Battery related fires are not restricted to India alone. Nor are they very exceptional. With the rise in the sale of electric vehicles, the number of cases of fire have also risen globally. Or at least that is what has happened in the other parts of the world. Last year General Motors expanded the recall exercise for its Bolt EVs by 73,000 vehicles to include every Bolt ever manufactured. This was the third recall exercise by GM due to the risk of its high voltage battery catching fire. The reported number of the cars that have caught fire are only seven but nonetheless, GM has now recalled over 100,000 cars at a cost of nearly $ 2 billion. Similarly South Korean auto giant Hyundai recalled 82,000 EVs after 13 incidents of fire were reported in its compact crossover Kona electric. This includes 456 units of the car that it sold in India. But the recalls aside countries have looked at stringent regulations as well. One of the more prominent ones is the UL 2272, a US certification that was developed in 2018 for testing of e-mobility devices like electric scooters. It shot to fame when Singapore adopted these after a spate of fire incidents in the country in the last decade. The testing parameters under UL2272 are stringent and cover both electrical and mechanical components that take into account how resistant the batteries are against impact, extreme temperatures, water exposure and other
factors. Any signs of short circuiting and imbalance charging that indicate a possibility of fire are deemed less than ideal and do not make the cut. India's AIS 156 standards however, are a level up over UL 2272. The catch is, it is not mandatory for every manufacturer to comply with it yet.