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.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
RSS