Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; FMVSS No. 305a Electric-Powered Vehicles: Electric Powertrain Integrity Global Technical Regulation No. 20 Incorporation by Reference

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>National Highway Traffic Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <CFR>49 CFR Parts 561 and 571</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. NHTSA-2024-0091]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 2127-AM43</RIN> <SUBJECT>Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards; FMVSS No. 305a Electric-Powered Vehicles: Electric Powertrain Integrity Global Technical Regulation No. 20 Incorporation by Reference</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> Consistent with a Global Technical Regulation on electric vehicle safety, NHTSA is establishing Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 305a to replace FMVSS No. 305, “Electric-powered vehicles: Electrolyte spillage and electrical shock protection.” Among other improvements, FMVSS No. 305a applies to light and heavy vehicles and includes performance requirements for the propulsion battery. NHTSA is also establishing a new regulation, part 561, “Documentation for Electric-powered Vehicles,” that requires manufacturers to compile risk mitigation documentation and to submit standardized emergency response information to assist first and second responders handling electric vehicles. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Effective date:</E> This final rule is effective February 18, 2025. <E T="03">IBR date:</E> The incorporation by reference of certain publications listed in the rule is approved by the Director of the Federal Register as of February 18, 2025. <E T="03">Compliance dates:</E> The compliance date is December 22, 2025, for the emergency response documentation requirements. For all other requirements, the compliance date is September 1, 2027, for vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating of 4,536 kilograms (kg) or less and September 1, 2028, for vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating over 4,536 kg. Small-volume manufacturers, final-stage manufacturers, and alterers are provided an additional year to comply with the requirements beyond the dates identified above. Optional early compliance is permitted. <E T="03">Petitions for Reconsideration:</E> Petitions for reconsideration of this final rule must be received no later than February 3, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Petitions for reconsideration of this final rule must refer to the docket and notice number set forth above and be submitted to the Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Washington, DC 20590. All petitions received will be posted without change to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. <E T="03">Confidential Business Information:</E> If you wish to submit any information under a claim of confidentiality, you should submit your complete submission, including the information you claim to be confidential business information, to the Chief Counsel, NHTSA, at the address given under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . In addition, you should submit a copy, from which you have deleted the claimed confidential business information, to Docket Management at the address given above. When you send a submission containing information claimed to be confidential business information, you should include a cover letter setting forth the information specified in our confidential business information regulation (49 CFR part 512). Please see further information in the Regulatory Notices and Analyses section of this preamble. <E T="03">Privacy Act:</E> The petition will be placed in the docket. Anyone is able to search the electronic form of all submissions to any of our dockets by the name of the individual submitting the submission (or signing the comment, if submitted on behalf of an association, business, labor union, etc.). You may review DOT's complete Privacy Act Statement in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> published on April 11, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 70; Pages 19477-78) or you may visit <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/privacy/privacy-act-system-records-notices.</E> <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov</E> at any time or to 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. Telephone: (202) 366-9826. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For technical issues, you may contact Ms. Lina Valivullah, Office of Crashworthiness Standards; Telephone: (202) 366-8786; Email: <E T="03">Lina.Valivullah@dot.gov;</E> Facsimile: (202) 493-2739. For legal issues, you may contact Ms. K. Helena Sung, Office of Chief Counsel; Telephone: (202) 366-2992; Email: <E T="03">Helena.Sung@dot.gov;</E> Facsimile: (202) 366-3820. The mailing address of these officials is: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents </HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Executive Summary</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Overview of FMVSS No. 305</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">b. Overview of GTR No. 20</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">c. Statutory Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">d. Overview of the Final Rule Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">e. Changes From the NPRM to the Final Rule</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Summary of Comments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Response to Comments on Proposed Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Expanding Applicability of FMVSS No. 305a to Heavy Vehicles</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Normal Vehicle Operations and Requirements for the REESS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Post-Crash Safety for Heavy School Buses</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Post-Crash Safety for Other Heavy Vehicles</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">b. General Specifications Relating to Crash Testing</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Low Energy Option for Capacitors</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Assessing Fire or Explosion in Vehicle Post-Crash Test</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Assessing Post-Crash Voltage Measurements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Electrolyte Leakage</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">c. Vehicle Controls for Safe REESS Operation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Vehicle- and Component-Level Testing</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. State of Charge (SOC)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Breakout Harness Location</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">4. Over-Temperature Test</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">5. Overcurrent Protection</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">6. Venting and Visual Inspection</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">d. Mitigating Risk of Thermal Propagation Due to Internal Short Within a Single Cell in the REESS</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">e. Thermal Event Warning</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">f. Vehicle Control Malfunction Warning</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">g. Protection Against Water Exposure</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">h. Miscellaneous GTR No. 20 Provisions Not Proposed</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">1. Vibration and Thermal Shock and Cycling</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">2. Fire Resistance</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">3. Low State of Charge</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">i. Low-Speed Vehicles</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">j. Emergency Response Information</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">k. Documentation Requirements</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">l. Compliance Dates</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">V. Response to Comments on Issues Not Discussed in the NPRM</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">a. Future Battery Chemistries</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">b. Marking and Labeling</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">c. Test Laboratories</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">d. Other Electrical Specifications</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">e. Static Rollover</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">VI. Rulemaking Analyses and Notices</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Executive Summary</HD> NHTSA is issuing this final rule to achieve two goals. First, NHTSA is establishing FMVSS No. 305a, “Electric-powered Vehicles: Electric Powertrain Integrity,” to upgrade and replace existing FMVSS No. 305. The new FMVSS No. 305a has all the requirements of FMVSS No. 305 and expands its applicability to vehicles with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) greater than 4,536 kilograms (kg) (10,000 pounds (lb)). FMVSS No. 305a also adds requirements and test procedures covering new aspects of electric vehicle safety, such as performance requirements for the propulsion battery system, also referred to as the Rechargeable Electrical Energy Storage System (REESS). NHTSA is also establishing a new regulation, 49 CFR part 561 (part 561), “Documentation for Electric-powered Vehicles,” to require that manufacturers submit, at NHTSA's request, documentation addressing safety risk mitigation under specified scenarios to demonstrate that they considered, assessed, and mitigated risks for safe operation of the vehicle. Manufacturers are also required to submit documentation to ensure both first  responders have access to vehicle-specific information about extinguishing REESS fires and mitigating safety risks associated with stranded energy  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> when responding to emergencies. The restructured and upgraded FMVSS No. 305a will facilitate future updates to the standard as battery technologies and charging systems continue to evolve. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  “First responder” means a person with specialized training such as a law enforcement officer, paramedic, emergency medical technician, and/or firefighter, who is typically one of the first to arrive and provide assistance at the scene of an emergency. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  “Second responder” means a worker who supports first responders by cleaning up a site, towing vehicles, and/or returning ser ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 323k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━