The mandatory national standard Safety Requirements for Electric Vehicle Traction Batteries, GB 38031-2025, organised by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, has been released and will take effect on 1 July 2026.
The new standard mainly revises thermal propagation requirements. The earlier requirement to provide a thermal-event warning five minutes before fire or explosion is replaced with no fire and no explosion, while retaining the warning requirement and requiring that smoke does not harm occupants. It further specifies battery temperature, powered and unpowered states, observation time and whole-vehicle test conditions.
A bottom-impact test is added to assess protection after an impact to the battery underside. A safety test after fast-charge cycling is also added: after 300 fast-charge cycles, an external short-circuit test must not result in fire or explosion.
