14. The expert of the United States of America, informed GRSP that the United States America Chair of the EV GTR IWG, Mr. Nha Nguyen would retire and be replaced by Mr. Ezana Wondimneh. He also updated GRSP on the details of the next meeting, scheduled to take place in Tokyo, Japan (11 to 14 June 2019).

15. The expert from Japan, on behalf of the co-sponsors (China, Japan, European Union and the members of IWG GTR No. 20, Phase 2) reported on the work progress of the IWG meeting of EVS-GTR, Phase 2. GRSP was informed that the last session had been held on 23 and 24 January in Detroit, United States of America. He reported that the meeting had been well represented by various contracting parties, motor vehicle and battery manufacturers and standard organizations. He added that IWG had continued discussions on technical issues, i.e. thermal propagation, water immersion, toxicity and gas management and three-dimensional vibration. As previously reported, IWG was currently conducting research and running tests on thermal propagation and toxicity. He added that the white paper on thermal propagation was ongoing. However, some main items, including field incident data, had not reached consensus and that IWG members would continue to discuss and resolve the items at the next meeting. He concluded that other significant technical discussions included water immersion and vibration of the battery system and that IWG aimed to complete its work by the 2021 mandate. The expert of OICA stressed the need for the various discussion items to be justified by facts and figures.