[remy_martian]

THIS IS USA FEDERAL LAW


49 CFR § 571.305 - Standard No. 305; Electric-powered vehicles: electrolyte spillage and electrical shock protection.

§ 571.305 Standard No. 305; Electric-powered vehicles: electrolyte spillage and electrical shock protection.

S1. Scope. This standard specifies requirements for limitation of electrolyte spillage and retention of electric energy storage/conversion devices during and after a crash, and protection from harmful electric shock during and after a crash and during normal vehicle operation.

S2. Purpose. The purpose of this standard is to reduce deaths and injuries during and after a crash that occur because of electrolyte spillage from electric energy storage devices, intrusion of electric energy storage/conversion devices into the occupant compartment, and electrical shock, and to reduce deaths and injuries during normal vehicle operation that occur because of electric shock or driver error.

S3. Application. This standard applies to passenger cars, and to multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks and buses with a GVWR of 4,536 kg or less, that use electrical propulsion components with working voltages more than 60 volts direct current (VDC) or 30 volts alternating current (VAC), and whose speed attainable over a distance of 1.6 km on a paved level surface is more than 40 km/h.

49 CFR § 571.305 - Standard No. 305; Electric-powered vehicles: electrolyte spillage and electrical shock protection.

www.law.cornell.edu

 

[remy_martian]

Major takeaway - you can't have >60V anywhere outside the battery box more than 5 seconds after a crash.

 

[cricketo]

What if you add a couple of thousand kg's of ballast ?

 

[piotrsko]

When was this made into law? Sounds recent with mandated compliance forward of the published date. I might have to move my main contactor to the bed of the truck.


There was a paragraph stating the EMPTY weight of the vehicle without load or passenger or ballast

It also looks like salvaged packs mostly pass this test providing they are in the original configuration and packaging.

 

[kennybobby]

Leave it to a guvment regulation to try to use metric units for a 10,000 lb vehicle (4,536 kg)--what about 4,535 kg, is that really so important to specify down to a specific 1 kg value?

Plus when was the last time you saw speed limits posted for 40 km/h --was that in your residential area or on the interstate?

 

[cricketo]

When was this made into law? Sounds recent with mandated compliance forward of the published date. I might have to move my main contactor to the bed of the truck.


There was a paragraph stating the EMPTY weight of the vehicle without load or passenger or ballast

It also looks like salvaged packs mostly pass this test providing they are in the original configuration and packaging.

The main thing is that there are likely limits to application of FMVSS. It is obvious that it regulates commercial manufacturers of vehicles and vehicle equipment, but it doesn't regulate all vehicles on the road, otherwise any vehicle that doesn't meet the latest revision of FMVSS would have to be taken out of operation. So when a non-commercial entity puts a vehicle on the road that doesn't meet the standard, I am not sure it has any effect. Perhaps @remy_martian already figured out the scope and has a quick answer to that.

 

[dlud]

If you read the entirety of 49 CFR 571 along with the enabling legislation from Congress, 49 USC sec 323, 30111, 30115, 30117 and 30166, these are detailed motor vehicle safety standards that manufacturers must certify that their products comply with. The standards deal with a whole host of subjects including brakes, seat belts, crash protection, fuel systems, flammability, etc, etc. The NHTSA states the scope of their jurisdiction as:
"The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a legislative mandate under Title 49 of the United States Code, Chapter 301, Motor Vehicle Safety, to issue Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and Regulations to which manufacturers of motor vehicles and items of motor vehicle equipment must conform and certify compliance." There is nothing in this federal legislation that suggests that it applies to us fools and idiots who play with high voltage systems and cars.
Are the standards relating to ev's non-sensical because they use a weight limit expressed in metric? Hopefully all manufacturers are able to work with both metric and imperial measurements. Are the standards arbitrary because there is a weight limit cut-off ostensibly to differentiate passenger from larger commmercial vehicles. Of course they are arbitrary to a degree. However, if one is trying to separate light/passenger from large/commercial vehicles any brightline rule will at the margins seem arbitrary. I put it to the critics to come up with a better way to determine the cut-off than the "guvment" has done so far.

 

[brian_]

S3. Application. This standard applies to passenger cars, and to multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks and buses with a GVWR of 4,536 kg or less, that use electrical propulsion components with working voltages more than 60 volts direct current (VDC) or 30 volts alternating current (VAC), and whose speed attainable over a distance of 1.6 km on a paved level surface is more than 40 km/h.

Plus when was the last time you saw speed limits posted for 40 km/h --was that in your residential area or on the interstate?

Yes, 40 km/h is a residential street speed limit, of about 25 MPH; this would not be a highway (Interstate or otherwise) limit, and it is in metric because this is the 21st century. Here, we see 40 km/h speed limit signs; that is in fact the default speed limit for all streets in Edmonton (Alberta) that are not otherwise posted, which in 2021 replaced the traditional 50 km/h (which was 30 MPH half a century ago).

The 1.6 km is an obvious rounded conversion from the somewhat arbitrary one mile, just as the 4,536 kg is a conversion from the similarly arbitrary 10,000 pounds. It would make sense to round them to less precise values, but depending on the rounding direction that could incidentally render previously legal vehicles illegal.

Whether expressed as 40 km/h or as 25 MPH, this is a perfectly rational speed choice, distinguishing between vehicles to which the standard applies, and low-speed vehicles (such as neighborhood electric vehicles) which are exempt.

 

[remy_martian]

Kill a first responder with your contraption after a crash, then have the lawyer you've retained for $25k convince a jury that he'll stipulate that you are the builder, you are the designer, you made the decision to ignore the CFR, you are the assembler, but you are not the manufacturer (because you are trying to loophole your way out of the CFR) of said culprit vehicle.

There is NO reasonable (what juries and judges do...they reason on facts) explanation as to why the 60V rule would not apply to a DIY electric vehicle operating on a public road or highway. None. You are all trying to rationalize why it should not and a judge ain't gunna buy your shit to get out of a negligence/manslaughter legal proceeding against you, the manufacturer. The only difference is a manufacturer offers goods for sale. Is that enough to get you out of killing someone? I don't think so.

You also stand a much better chance of getting extracated if you are in the local fire department's records as FMVSS voltages compliant, versus having firefighters stand around, smoking a cigarette (something you can't do around a crashed gasoline car) until they toll the time for your battery to self discharge below 60V. So, just before you pile into that telephone pole, turn on your electric cabin heater..

 

[dlud]

The FMVSS require manufacturers to do a lot more than provide hv disconnect.

 

[remy_martian]

Yes - it even covers the need for clearance lights on trucks beyond a certain width which has now become a fashion statement with narrow minitrucks. But that's outside the scope of this thread.

 

[dlud]

Yes - it even covers the need for clearance lights on trucks beyond a certain width which has now become a fashion statement with narrow minitrucks. But that's outside the scope of this thread.

I mean that the FMVSS requires, specifically as to ev’s, a lot more than crash disconnect protections.

 

[remy_martian]

Agreed. The poking into the battery box test is another one.

 

[cricketo]

Kill a first responder with your contraption after a crash, then have the lawyer you've retained for $25k convince a jury that he'll stipulate that you are the builder, you are the designer, you made the decision to ignore the CFR, you are the assembler, but you are not the manufacturer (because you are trying to loophole your way out of the CFR) of said culprit vehicle.

There is NO reasonable (what juries and judges do...they reason on facts) explanation as to why the 60V rule would not apply to a DIY electric vehicle operating on a public road or highway. None. You are all trying to rationalize why it should not and a judge ain't gunna buy your shit to get out of a negligence/manslaughter legal proceeding against you, the manufacturer. The only difference is a manufacturer offers goods for sale. Is that enough to get you out of killing someone? I don't think so.

You also stand a much better chance of getting extracated if you are in the local fire department's records as FMVSS voltages compliant, versus having firefighters stand around, smoking a cigarette (something you can't do around a crashed gasoline car) until they toll the time for your battery to self discharge below 60V. So, just before you pile into that telephone pole, turn on your electric cabin heater..

If that is really a concern, I'd say folks should avoid driving any vehicle altogether - chances of dying in a crash, or killing someone and being prosecuted/sued are much higher than electrocuting a first responder.

 

[remy_martian]

The main point you're missing is the trained/alert ones won't go near a DIY until an expert is on scene.

So, the first responder gets bumped to third responder, and then a fourth responder gets to use the firehose on your total bleedout.

The untrained FRs responding to a "sleeper" conversion, won't even know it's an EV until after the chop saw has cut the HV cables running in conduit (for "safety"...).

Ignorance and dismissal is powerful. Dunning-Kruger is affirming.

The sad thing is ignorance f*cks with my hobby in terms of it being banned unless I am a certified commercial shop. This is the BS I have to go through in restoring my bent Tesla. Do you really want to bust your butt, spend $30k, only to have a law that says you need a $5k safety inspection before you can get plates or publicly charge (even on a Level 2). Is that what you want?

Hence my persistence in getting through to the hypothalmus-challenged that are blind to what will happen if one responder gets killed and their family gets all activist.

It's bad enough EV jockeys get cut off on roads, teen daughters get chased down by pickup trucks in their Teslas, and you get coal-rolled if your EV window is open, by jacked up F250 diesels, now imagine one of them is the activist brother of an electrocuted FR tow truck driver (because the lucky rubber-gloved FD dude with the chopsaw exposed the HV cables that that the tow operator then happened to contact with his J-hooks).

 

[cricketo]

The point is they won't go near a DIY until an expert is on scene.

So, the first responder gets bumped to third responder, and then a fourth responder gets to use the firehose on your total bleedout.

So even better - drive a home-made EV and you're on your own.

 

[remy_martian]

True. Clearly marked, with a notarized DNR taped to the window.

Now, it's 7:30am, it's spread across 2 lanes of I5. Who gets to move it?

 

[UglyCarFan]

Kill a first responder with your contraption after a crash, then have the lawyer you've retained for $25k convince a jury that he'll stipulate that you are the builder, you are the designer, you made the decision to ignore the CFR, you are the assembler, but you are not the manufacturer (because you are trying to loophole your way out of the CFR) of said culprit vehicle.

There is NO reasonable (what juries and judges do...they reason on facts) explanation as to why the 60V rule would not apply to a DIY electric vehicle operating on a public road or highway. None. You are all trying to rationalize why it should not and a judge ain't gunna buy your shit to get out of a negligence/manslaughter legal proceeding against you, the manufacturer. The only difference is a manufacturer offers goods for sale. Is that enough to get you out of killing someone? I don't think so.

You also stand a much better chance of getting extracated if you are in the local fire department's records as FMVSS voltages compliant, versus having firefighters stand around, smoking a cigarette (something you can't do around a crashed gasoline car) until they toll the time for your battery to self discharge below 60V. So, just before you pile into that telephone pole, turn on your electric cabin heater..

Remy: these are valid points, and the handwriting is on the wall. I'm trying to deal with NEC 2020 right now, and that has thrown up a lot of obstacles. DIY electric cars will be another. There are going to be a lot of lawsuits, and denied claims. There are many very powerful lobbies that want to prevent homeowners from doing anything that encroaches on their ability to sell you products at a much higher price. DIY electric vehicles would be one, DIY solar, DIY battery backup, DIY HVAC, etc.

 

[smokeycanadian]

I don't really have anything direct to add to this subject but I do have to mention that even for <60v sometimes there are still official or unofficial regulations on access to it for firemen related safety too

cue an example photo (from nearby-from-me ottawa's pubic transport system) I could find to use for now;

https://kevinsbusrail.com/octranspo/octranspo_6462rear.jpg

see the little yellow label shortly behind the rearmost wheel? thats basically a symbol meaning "battery head in there >>>" which is a small flap that can let one quickly isolate the battery (and then open the bigger catch-all panel itself to physically junk the battery out if somehow necessary)

 

[Evbeddy]

Remys right, if we don't act responsibilities authorities will come after our hobby, backed up by some do gooder complainers that want to get everything banned.

I will leave this link here in today's news from Australia, where a diy ebike has exploded.

Now there's people wanting to ban them....

Rider injured when homemade ebike explodes on way to work in Australia

The rider escaped with minor burns after a fire started in the bike's battery, spurring a warning about the risks of people making ebikes themselves.

www.stuff.co.nz