EVs need the spark of regulation in India to accelerate transition: Experts

Mandated battery standards are becoming imperative if India is to accelerate the transition from traditional vehicles

Why do we need a bunch of battery standards in India, mandated and monitored by the government — a burning topic that has pitted start-ups against traditional manufacturers, government officials and consumers, who view regulations as a vehicle to boost rider confidence and improve safety.

India’s electric vehicle (EV) universe, comprising manufacturers, battery swappers and charging outlets, pretty much operate in the world of Clint Eastwood’s Wild West. Any semblance of order and accountability is ambiguous at best, as small-time traders, start-ups led by young technologists, and established automakers jostle for a piece of a potential $150-billion market.

Speed is of the essence here, prompting some to take shortcuts. But the speed at which EVs are proliferating in India is not matched by the government in regulating the industry. “The government at all three levels — Centre, state and municipal — is expected to play a crucial role in supporting EV adoption by acting as a regulator and developing standards, specifications, performance benchmarks and an institutional framework,” Deloitte had said in a report in February 2019, before Covid-19.

Those issues have acquired greater urgency only now after a series of fires enveloped EV two-wheelers (E2W) this year, and a realisation in New Delhi that the lack of an emphasis on charging infrastructure has slowed EV adoption in India compared to neighbouring China. This prompted the government to launch a policy for battery swapping, the third leg in India’s charging ecosystem, after home-charging and public-charging outlets.

But critical to the success of battery swapping — a niche business primarily catering to a fleet of E2Ws and E3Ws — and improving vehicle safety are well-defined, balanced and uniform standards encompassing the battery and the vehicle, industry executives said.

Swapping and safety are also essential if India has to improve its share of 2W and 3W EVs as a percentage of new vehicle sales to more than 50 per cent by 2030 from around 3 per cent now.

“If you fix everything then innovation is not possible but we can stick to certain physical parameters that should be agreed to,” said I V Rao, senior visiting fellow, TERI. “Swapping calls for standardisation of connecting portion, and fixing portion, in the same way you standardise nuts, bolts and connectors, and also the overall size,” Rao, an auto industry veteran, added.

“Charging infrastructure and battery maker Exponent Energy’s co-founder Arun Vinayak said India’s new testing standards are world-class. While testing and safety standards are needed, it’s not the government’s job to make standards stringent, added Vinayak, who recently raised funds from the family office of Hero MotoCorp Chairman Pawan Munjal, and counts auto parts supplier Motherson Group as an investor.

India has adopted new AIS 156 safety standards, largely derived from the UN’s ECE R136 standard for 2W and 3W, which Japan adopted way back in 2016; but AIS 048 continues to be in force until December this year. A key difference between both standards was that nickel manganese cobalt cells found it difficult to comply with a single-cell nail penetration test done at the cell level in AIS 048, which was eliminated in 156, according to an official with the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), India’s vehicle testing agency. Unlike the older standard, AIS 156 includes environmental and thermal propagation tests. The test targets the battery system, subsystem and the vehicle, said Manoj Desai, general manager, ARAI, in an article. For bigger vehicles, India uses AIS 038, again based on the latest international norms.
 

But battery swapping is still in draft form because of an absence of standards. Swapping will not work if all 2W and 3W brands use batteries of different sizes, shapes, connectors and bolts. Each swapping station cannot store an unlimited range of batteries. Some common standards are needed.

Battery standards can be divided into size, data protocol, interoperability and the type of connector, explained Abhijeet Sinha, programme director, Ease of Doing Business, who is running trials on two key highways to set up EV charging infrastructure.

Sinha’s National Highway for EVs and Charge Point Operators Society has made several recommendations to New Delhi that include a unique identification number for each battery to track ownership like an IMEI number on mobiles; display of detailed information on batteries and components on the units; checking the financial stability of the battery manufacturer so that warranties — anywhere from 3 to 8 years on batteries — can be honoured; a black box feature as found in airplanes in batteries to ascertain the cause of fires; a battery monitoring system to keep an eye on thermal behaviour; connectivity to transfer data and monitor battery behaviour for performance and recalls; routine testing of battery performance over its entire lifecycle; a valuation portal to check insurance and depreciation details to verify a swapping value; and financing and insuring only those batteries that meet these norms.

Sinha said the government has accepted a majority of the recommendations, and these may find their way into the final battery swapping policy, expected later this year.
 

Some start-ups are concerned about uniform specifications, and stringent testing. Standardisation of battery types may leave no room for innovation, said Log9 Materials founder Akshay Singhal, whose company is using lithium titanium oxide chemistries to make fast charging, long-life batteries, with a life of 10 years.
 

Zypp Electric Co-founder Akash Gupta, whose company provides EVs for fleets, said that one standard battery would be good to have for 2W and 3W, especially from a swapping perspective but as a country India is too big to get OEMs to talk to one another. If ARAI starts testing in greater detail, and lots of checks and balances are instituted, that may delay ramp-up of products, he added.

India’s latest battery testing standards evaluate vibrations, mechanical drops, thermal shocks, fire resistance, short circuits, overcharge, over-discharge, over temperature and hydrogen emission. Vinayak said that it may take only 4-8 weeks to get batteries approved under AIS 156. It’s unclear if the vehicles from Ola, Okinawa and Pure among others were tested under AIS 148 or 156. The defence ministry’s DRDO is yet to bring out a final report on the fires, but in the interim had indicted vehicle makers for cutting corners and poor quality parts. The requirements for the auto industry are more stringent than other applications because vehicles must be reliable, Rao said.

“Today, a lot of companies are more traders, not builders,” Vinayak said. Rao said that just because there’s no engine everybody thinks they can make an EV. If systems, checks and balances are not in place in the assembly process, then mistakes propagate much faster in the manufacturing process. Suzuki or Hyundai have the conformity of production that every vehicle is the same as the tested unit. “I know which lots (components) were used in that day’s production,” Rao, who was the former head of R&D at Maruti Suzuki, added. Waiting will delay the EV adoption curve, Gupta said. But the same can be said about speed also.

Standard deviations

• India has adopted new AIS 156 safety standards, largely derived from the UN’s ECE R136 standard
• But AIS 048 continues to be in force till this Dec
• A key difference between both was that nickel manganese cob­alt cells found it difficult to comply with a single-cell nail penetration test done at the cell level in AIS 048, which was eliminated in 156
• AIS 156 inc­ludes environmental and thermal propa­ga­tion tests. The test targets the battery system, subsystem and vehicle
• For bigger vehicles, India uses AIS 038