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 market was announced for the state of California. On January 27, 2012, the state’s Air Resources Board peachy the Virgin Clean Cars Program, which sets limits on vehicle emissions for model caducity 2017 through 2025 and requires a greater number of zot - emission vehicles to be involved in California, among them hydrogen fuel cell cars. While the technologies for hybrid and electric plug - in vehicles are relatively known, the application of hydrogen as a transportation fuel is quite 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 Virgin Clean Cars program, new vehicles will be required to exhale 34 percent fewer rampant warming gases and 75 percent fewer mist - forming emissions. The program’s Aught Emissions Vehicle ( ZEV ) Regulation mandates that 15. 4 percent of new vehicles on the bazaar in 2025 emit no pollutants from their onboard power source; examples of selfsame vehicles consist of those powered by electricity and hydrogen. To ice that infrastructure is created to accommodate allied vehicles, the regulation requires that hydrogen fueling stations are constructed throughout California.
Given that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still quite unusual, 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 cheap. Although the Public Aeronautics Space Administration ( NASA ) has used hydrogen as a fuel for the 1950s, it has only recently reached the commercial marketplace in the profile of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
While on the exterior hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are identical to other vehicles, their interior components agree them reclusive: a fuel cell trade in converts hydrogen waggish and oxygen racket electricity, which is consequently sent to the driving motor; a vat stores the hydrogen hilarious at an violently high fear; and a high - harvest cluster stores deal generated from regenerative braking, providing the powerful motor with supplemental power.
Some of the major safety concerns with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles seat around the choice of a storage cistern hot poop or the puncturing of the receptacle in an accident. Since hydrogen is very light, a humble amount will fill up a mammoth community, so it is highly packed in the vehicles’ storage tanks to save space. If a tank were to become ruptured in an accident, it could explode. When the Public Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA ) commissioned a study on the risks associated with the vehicle, researchers erect that a immense release of hydrogen or a rupture of the fuel container were the two primary safety concerns.
The risk of fire or clang is not singular 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 friendly vehicles.