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Safety standards will henceforth be regulated according to BIS guidelines.
Electric scooters have had a turbulent past in the country, given their track record of unsafe fiery incidents. At the peak of the summer, multiple e-scooters caught fire across the country, most of which were suspected to stem from poor thermal management of the battery system or inferior quality battery packs.
The Government has given one month's time to the EV makers to respond to the show cause notice. The EV makers are expected to furnish an explanation of the causes of the fires and also suggest reasoning to exempt them from penal actions. The Government has also indicated that failure to respond to the notices by the end of July would attract heavy penalties.
The investigation was conducted in association with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as per directives from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The reports that followed stated that the manufacturers often resorted to the use of inferior quality components in the batteries to keep prices in check. Battery being one of the most expensive parts of an EV, was an obvious place to start cutting costs to keep the price of the vehicle down.
However, these incidents have also led to the formalisation of new norms that would keep the performance of lithium-ion battery packs up to the required mark. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has recently pitched new standards that the manufacturers need to adhere to. Union Minister for Road Transport Nitin Gadkari also made it clear in a recent statement that failure to meet the required norms would call for heavy penalties for the defaulter companies.
Over ten incidents of fire have been reported so far, and multiple lives have also been lost as a consequence in India, involving Okinawa and other manufacturers..