​BEMAC’s Japanese-Designed EV Tech Guarantees Highest Safety Standards

How safe are electric vehicles? There was an incident few months back of an e-jeepney that burned while traversing Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City and just this weekend the e-jeepney fleet operating within Araneta Center allegedly burned due to an overheating charger.

In a talk on Sustainable Energy held recently at UP National Engineering, Ms. Yvonne Palomar Castro, Vice President for Sales, Marketing and After Sales of BEMAC Electric Transportation Philippines (BEMAC), the winning supplier of the 3,000 units for the ADB-DOE e-trike project, assured the audience that safety is a primary consideration when it comes to the electric vehicles they are producing.

“The reason why we experienced in some of the electric vehicles on the road the issue of overheating electrical and battery components is basically the lack of control mechanisms to stop these incidents from occurring, said Yvonne Palomar Castro Vice President for Sales, Marketing and After Sales of BEMAC Electric Transportation Philippines.  In her reply to the question on the safety of the soon to be deployed 3,000 units of etrikes, “Our vehicle control unit (VCU) and battery management system (BMS) that are part of each of the vehicle we are producing are designed to stop such malfunctions from happening. BEMAC’s lithium ion battery was tested against extreme temperature, puncture and pressure tests and in tandem with our VCU we can basically control the amount of current coming in so that overcharging will not happen,” she added.

Ms. Castro explained that BEMAC’s EV’s will basically stop charging even if it is continually plugged in an electrical outlet once it reaches its programmed charging limit.

“We have already anticipated all these concerns that is why we are producing better product than what is required from us. We know that it will take time to educate the public about the viability of EVs as a mode of public transport and we cannot afford to have such mishaps from happening to the EV industry.” said Ms. Castro.

She called the government’s support in coming up with standards on the manufacturing of EVs and its key components like motor, controller, battery, as well as related infrastructure like charging stations.

A battery management system (BMS) should be a prerequisite before an EV should be allowed to run on roads, she added.”It doesn’t matter if your EV is using lead acid or lithium ion, a BMS is its first line of defense from accidental electrical malfunctions.” Ms. Castro said.