Improving safety and performance testing for EV batteries

Alfons Westgeest and Lois Brett will present on the mutual activities of EUROBAT - the Association of European Automotive and Industrial Battery Manufacturers - and the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) to improve the standardization framework for safety and performance testing for Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV) and Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries. EUROBAT and the JRC began formal cooperation in 2012 to support the JRC Institute for Energy and Transport´s (IET) battery energy storage testing for safe electric transport (BESTEST) activity. The BESTEST programme was initiated after the JRC-IET signed a letter of intent for closer cooperation with the US Department of Energy (DoE) on EVs and SmartGrids during a meeting of the EU-US Transatlantic Economic Community (TEC) in 2011. It contributes to the TEC´s overarching objective to remove regulatory and standardization barriers between both countries, which could otherwise impede the broad commercialization of (H)EVs. JRC-IET´s BESTEST activity will provide impartial and balanced scientific evidence to ensure that European standardisation supports legislation and policies on clean transport. BESTEST´s role in the transatlantic letter of intent is to accelerate the electrification of transport by contributing to the development of harmonised testing methodologies and global standards specifically related to EV batteries. Through these activities BESTEST will ultimately facilitate technology development and innovation thereby enhancing the global competitiveness of European industry.