South Korea’s government and the ruling People Power Party (PPP) have agreed to move up an electric vehicle (EV) battery certification program, the party said on Sunday, as authorities seek to alleviate public safety concerns after a series of fires involving EVs.
The government would start the battery certification scheme in October, earlier than scheduled, to help guarantee the safety of EV batteries, PPP spokesman Han Zee-a said.
The government also agreed to require automakers operating in the country to identify batteries used in their EVs, he said.
Photo: Reuters
The agreement on tougher rules for EV safety follows the government’s move to urge car makers to voluntarily disclose the information after an EV fire on Aug. 1 that damaged hundreds of vehicles and created public panic.
The blaze, which appeared to start spontaneously in a Mercedes-Benz EV with Farasis Energy Inc batteries in the city of Incheon, took eight hours to extinguish, destroying or damaging about 140 cars and forcing some residents in the apartments above to move to shelters.
Officials said the fire was made worse because equipment such as sprinklers in the underground parking lot did not work properly.
Early this month, Kia Corp’s electric crossover EV6 with South Korean battery maker SK On Co’s batteries also caught fire in a parking lot, fire authorities said.
In recent days, some car companies such as Hyundai Motor Co, Mercedes-Benz Korea, Kia Corp and Volkswagen Korea, have voluntarily started naming the manufacturers of batteries they use.
South Korean battery makers had no reason to oppose specifying where their power sources were used, although the public should not assume batteries were always to blame for EV fires, industry sources said.
Getting car companies to identify batteries would give consumers more choice, but some question how it would improve safety given the lack of definitive data on which battery brands are more prone to fires, experts said.
As part of beefed-up safety measures, the government would revise fire equipment rules to install wet pipe sprinkler systems in underground parking spaces with EV charging stations and expand chargers that prevent overcharging, Han said.
EVs do not appear to catch fire nearly as much as recent headlines might suggest, and are less of a fire risk than conventional cars, data showed.
However, EV fires burn differently than those in cars with internal combustion engines, often lasting longer and being harder to extinguish as they have a tendency to reignite, auto experts said.
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