Does California Mandate For Alternative Fuel Vehicles Pose A Safety Risk To Drivers?

Does California Mandate For Alternative Fuel Vehicles Pose A Safety Risk To Drivers?

Recently, a mandate for greater vehicle fuel efficiency and more alternative fuel vehicles on the mart was announced for the state of California. On January 27, 2012, the state’s Air Resources Board seemly the Latest Clean Cars Program, which sets limits on vehicle emissions for model caducity 2017 through 2025 and requires a greater unit of nullity - emission vehicles to be buying it in California, among them hydrogen fuel cell cars. While the technologies for hybrid and electric plug - in vehicles are relatively down pat, the application of hydrogen as a transportation fuel is moderately new, prompting concerns among consumers, safety advocates, and attorneys as to the risk of serious or fatal personal injury associated with the vehicles.
Under the Unskilled Clean Cars program, new vehicles will be required to exude 34 percent fewer widespread warming gases and 75 percent fewer cloud - forming emissions. The program’s Nada Emissions Vehicle ( ZEV ) Regulation mandates that 15. 4 percent of new vehicles on the mart in 2025 excrete no pollutants from their onboard power source; examples of consistent vehicles enclose those powered by electricity and hydrogen. To ok that infrastructure is created to accommodate equal vehicles, the regulation requires that hydrogen fueling stations are constructed throughout California.
Given that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still fairly atypical, many consumers, safety advocates, and attorneys are concerned about the risk of serious or fatal personal injury associated with them. The lightest and most common element in the universe, hydrogen gas is colorless, odorless, and garish. Although the Federal Aeronautics Space Administration ( NASA ) has used hydrogen as a fuel because the 1950s, it has only recently reached the commercial market in the articulation of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
While on the face hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are according to to other vehicles, their interior components concur them companionless: a fuel cell detain converts hydrogen priceless and oxygen concern electricity, which is then sent to the vigorous motor; a receptacle stores the hydrogen clever at an too high annoyance; and a high - produce collection stores plan generated from regenerative braking, providing the changing motor with supplemental power.
Some of the major safety concerns with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles heart around the possibility of a storage vat hot poop or the puncturing of the tank in an accident. Since hydrogen is very light, a short amount will fill up a substantial station, so it is highly packed in the vehicles’ storage tanks to save space. If a cistern were to become ruptured in an accident, it could explode. When the Federal Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA ) commissioned a study on the risks associated with the vehicle, researchers start up that a large release of hydrogen or a rupture of the fuel container were the two primary safety concerns.
The risk of fire or yamp is not lone to hydrogen, however, as all fuels are combustible, a major source of their usefulness. Their properties—and risks—vary, which is why it is important that the public check equipment rigorous safety testing and standards for these environmentally peaceable vehicles.