1. Hydrogen Safety in Transportation:
Industry Perspective
Christine Sloane
International Conference on Hydrogen Safety
Round Table Panel Discussion
Pisa, Italy
7 – 10 September

2. Areas where standards for fuel cell vehicles differ from conventional electric vehicles
fuel cell stack (electrical isolation)
fuel handling system (leak)
fuel storage system (unintended release)
refueling
vehicle-level crash performance standards
vehicle-level crash performance standards
system-level performance standards
interface-to-infrastructure prescriptive standards
Hydrogen
Storage System
Fuel Cell
Power Module
Hydrogen
Fuel Handling System
* Fuel Cell = rechargeable
(refuelable) battery

3. Solution: performance standards
What do we want from Codes & Standards?
-- to be ready in the 2010 – 2015 timeframe
Public safety
Commercial feasibility
Infrastructure compatibility
International consistency
Rapid entry of new technology
Risk: premature & prescriptive standards slow advances
Solution: performance standards

4. Performance Standards
Require demonstration of safe performance under cumulative extremes of potential use
design validation
manufacturing validation
(periodic or batch test)
same requirement regardless of materials used
same requirement regardless of method of construction
explicit linkage to extremes of potential use & exposure
Example: Vehicle Crash Test
vehicle hits barrier at specified speed & angle
required performance:
impact on passengers
fuel release

5. Potential Rollout of FCV Standards & Rulemaking
Concept Cars
Is it real?
Demo Cars
Can we do it?
Pre-Commercial
Is it viable?
Production
# vehicles
worldwide
10s
100s
1000s
Critical
mass
Guidelines & Best Practices
technology advances & evaluation
Interim Specs Industry Standards
validation & experience
EU nations
UN ECE
FMVSS & UN GTR
US-NHTSA
ISO
SAE
Rule Making
Economy of scale = cost
Regulations
commercial
feasibility
Focus on global design
= quality & less time

6. Validating Technology for the Road
Washingon,DC GM fleet
Tokyo JHFC FedEx Demo
9700 kilometers
DOW 1MW
Berlin CEP Demo
U.S. Postal Service

7. Validating Refueling Methods

8. Thank you