In 1972, Lee Iacocca, then President of Ford Motor Company, said that “Safety doesn’t sell.” But in 1988, he led Chrysler to announce that they would be the first American automotive company to put driver’s airbags in all of their automobiles. He then went on to be the spokesman in Chrysler’s commercials for putting airbags in all minivans, though he boasted in his autobiography that he fought against airbags for over two decades. And in 1971, he had a secret meeting with President Nixon and Henry Ford II to convince Nixon to squash pending NHTSA regulations that would be coming out in support of airbag use. And for two decades, his efforts to submarine safety efforts succeeded.
Seem like a confusing scenario?
Fast forward to 2023. NHTSA has a well-supported crash test rating system that drives (pun intended) the safety performance of new vehicles and is advanced year after year as the average weight for SUVs increases, and other changes are implemented. These crash test ratings have driven the use of side airbags, crumple zones, anti-lock brakes, and many other innovations. Consumer-facing safety features, like lane keeping, active cruise control, crash detection, and others, are also very popular—possibly because the consumers know they are there and can feel them working in their favor.
Nowadays, it is safer to drive at 75 miles per hour than it used to be at 25 miles per hour, and that continues to improve. In fact, the most common way to die from an automotive collision is to be t-boned in an intersection, which almost always involves someone running a red light at a high rate of speed. Human error is difficult to protect against, though side airbags help.
Safety does sell
In fact, safety does sell, as is shown above. People do look at crash test ratings. And they do understand and desire features like active cruise control, radar, lane-keeping and other features that they can feel protecting them.
What Mr. Iacocca should have said was “Invisible safety does not sell.”
One key aspect of all safety features that sell is that the consumer knows about them. If we don’t know, then we have nothing to compare to.
…but it also costs
And this is why Mr. Iacocca fought against the airbag. He didn’t want the extra cost—this is evident from the transcripts of his meeting with President Nixon. “We have already sunk two hundred and forty million into the safety area,” said Iacocca on the issue. When pressed further, he states “We cannot carry the load of inflation in wages and safety in a four-year period without breaking our back.”
Without pointing fingers, there is significant resistance in the industry to any safety costs that do not also lead to additional sales and profits. Nixon and Iacocca are not unique, but rather representative.
What about batteries?
The problem today with making batteries safer is that, as long as there aren’t too many spontaneous battery fires that cause a recall, there is no way to tell if the battery is safe, or if it is, how safe it is. Every battery producer says their batteries are safe—“Safety is our number one priority”, “We never compromise safety”, or “Before we do anything else, we design in the safety.” And to be fair, the auto companies really do a good job building safety features into their vehicles. However, it is still a lot of energy in a small package, and when damaged or abused, that energy can come out...and keep coming out for a long time, resulting in the many safety events you see across news headlines.
Today, there are battery safety standards. Standards for transportation, standards for cells, for micro mobility packs, and for other applications. Each standard is pass-fail. That is, the least safe battery that passes the test gets the same certification as the one that is the most safe. In the testing world, safety is an on-off switch. However, in the real world, it is more of a variable scale. But we have no way to know where it’s landed on that scale.
An Unpopular Suggestion: Let’s have a battery grading system
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratory have developed a system to give a battery a grade—a numerical score based on its performance in abuse testing. Their system uses a blunt crush test to create an internal short, and then measures the thermal response afterwards and has a scoring system. This can be done at various states of charge to give a sense of how vulnerable the battery is to physical abuse.
Now, take the scenario where you are buying a car for your child, and you can buy a car from Brand #1 which has cells that received an “A” on the Cell Scoring System, or you could buy a car from Brand #2 which has cells that received a “C” on the Cell Scoring System. Your child likes to jam out in the car while driving, and sometimes texts or turns around to say something to their friend in the rear seat. Our kids get in accidents—mine has. Would you pay extra for the car from Brand #1 with the “A” cells? I would. But today, you have no way of knowing.
Soteria is starting the dialogue about a battery grading system, and you are invited to participate. The dialogue will start with a panel at our LithiumSAFE conference on November 6-7 in Greenville SC. After this, we will convene a panel of participants from the industry, with the target of developing a cell grading system that can be used to determine which cells are most resistant to abuse—whether it be mechanical, thermal or electrical.
You are invited to participate. First, come to the conference and engage with the safety experts we are convening. Next, join the committee and be an active participant, alongside the experts from the national labs, testing agencies, and industry OEMs. Let’s enable inherently safe batteries together. For every device, and everyone.