2026-06-21 Comment response to the published Notification of petition for waiver and grant of an interim waiver; request for comments
Anonymous AnonymousOpposeIndividual
Summary: The commenter argues that the petition for a waiver is insufficient because it lacks technical evidence, such as engineering drawings and validation data, to support the claims of design constraints. They also note that the petition fails to provide specific documentation regarding economic hardship or address concerns about the rigor of the proposed alternative test methods.
Comment on Petition for Waiver
Docket Number EERE‑2025‑BT‑WAV‑0139
The petition presents several gaps that make it difficult to evaluate the asserted need for a waiver. The petitioner states that the compact internal configuration of the basic models prevents installation of the instrumentation required under Appendix C, but the petition does not include engineering drawings, photographs, dimensional analysis, or any other technical material that would allow DOE to assess that claim. Without such information, there is no way to determine whether the asserted constraint is inherent to the design or simply unsubstantiated.
The petition also proposes a broad alternative test method but does not demonstrate that the method produces results comparable to the DOE procedure. It does not include validation data, comparison testing, or any discussion of measurement uncertainty. The petition does not explain how the modified tolerances and altered test conditions maintain the rigor of the federal test or ensure that measured performance is not overstated. These omissions leave DOE without a basis to understand how the proposed method would perform relative to the prescribed procedure.
The petition further asserts that the design characteristic is unique and that other manufacturers face similar constraints, yet it does not address why the existing tested‑alone provisions in Appendix C cannot be used for these models. The absence of any discussion of those provisions leaves an incomplete record on whether the current framework already provides viable testing pathways.
The petition’s discussion of economic hardship consists of general statements about potential lost sales and competitive disadvantage, without supporting documentation. DOE typically requires more than broad assertions to evaluate such claims.
Finally, the petition does not address concerns raised in the docket about whether the proposed modifications to test conditions and tolerances could weaken measurement rigor or affect comparability across manufacturers. The petition does not engage with these issues or provide information that would allow DOE to assess them.