FCEV road collision

A collision between two vehicles occurred at the corner of two streets. One vehicle was a fuel cells and hydrogen vehicle (FCEV), the other was a conventional one. Its driver incorrectly did not notice the red traffic sign and proceeded into the intersection where it collided.

Police, fire department, medical service intervened.

Both vehicles sustained "minor to moderate" front-end damage. Nevertheless, the frame of the FCEV vehicle was damaged too significantly to be repaired.
It did not come to any hydrogen release. The FCEV hydrogen and the high-voltage systems shut down upon impact, as designed. To confirm this, a visual inspection of the vehicle was performed, and the vehicle was checked with a sniffer.

The cause of the collision was an error of a driver

car, frame

Very light injuries to one driver. The decalred total loss of the FCEV could be approxiamtely evaluated at 100000 US$

The vehicles were moved out of the intersection. Because of the complete shut down, the FCEV was pushed out of the intersection by the police. The air bag activiated on one of the two vehicles.

This event is classified in HIAD as a near miss from the hydrogen system point of view, but still it was a road incident. The safety systems functioned as designed, because the emergency shut-down procedure activated and the hydrogen in the storage vessels was isolated.

The damage to the frame caused the vehicle to be been retired, but its fuel cells system remained intact and unharmed by the impact of the collision, and could be reused in another vehicle.

Amore generic lesson learnt was the need to conduct refresher training courses for the drivers and local emergency response personnel. Training had already been given, but the event highlighted the fact that emergency response agencies are subject to frequent personnel changes. Therefore, training should be repeated periodically.