Safe post-crash management of road Light Duty Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) (2ZERO Partnership)

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following outcomes:

• Significant improvement of vehicle designs (especially the design of the most recent battery pack and its integration into the vehicle) from the perspective of fire-hazard reduction, fire suppression, crashworthiness and post-crash handling compared with the baseline vehicle, following specific design guidelines;
• Advanced BEV condition assessment methods and tools with a focus on the condition of the battery as the most critical sub-system, providing safety-relevant information in a standardised format useful for rescue, towing and after-treatment services, complementing the digital battery passport, ensuring the safety of workers in all these phases, minimising environmental hazards and easy to apply by practitioners – towards standardised procedures;
• Re-purposing/re-using/re-cycling of batteries from crashed BEVs facilitated by tailored interventions, high confidence in battery health condition and standardised handover protocols, thus supporting potential second-life applications of batteries from crashed BEVs;
• Best practices in fire handling and fire suppression, rescue procedures and handling of crashed Light Duty BEVs applied all over Europe, supported by training material and instructions for ‘first responders’, such as firefighters and emergency service workers;
• Dispelling safety concerns of (potential) BEV users as well as policy/decision makers by science-based communication and comparative statistics.

In addition to protection during a collision, it is the post-crash phase, immediately after the collision, that is crucial for the consequences of a road crash. Vehicle fires are a key concern in this post-crash phase. While there are many similarities to fires in vehicles with Internal Combustion Engines (ICEV), road electric vehicle battery fires pose a range of new challenges to emergency responders and everyone handling EVs post-incident, including tow, repair, storage, salvage & wrecking. The rescue of victims, the safety of first responders and safe, efficient, and timely firefighting measures are key factors. The latter in particular poses important challenges specific to road electric vehicles, amongst others due to the chemical composition of state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries, the placement of the battery in the vehicles, enclosed in a water-tight, protective compartment, and the volume of water needed to cool a burning high-capacity battery. This is a challenge in particular in constrained spaces, such as in tunnels.

There is a need to support the definition of standards and procedures both in terms of risk but also in terms of response. With a focus on Light Duty Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs), proposed actions will identify and further develop optimum technological solutions, processes and best practices towards future standards, design guidelines and official instructions / service regulations.

Proposals are expected to address all the following aspects:

• Vehicle health assessment tools after a crash, with a focus on the assessment of the battery and high-voltage system condition, ensuring that the HV battery is in a safe and stable condition (avoidance or early detection of thermal runaway after a collision), and maximising the likelihood of keeping the battery in service in the vehicle once fixed / re-using it, in line with the proposed regulation on circularity requirements, eco-design and end-of-life of vehicles. Both on-board monitoring systems and off-board systems can be considered;
• If making use of connectivity to on-board monitoring systems, the accessibility to the health and safety information / data needs to be addressed. This includes the development of state of safety and state of health algorithms to provide the remaining useful life and potential safety risks of the battery after a collision, complementing the information on the digital battery passport^[1];
• Extrication procedures protecting both crash victims and emergency service workers to the best possible extent, also considering the gender dimension. To ensure the effectiveness of fire handling, suppression, and rescue procedures for crashed BEVs, it is crucial to further develop these practices in close collaboration with first responders;
• Fire extinguishing techniques and firefighting procedures for BEVs (if the case also including innovative fire extinguishing media), considering the risks specific for EV including potential toxic products of the associated chemical reactions, as well as vehicle designs supporting firefighting. Particular attention should be paid to the design of the battery pack and its integration into the vehicle, including auxiliaries;
• Develop and implement procedures and tools for the safe handover, handling, transport and storage of crashed BEVs, with wide dissemination to relevant stakeholders towards standardised procedures;
• Quantify the rate and severity of BEV fire safety impacts by conducting a comparative study addressing aspects such as frequency of BEV fire and severity of outcome, and provide statistical analysis to deliver science-based communication on the safety of Light Duty BEVs to the general public;
• Real-life demonstration (in comparison to the state-of-art) of Light Duty (vehicle category M1 and N1) BEV condition assessment tools, data analysis, as well as firefighting, rescue, and handling procedures on a series production vehicle;

The project should actively seek interaction with and make use of results from workshops on EV fire safety currently being organised under the IEA HEV Technology Collaboration Programme, and where relevant with the Sustainable Transport Forum Task Force 6: “Developments for fire safe deployment of recharging points in covered parking garages”^[2].

The project should take account Open Science, its practices and learning, and the project’s results will be enacted in line with FAIR principles for data^[3].

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO). As such, projects resulting from this topic will be expected to report on the results to the European Partnership ‘Towards zero emission road transport’ (2ZERO) in support of the monitoring of its KPIs.

[1] With regard to monitoring techniques and algorithms, proposals are expected to coordinate and exploit synergies with research topic HORIZON-CL5-2024-D2-02-04 on “Accelerated multi-physical and virtual testing for battery aging, reliability and safety evaluation” under the Batt4EU Partnership.

[2] The Hybrid and Electric Vehicle Technology Collaboration Programme (HEV TCP) under the International Energy Agency (IEA) framework. https://ieahev.org/tasks/49/; The Sustainable Transport Forum (STF), Task Force 6is in charge of “Developments for fire safe deployment of recharging points in covered parking garages” https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-themes/clean-transport/sustainable-transport-forum-stf/active-sub-groups/sub-group-best-practices-public-authorities-support-deployment-recharging-infrastructure-regex_en

[3] Final Report and Action Plan from the European Commission Expert Group on FAIR Data, “TURNING FAIR INTO REALITY” - https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/7769a148-f1f6-11e8-9982-01aa75ed71a1/language-en