Amendment of Safety Regulation

The Japanese Ministry of Land (MLIT) has recently proposed amendment of the “Public Notice that Prescribes Details of Safety Regulations for Road Transport Vehicles”. 

The newly altered version of this Regulation mainly focuses on vehicles with a gross vehicle weight that exceeds 3.5 tons, excluding those with a seating capacity of less than 10 passengers which are being used exclusively for passenger use, of Pure Electric Vehicles (PEV), Off-vehicle charging hybrid electric vehicle (OVC-HEV), and Fuel cell hybrid vehicle (FCV). 

 The regulation will not apply to non-type-approval vehicles and furthermore also not to motor cycles (including two-wheeled vehicles with side wheels). 

 In addition to that the amendments will introduce test methods to evaluate the energy efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles in terms of fuel and electricity. The test procedures are based on simulation methods more precisely, the HILS method and the powertrain method. 

 The expected date of adoption is approximately October 2022. Regarding new vehicle types it will start applying from April 2025 for PEV, for OVC-HEV from January and from 2028 for all FCV’s.  

The texts of the Regulation can be consulted HERE.