Uruguay: Mercosur Technical Regulation for hydrogen vehicles

 

It has been proposed to establish a MERCOSUR Technical Regulation on hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles, to be applied to locally manufactured or imported vehicles that circulate in the member states of MERCOSUR, in order to guarantee the safety of their hydrogen storage systems, compressed air and the specific components of these systems, and improve road safety.

The Mercosur Technical Regulation will be based on UN Regulation No. 134 – Uniform provisions relating to the approval of motor vehicles and their components in relation to the safety performance of hydrogen vehicles, annexed to the 1958 WP.29 Agreement.

The Regulation applies to vehicles of categories M and N that incorporate compressed hydrogen storage systems.

The following definitions are introduced:

Hydrogen vehicles: any motor vehicle that uses compressed gaseous hydrogen as fuel for propulsion, including fuel cell vehicles and vehicles equipped with an internal combustion engine.

Compressed hydrogen storage system: a system designed to store hydrogen fuel for hydrogen vehicles, which is composed of a pressurized container, pressure limiting devices, and one or more self-closing devices that isolate the stored hydrogen from the rest of the system of fuel and its environment.

The following parts of the UN regulation will not be applied in Mercosur:

3. Application for approval
4. Homologation
5. Modification and extension of type approval
6. Conformity of production
7. Sanctions for non-conformity of production
8. Definitive cessation of production
9. Names and addresses of the technical services responsible for carrying out approval tests and type approval authorities

To find out more about automotive regulations in South America, please contact the Institute for Global Automotive Regulatory Research directly.