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A $8.75 million study has been started by federal safety regulators to determine if lithium ion batteries in electric cars could be a fire hazard, officials revealed Thursday. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's chief counsel, Kevin Vincent, said in a Washington conference co-sponsored by Volvo that researchers are studying whether these high-voltage batteries can cause fires when they are being charged and when the vehicles are in an accident.

Explaining the reasons for the study, Vincent noted the risk that the 400-volt lithium ion batteries posed compared with standard 12-volt lead-acid batteries that are used in gasoline-powered vehicles, according to AutoWeek. An incident that brought the attention of regulators to conduct the study was computer-maker Dell Inc.'s recall of 4.1 million lithium ion batteries in laptop computers in 2006.

According to Dell at that time, the Sony Corp.-made batteries posed a fire risk. A spokesperson for NHTSA disclosed that there were no electric-vehicle fires that triggered the research, which will continue through 2014. According to analysts, most of the gasoline-electric hybrids these days utilize nickel metal hydride batteries. However, within 10 years, 70 percent of hybrids, and all plug-in hybrid and EVs are expected to run on lithium ion batteries. [via - 4wheelsnews]