America’s highways and byways would be a wild west if we didn’t have automotive standards. So, give some serious respect, please, to these massive documents filled with painstaking technical specifications. After all, they determine how your car operates, its safety features, what parts it can use, and how it fuels or recharges—and that’s just the short list.
Especially for technology in its infancy such as electric vehicles (EVs), the enactment of a new standard can usher in major improvements for drivers. Indeed, the two newest standards for electric cars, both approved this month by standards committees of SAE International (formerly the Society of Automotive Engineers), should bring EV drivers great joy, according to Willett Kempton, professor at the University of Delaware’s Center for Transportation Electrification on UD’s Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus.
