For decades Swedish manufacturer Volvo has been at the forefront of advanced automotive safety so predictably the company has now turned its attention to the safety of electric-powered vehicles.
Currently Volvo is actively working on a number of different issues including the obvious ones of encapsulating batteries and protecting them effectively in a collision and advanced automatic monitoring of the battery status.
In fact Volvo has already moved further with a holistic approach to its R&D work covering everything from manufacturing, use and service of electric cars to disposal and recycling.
Volvo has already carried out advanced full-scale crash tests of electric vehicles and is evaluating the results from several different angles.
Five different criteria are being researched:
- 1. In normal driving an advanced monitoring system is required to regulate cooling so that each battery cell maintains optimum operation and if overheating does occur to shut down the battery to prevent fire risks.
- 2. To determine what technical upgrades will be required to safety features like chassis architecture, Dynamic Stability and Traction Control systems to cope with the extra weight of battery packs in electric vehicles and the optimum location for those packs.
- 3. Development of avoidance systems such as Collision Warning with Full Auto Brake and/or City Safety so they can be powered by electric vehicles regardless of the condition of the batteries (for example so their performance does not deteriorate if the batteries are low on power).
- 4. In the event of a crash, protecting the batteries and isolating them from the passenger crumple zones so occupants are protected should the heavy batteries move, shutting off the batteries after the collision to prevent the risk of a short circuit and venting any gas that may leak from a shattered battery.
- 5. A security cut-out (like a home circuit-breaker) that shuts down and isolates the batteries in a collision if the current travels in the wrong direction (such as when two wires are crushed together in an impact).
Volvo is confident further research will lead to electric vehicles actually being safer than cars with combustion engines.
