ANSI to Undertake Standards Needs Assessment for Electric Drive Vehicles

On behalf of Battelle Energy Alliance, operator of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) will be convening a standards needs assessment workshop and producing a report that will consider the codes and standards needed to facilitate the successful introduction, and wide-spread acceptance and deployment of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty onroad electric drive vehicles (EDVs). These are vehicles that must be connected to the electric grid for recharging of their propulsion energy storage systems, which in most cases will be batteries.

The initiative supports DOE's Vehicle Technologies Program and INL's management of DOE's Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity (AVTA), which promotes testing and deployment of advanced transportation technologies. The scope of the project will include identification of U.S. domestic and international codes and standards already published or in development, determination of gaps, and recommendations on the need for additional standards.

Commenting on the effort, Jim Francfort, AVTA technical representative at INL, explained, "Many diverse government, industry, and other stakeholder organizations are working to define and implement EDV charging codes and standards, and a comprehensive cross-sector coordination effort is needed to facilitate the timely development, promulgation and use of EDV codes and standards."

The workshop will be held in the spring of 2011. Additional details will be announced on ANSI Online later this year. Those with an interest in this subject and who wish to make a contribution are encouraged to share information regarding relevant work. Please contact James McCabe, ANSI senior director of consumer relations and IDSP ([email protected]; 212-642-8921).