Getting EV Ready: The Five Domains WorkSafe Will Examine When an Electric Vehicle Enters Your Workshop

david richardson
Apr 29
6 min read

WorkSafe inspector reviewing EV compliance documentation at an Australian automotive workshop — electric vehicle compliance AS 5732:2022 five domains.

Knowing what AS 5732:2022 requires is one thing. Being able to demonstrate compliance across every domain when a WorkSafe inspector arrives is quite another. Here’s what the five areas actually look like in practice.

If you read our last post here, we covered the liability exposure that comes the moment a hybrid or electric vehicle enters your workshop. The WHS Act duty of care is triggered. AS 5732:2022 — Electric Vehicle Operations: Maintenance and Repair applies. The question isn’t whether the obligations exist — it’s whether you can demonstrate you’re meeting them.

This post is the practical follow-up. WorkSafe inspectors approach EV compliance in five distinct domains. Understanding what each one actually demands — not just in equipment terms, but in evidence terms — is where most workshops discover their gap is larger than they first thought.

This isn’t a tick-and-flick list. It’s a map of the terrain. And the terrain is more complex than it looks from the outside.

Domain 1: Training and Competency

This is where most workshops are most exposed, and it’s usually the first thing an inspector wants to see evidence of. The central question is straightforward: can every worker touching an EV demonstrate the required competency?

AS 5732:2022 doesn’t accept general mechanical experience as a proxy. The standard references specific nationally recognised training units — covering high-voltage isolation, depowering and reinitialisation, inspection and maintenance, and for deeper HV system work, diagnostics and repair. The training requirements vary depending on what work is being performed, and the standard makes clear that different work levels demand different competency levels.

Where it gets complicated is supervisors. Even a workshop principal who never personally works on an EV has obligations under the WHS Act to understand the risk controls well enough to ensure they’re being followed. ‘I leave it to the technicians’ is not a compliant position for a PCBU.

And competency isn’t static. As EV technology evolves — new battery chemistries, new architectures, new failure modes — the standard expects that training is reviewed and updated accordingly. A certificate from five years ago for a technology that has materially changed since is a gap, not a defence.

The training you need

Equipment without training is just expensive furniture. Under the WHS Act, your duty of care extends to ensuring workers have the information, instruction, and training necessary to do the work safely.

At minimum, every worker performing EV work needs to hold AURETH101 (Depower and Reinitialise Battery Electric Vehicles) and AURETH102 (Inspect and Maintain Battery Electric Vehicle). These are nationally recognised short courses aligned to AS 5732:2022. Workers doing deeper HV system work need AURETH103 (Diagnosis and Repair of High-Voltage Rechargeable Energy Storage Systems).

Supervisors — even those not directly performing EV work — need a minimum short course so they understand the risk controls that need to be in place and can identify when they’re not being followed.

Domain 2: High-Voltage Equipment and PPE

The equipment domain is the one most workshops think they’ve covered once they’ve bought insulated gloves and a set of insulated tools. That’s the beginning of it, not the end.

AS 5732:2022 specifies what high-voltage rated means: tools and PPE must be rated to 1000V minimum. Standard workshop equivalents — even good ones — are not adequate. But it’s not just about having the right rating. The standard expects equipment to be maintained, tested, and stored correctly. A pair of insulated gloves kept in a bag next to a solvent-soaked rag, or a face shield with a cracked visor, is not compliant equipment.

Lockout/tagout is its own sub-domain here, and one that catches operators out. EV LOTO requirements are not the same as LOTO for pneumatic or hydraulic systems. The devices are different. The procedure is different. And the written LOTO procedure needs to exist as a documented safe system of work — not as something the experienced tech carries around in their head.

The vehicle movement piece surprises people too. Standard forklifts under battery packs, flat towing — both are explicitly addressed in AS 5732:2022 and both create battery damage and thermal runaway risk. What you need instead, and how you manage non-driveable EVs arriving at your premises, requires planning that most ICE workshops simply haven’t done.

Domain 3: Safe Systems of Work and Documentation

This is the domain that separates workshops that are genuinely compliant from workshops that have the right gear but can’t prove it.

A Safe System of Work (SSOW) for EV servicing is not a poster on the wall or a generic WHS manual with a chapter added. It’s a documented, specific, accessible procedure that workers follow every time. It covers how vehicles are assessed on intake, how the vehicle is secured and the HV system isolated, what PPE is used and how it’s verified, how the vehicle is stored once depowered, and what the process is if something goes wrong.

The intake process is worth calling out specifically. Before any work commences, AS 5732:2022 expects the battery chemistry to be identified — because the risk profile of a Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery differs materially from a Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) battery. A vehicle presenting with obvious damage or suspected thermal instability needs to be assessed differently, quarantined differently, and potentially not worked on at all until the risk is understood.

The documentation question is the one that makes operators uncomfortable when they sit with it honestly. If a WorkSafe inspector asked you today to produce your SSOW for EV work, your competency records for each worker who’s touched an EV in the last 12 months, and your vehicle intake logs for the last six months — how long would it take to find them? And when you found them, what would they show?

Domain 4: Facility and Fire Safety

The facility requirements under AS 5732:2022 are the ones that can’t be solved by a procedure. They require physical changes to the workshop, and in some cases they require investment that takes planning and time.

Fire suppression is the headline requirement. The standard specifies what types of fire suppression equipment are required for EV work areas, and they differ from standard ICE workshop requirements. Smoke detection must meet additional special hazard provisions — not the baseline that satisfies a standard commercial tenancy. And one thing WorkSafe Victoria’s guidance is explicit about: certain EV fire safety equipment should not be accessible to workers without specific training and PPE. Having the equipment is not the same as having workers who can safely deploy it. That distinction matters.

Ventilation is a structural requirement, not a procedural one. Damaged lithium-ion batteries off-gas toxic compounds — hydrogen fluoride among them. Workshop ventilation in EV work areas needs to be separated or isolated from office areas. If your current workshop layout runs shared ventilation between the workshop floor and the reception area, that’s a compliance issue that a sign on the wall won’t fix.

The quarantine bay requirement catches workshops off guard more than almost anything else. AS 5732:2022 and WorkSafe guidance are clear that damaged or thermally suspect EVs need a designated location, with specific clearance from flammable materials and buildings. For workshops on tight suburban sites, ‘just park it out the back’ may not satisfy that requirement. This needs to be planned, measured, and documented as part of your site’s EV safety setup.

Domain 5: Charging Infrastructure

Not every workshop has on-site EV charging, but for those that do — or those planning to install it — this is a domain with its own separate compliance framework layered on top of AS 5732:2022.

The electrical installation requirements sit under AS/NZS 3000. The commercial EV charger application requirements sit under SA TS 5397:2024. These aren’t optional standards for workshop-grade installations — they’re what a WorkSafe inspector and an electrical safety regulator will reference if something goes wrong with a charging incident.

Remote emergency shutdown capability is a specific requirement — the ability to cut power to charging stations from a location that doesn’t require approaching a vehicle that may be on fire. Charging bay spacing matters. Cable management and vehicle impact protection on charger units matter.

And then there’s maintenance. Chargers are plant. Plant has inspection obligations. Weekly, monthly, and annual inspection schedules per manufacturer specifications aren’t aspirational — they’re the maintenance records a WorkSafe inspector will ask to see. If they don’t exist, the charger has been operating outside a compliant maintenance regime, regardless of whether it’s been functioning normally.

The honest question every workshop owner needs to sit with

Across those five domains there are specific documented requirements, evidence obligations, physical infrastructure standards, and training competency requirements. Some of them are straightforward. Some require capital investment. Some require structural changes to facilities. All of them require ongoing documentation to be genuinely defensible.

The workshops that get into trouble with WorkSafe aren’t usually the ones that have done nothing. They’re the ones that have done some things, assumed that’s enough, and can’t demonstrate the rest. The gap between ‘we’ve got the gear’ and ‘we can produce evidence of a compliant system’ is where prosecutions live.

The first step for any workshop is an honest gap assessment across all five domains: what’s in place, what’s missing, what exists but isn’t documented. That’s where the priority list comes from.

The structured EV and hybrid safety check — with the specific questions, evidence fields, and audit trail that WorkSafe compliance requires across all five domains — is part of AC360’s curated compliance library, built specifically for Australian automotive workshops. That’s the difference between knowing what AS 5732:2022 requires and being able to prove you’re meeting it. Get in touch with us here.

This post is for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified legal or WHS professional for advice specific to your situation.