Another day, another case of EV fire is reported. This time around, it is from Ajmer in Rajasthan, where an electric scooter caught fire while it was being charged. The electric scooter that caught fire was inside the garage of a house, and therefore, the entire parking lot got filled with fumes and smoke from the fire. As of now, it isn’t clear what made the scooter catch fire, and also, the make of the electric scooter remains unknown for now, but it does tell that EV fire cases still persist in the Indian market. This incident came into light soon after an electric vehicle caught fire in Noida.
The incident that took place in Noida was more gruesome, since the EV caught while it was being ridden by the owners. As a result, the rider had to jump off the vehicle to keep himself safe from being burnt. While internal combustion engines are now in their most-reliable form, the electric vehicles are still evolving to become perfect. Thus, such incidents of EV fire often show up. Moreover, these cases of battery fires are reported in scooters that are built or developed without any thorough R&D exercise.
In fact, such accidents have proved fatal at times. Hence, the government is also concerned about this issue now. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has introduced a new set of safety standards. The modifications imposed strict limitations on battery pack design, onboard chargers, and thermal propagation resulting from internal cell short-circuiting that causes fire.
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According to a release, the updated standards took effect on October 1, 2022. The announcement of the change to the AIS 156 and AIS 038 Rev.2 standards for the relevant categories of electric cars, which took effect on October 1, 2022, is included in the release.