The agenda was discussed and agreed.

Presentation by NHTSA’s Office of the Chief (Legal) Counsel explaining the requirements of the US rulemaking process, especially in relation to the prospects for transposing a GTR into an FMVSS.

[Representing the] NHTSA Chief Counsel Office, Mr. Jesse Chang made presentation for rule making process for vehicle safety. The participants are well informed of the rule making process in United States in general and that the GTR also must undergo the same process before it can be established as a US rule.

Germany asked about whether or not the rule making process can be streamlined by early participation from industry. NHTSA answered it seeks to involve all related parties from very early stage such as research phase. However, comments from the public can come from many different unanticipated parties. If they have relevant comments, they still need to be addressed.

OICA (BMW) asked [about] the possible usage of private research e.g. industry, and received the answer that all the data, studies, and/or information are appreciated.

EC asked regarding the process of incompliance for the regulations and whether or not a manufacturer’s certification may have a different conclusion than NHTSA’s compliance test. NHTSA answered that this can happen. However, there is a dedicated office for compliance matters and that the compliance is evaluated against the objective test in the regulations.

NHTSA Office of Applied Vehicle Safety Research-Crashworthiness Division presentation on research into Li-ion battery safety issues and remedies.

Ms. Barbara Hennessey from NHTSA’s Office of Vehicle Crashworthiness Research provided a presentation on their battery safety research program. Topics included the development of:

• A high level FMEA for current and near term electric vehicles and hybrids to guide the development of other safety assessment projects;
• Test procedures to assess battery stability under normal and abnormal use conditions;
• Test procedures to assess minimum control system requirements including active, passive and redundant control mechanisms, diagnostics, predictive thresholds and operator indicators and messages;
• Field discharge procedures for inoperative/post-crash vehicles.

In response to questions from the audience, NHTSA indicated that ECE-R100 will be considered in developing test procedures, and that the results of the FMEA should be available for discussion at the next EVS meeting in the fall.

EU legal framework for approval of motor vehicles and objectives for provisions particular to electric vehicles.

Mr. Johan Renders of EC made a presentation on Safety requirement for EVs in EU. He explained the legal framework of EU type approval for motor vehicles and the current requirements and how the objectives to address safety of Electric Vehicles in this framework have been accommodated.

Answering the question [about] how the future GTR on EVS could/would be introduced into the EU legal framework, he explained that the procedure to be pursued would be to have the GTR provisions included in Regulations annexed to the 1958 Agreement and subsequently to require compliance with these Regulations for the purpose of typeapproval in the EU.

NHTSA asked [about] the legal difference between EU Regulations and EU Directives. The EC provided this information by explaining that Directives provide some flexibility for EU Member States to decide how to apply them nationally, but also entailed administrative burdens as they need to be transposed in the national legislation of each of the 27 EU Member States. This is why the EU legal framework is more and more using EU Regulations, which are directly applicable in the EU Member States, without the need of having them transposed in the national legislation of the Member States,
and which should ensure uniform application of the requirements in the 27 EU Member States.

OICA asked for clarification about the interaction between the General Safety Regulation and the EU Directive for the Type Approval of motor vehicles. EC answered that this is an example of the trend to move from Directives to Regulations, but in this case the provisions of the General Safety Regulation have to be referred to in the EU Directive, which results also in some administrative burden. For the future it is not to be excluded that the Regulation and the Directive will be merged into one legal instrument (most likely a EU Regulation).

Presentation on the Institute for Energy and Transport of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre and its involvement with electric vehicle-related research and development.

On behalf of the Joint Research Centre, the European Commission’s Research Department, Mr. Johan Renders delivered the presentation on JRC support for EV technical research. The EC representative also mentioned that JRC might participate at the next meeting to provide more details on their research activities.

German Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development review of the work undertaken on ‘rechargeable energy storage systems’ (REESS) towards enhancing UN Regulation 100 on battery electric vehicles.

The chairman of REESS informal group, Mr. Gerd Kellermann, presented the status of REESS (ECE-R100 02 series amendment).

US DOE questioned whether the definition of REESS includes another type of battery other than Li-Ion battery / capacitors. Mr. Kellermann answered that the REESS group has carefully considered many types of battery and provided common test procedures that would be applicable for all types of battery.

Mr. Narusawa of Japan presented the report of the 1rst EVS meeting held April 23-25, 2012 in Washington DC, USA (see documents GRSP-51-20 and EVS-01-07).

There were approximately 50 people in attendance at the first meeting where over a dozen presentations from Contracting Parties and industry were made.

The group also discussed draft Terms of Reference.

Overview of the CATARC Electric Vehicle Standardization Subcommittee, current status of electric vehicle regulations, and work on electric vehicle crash test standards in China.

The representative of China, Mr. Sun Zhendong, gave a presentation on the process and status of Chinese standards for EVs.

OICA questioned how the Chinese government differentiates the mandatory standard and voluntary standard such as industrial standard. China representative answered that MIIT will decide whether it is mandatory or not. In general, the standard started with the “GB” means it will be enforced, start with “GB/T” means recommendation. “QC” means industrial standards, voluntary requirement in general. He also stressed that QC/T standards may also become mandate per MIIT decision. China is planning to revise more EV standards in the future. All GB and GB/T standards are available on SAC’s web-site, however, written in Chinese.

Presentation on electric vehicle activities of Changan Automotive, one of China’s largest vehicle builders.

Mr. Luan Yunfei of the Chang’An NEV Company in China presented its development of EVs. He explained that their company sold 1.9 million vehicles in 2010 including small vans less than 1 ton vehicle total weight. He stated that the company’s EVs were designed and manufactured to comply with all safety standards in China. These vehicles were subjected to crash tests and other safety tests.

Presentation on the history and trends in the development of the Japanese electric vehicle market and accompanying safety regulations.

Mr. Ryugo Toji of MLIT explained and presented the EV market situation in Japan and its governmental effort for the related regulation including introduction of GTR.

OICA asked whether a Japanese manufacturer must follow the Japanese national requirement or ECE. MLIT answered that the national requirement will be valid till the official introduction of ECE regulation such as ECE-R100 in 2014. He also answered to the question from EC as MLIT has an intention to harmonize current existing national supplemental requirement with ECE once it would be established.

Review of Korean electric vehicle safety research and regulatory activities.

[Representing the] Korean delegation, Mr. Hyuk Jung presented the status of Korean EVS regulation including the report of Korean research activities for EVs. He explained that the revision to the test procedures is expected in 2012. He also expressed that Korea’s KMVSS 305 will harmonize with FMVSS 305.

OICA perspectives on the proposed electric vehicle safety global technical regulation.

Mr. Scott Schmidt, representative of the Automotive Alliance, on OICA’s behalf concluded the industry position for EV regulations. The automobile industry fully supports this regulatory activity and will work to provide preliminary proposal for consideration by the working group.

Overview of Ford’s electric vehicle activities, in particular as related to safety.

Mr. Domenico Gabrielli from Ford presented its strategy to electrify the vehicle including their research and development activities and product plan.

Answering to the question from NHTSA, he mentioned that many committees of SAE battery safety standards are close to publish the outcome of their work.

General Motors presentation reviewing GM’s alternative propulsion strategy, battery and electric vehicle testing, standards and harmonization, and GM recommendations for the global technical regulation.

Mr. Volker Rothe presented GM’s technological strategy, its technical research and development, and position towards EVs regulations and other standards. He added some detailed explanation of their test procedures to answer the questions from the participants.

VW perspectives on the harmonization of electric vehicle safety standards.

Mr. Heiko Mertens presented the VW position on EV GTR, and/or another regulation. 2013 will become an important year for VW eMobility. At first, the blue-e-motion will kick-off the age of electrically propelled vehicles and the Golf blue-e-motion will follow immediately. Other vehicle models will be available in 2013/2014, which are based on plug-in hybrid technology. Regarding the EV regulation, their position is fully in line with OICA’s global industrial’s position.

List of future actions resulting from the first Electric Vehicle Safety working group session.

Draft scope, objectives, and rules of procedure for the EVS working group as submitted for the May 2012 session of the Working Party on Passive Safety.

16. Following to the decision of AC.3 to establish two informal working group on electric vehicles (see ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1095, para. 133), GRSP considered the first status report of the informal working group on electric safety (GRSP-51-20-Rev.1) and its terms of reference (GRSP-51-19-Rev.1) prepared by the expert from the United States of America. He clarified that the two informal working groups would have a different schedule and for the time being, they would report separately on the work progress to the Executive Committee of the 1998 Agreement (AC.3). GRSP endorsed the first status report of the informal working group, adopted its terms of references (GRSP-51-19-Rev.1) as reproduced in Annex II to this report and agreed to seek consent from AC.3 at its June 2012 session.

The terms of reference (TOR) were discussed and updated based on the group agreement. Most of the edits were incorporated to provide better clarification to the text. Some of the relevant items are as follows:

• o Changed RESS to REESS as RESS has already been used by another working group under the GRPE.
• o The group decided to keep the description for high voltage vehicles broad and use EV in the TOR instead of specific types of vehicle such as PEV, HEV, PHEV, HFCV, etc. The specific definition can be decided in the GTR.
• o Insert a paragraph to include a WP29 decision: “The WP29 Committee has adopted this proposal with China as one of the co-sponsors together with the United States, Japan and the European Union, and recorded in the reports.”
• o Post-crash was changed to “During and post-crash.”
• o EC proposed that this group should also consider the different standards for electro-mobility (vehicle inlets for charging) and for vehicle-to-grid communication (intelligent charging), in so far these topics may be relevant for the technical requirements to be developed.
• o The group agreed to exclude the noise and EMC items from this effort.

Draft minutes from the first Electric Vehicle Safety informal working group session as submitted to the 51st session of the Working Party on Passive Safety (GRSP)

16. Following to the decision of AC.3 to establish two informal working group on electric vehicles (see ECE/TRANS/WP.29/1095, para. 133), GRSP considered the first status report of the informal working group on electric safety (GRSP-51-20-Rev.1) and its terms of reference (GRSP-51-19-Rev.1) prepared by the expert from the United States of America. He clarified that the two informal working groups would have a different schedule and for the time being, they would report separately on the work progress to the Executive Committee of the 1998 Agreement (AC.3). GRSP endorsed the first status report of the informal working group, adopted its terms of references (GRSP-51-19-Rev.1) as reproduced in Annex II to this report and agreed to seek consent from AC.3 at its June 2012 session.

Mr. Narusawa of Japan presented the report of the 1rst EVS meeting held April 23-25, 2012 in Washington DC, USA (see documents GRSP-51-20 and EVS-01-07).

There were approximately 50 people in attendance at the first meeting where over a dozen presentations from Contracting Parties and industry were made.

The group also discussed draft Terms of Reference.