Electrified vehicles have long carried a stigma; many believe their large batteries are more likely to catch fire in a crash. Chery Malaysia is looking to put that to rest, quite literally, by suspending a battery (from the Chery Tiggo 7 PHEV and 8 PHEV) into a pit of fire as part of its ‘Global Safety Challenge’.
Specifically, the challenge saw the battery suspended over a pit of fire for exactly one minute. The flames, fueled by RON95 petrol, reached temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius. Once the test concluded, white smoke briefly appeared, presumably from the exterior housing panels, before subsiding as temperatures cooled.
Upon closer inspection, visible damage could only be seen on the bottom part of the battery housing. As for the top of the battery, it is almost as good as new, without any form of swelling.
Today’s challenge builds on Chery’s Global Safety programme, with previous tests having been conducted in countries such as Kuwait, Ecuador, Mexico, South Africa, and Indonesia, where each country put the battery through a range of extreme tests to reflect real-world scenarios across multiple markets.
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Chery Corporate Malaysia, Executive Vice President, Men Lin Bo, said “Safety is at the core of our development process. Beyond meeting regulatory requirements, we conduct rigorous and extreme validation tests, and we demonstrate these tests publicly to help people understand the technology, the standards behind it, and why we are confident in its safety.”
Along with its battery safety challenge, Chery Malaysia also highlighted the safety achievements of its electric lineup, most notably, the Chery Tiggo 7 PHEV. Late last year, the car was awarded an ASEAN NCAP rating of five stars with a score of 94.68 points — the highest ever for the company in the region.
If these safety tests have piqued your interest, the Chery Tiggo 7 PHEV can be yours from RM129,800, while its slightly bigger brother, the Tiggo 8 PHEV, is priced from RM159,800 — both prices being on the road and without insurance.
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