(California Air Resources Board) wants to advance electric mobility in that state, and it has already done a lot to promote that. That is probably why it has come up with one of the best ideas ever to encourage : making used car buyers feel safe about buying one. CARB plans to achieve that with battery pack durability requirements.
The goal is that new electric cars have battery packs that retain at least 80 percent of their UDDS ranges for 15 years or 150,000 miles. That’s something PHEVs are already demanded to accomplish and that ZEVs would start to adopt by 2026.
UDDS stands for Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule, and it is one of the tests EPA uses to establish the range of cars in the city. Regarding electric vehicles powered by fuel cells, they have to keep at least 90 percent of system output power after 4,000 hours of operation.
Our colleagues at Green Car Reports discovered that when they analyzed the ACC II (Advanced Clean Cars II) Workshop Slides presented on May 6, 2021. That presentation brought the general guidelines for the ACC II, which proposes to update the LEV (Low Emission Vehicle) IV Regulation. They are part of something CARB appropriately calls "ZEV Assurance Measures."
Think about it: some EVs lose a lot of trade-in value due to uncertainties about their battery pack. There are even companies like Recurrent that help measure the state of these components to reassure eventual buyers.
If CARB manages to change the law to include the durability requirements, owners will be able to check the SOH (State-Of-Health) without any sort of unique tool or company. It will probably be displayed in the vehicle’s dashboard. CARB wants automakers to present even values that would require a warranty repair. We can imagine that as some kind of warning to the driver.
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Speaking of information access, CARB also wants automakers to allow independent shops to check information about all propulsion-related components in an electric car. CARB also wants them to standardize some vehicle data. That would make repairs much more manageable.
Gallery: CARB Plans To Protect EV Owners With Battery Pack Requirements
For anyone who wants EVs to take over sooner than later, this set of measures and goals shows CARB knows what it is doing. It could be an example for other governing bodies and even other countries. Automakers may complain that it will make cars more expensive, but they are still complaining about that with the EV push. Nothing new on the horizon in the end.
Source: CARB via Green Car Reports