents had prompted the government to form a panel to examine and had warned vehicle makers of penalties if they were found to be negligent.

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