Abstract
Today, one of the main development and research areas inside automotive industry is the one related to electric vehicles. The incorporation of new power train technologies and the necessity of new energy sources are changing the facts to take into account when talking about safety requirements in new vehicles, electric and electronic safety and active and passive safety.
The whole development process is focused on the development of the vehicle but there are other things that will need a special attention. For instance, will new electromagnetic interferences appear? How will be the connection to the electric grid? Will be needed new components or which changes in the nowadays systems will be applied to connect the vehicles?
Today, an ion pack of a battery has between 180 and 220 kg of mass and between 150 and 200 litters. Until 2016, automotive industry doesn’t expect that the specific energy of each pack increases up to 250 Wh/kg and to obtain 300 km of autonomy for the vehicles and that would be a basic characteristic to improve the use of electric power train in vehicles, but ensuring the safety of the vehicle and the occupants.
It is very important to study the influence of the mass of the batteries inside the car, next to the C pillar, to analyse possible failures in the structure and to redefine new targets in the structural behaviour. A simplified model has been developed to study the differences in the behaviour of the structure with and without the batteries, and one of the main points to focus new developments and the different shape of the body and the supports of these batteries.
The questions related to electric and electronic safety are nowadays studied but there is a lack in the development of the regulation because there isn’t a specific regulation related to the electric vehicle. In order to standardize new components as the recharger and to define a standard protocol to follow to see if these new vehicles are safe or a possible misuse can origin the breakdown of the systems of the car or an accident, Official Laboratories of Applus+ and the Applus+ Chair of the Technical University of Catalonia are doing research in this field, with the final target of obtaining a standard regulation in these concepts and to ensure that the electric vehicle doesn’t miss its chance because of the own electric energy.
Keywords Electric vehicle, electric and electronic safety, active and passive safety, regulation