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.
"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.
