SAE International, the global association of more than 128,000 engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive and commercial-vehicle industries, says that its Cooperative Research Project (CRP) team has confirmed that R-1234yf is safe to use in automotive direct expansion air conditioning systems.
According to the association, as previously reported, the overall risk of vehicle fire exposure attributed to use of R-1234yf is conservatively estimated at 3 x 10-12 events per vehicle operating hour. This is nearly six orders of magnitude less than the current risk of vehicle fires due to all causes (approximately 1 x 10-6 per vehicle operating hour) and also well below other risks accepted by the general public.

All OEMs in the new CRP have indicated agreement with these conclusions. The members are European, North American and Asian OEMs: Chrysler/Fiat, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, PSA, Renault and Toyota.

To view the report go to: http://www.sae.org/standardsdev/tsb/cooperative/crp_1234-4_report.pdf

To access supporting documents, visit: http://www.sae.org/standardsdev/tsb/cooperative/crp_1234-4_attachments.pdf