- A fireplace with a Mercedes-Benz EQE after which a Kia EV6 has despatched South Korea right into a panic over EVs.
- EV fires are statically few and much between, but when they do occur, lithium-ion battery fires are notably nasty and exhausting to extinguish.
- The concerned automobile firms are making a lot of adjustments in an try to revive buyer belief.
It is a scenario no electrical car proprietor desires to consider: A automobile catches fireplace for inexplicable causes and causes important collateral injury earlier than it is lastly extinguished. It is also a headline no automobile firm that makes EVs desires to take care of. Fortunately, these fires are statistically uncommon. However after one conflagration involving an electrical Kia in a parking storage in Korea, the Hyundai Motor Group stated it is taking proactive steps to alleviate the general public’s fireplace fears and alert homeowners to potential issues earlier than they occur.
The world’s third-largest automaker and burgeoning EV titan has introduced a number of coverage adjustments, new practices and forthcoming software program updates since a Kia EV6 caught fireplace earlier this month. Luckily for all concerned, that blaze was extinguished shortly. However it got here on the heels of a much more devastating fireplace involving a Mercedes-Benz EQE in an Incheon storage that despatched two dozen individuals to the hospital.
Each blazes have sparked a nationwide panic in South Korea, a nation whose automakers are crafting an enormous play to be aggressive within the EV world. On-line used EV sale listings are actually up almost 200% as homeowners shortly search to dump their vehicles amid fireplace considerations, in response to native information studies.
That is a scenario the Hyundai Motor Group clearly desires to get forward of. So final week, it launched a free inspection program for homeowners of Hyundai, Kia and Genesis EVs within the house market.
“The inspection targets all passenger and small business electrical autos from Hyundai Motor Firm, Kia Motors, and Genesis, and a complete of 9 objects associated to the protection of electrical autos are inspected, together with insulation resistance, voltage deviation, cooling system, injury to connecting cables and connectors, underbody impression/injury [and] prevalence of fault codes,” the automaker stated in a information launch. “Clients who want to use the service could make a reservation by deciding on the specified date and site on a weekday or Saturday by way of every firm’s buyer middle, after which go to the service middle.”
The automaker additionally stated that its Hyundai and Kia manufacturers are offering house chargers (together with set up, in Hyundai’s case), someway guaranteeing the residual worth of used vehicles and supporting homeowners if a complete loss occurs on account of an accident inside one yr. Once more, these perks appear to be restricted to Korean EV homeowners, not ones in different markets.
Moreover, together with Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai is voluntarily disclosing the names of its battery suppliers to homeowners, in response to Bloomberg. This has been—and continues to be—some extent of rivalry amongst homeowners who wish to know if their specific batteries are tied to any particular fireplace incidents. Throughout the business, it is typically very exhausting to inform what batteries are in what EVs and the place they arrive from.
The batteries from the Mercedes fireplace in Korea are believed to be sourced from China’s Farasis Power, that are unlikely for use in any U.S.-model EVs. (We’ll replace this story as we get extra on the supply of the batteries for U.S.-market EQE sedans; Mercedes’ EQ SUVs use regionally made batteries close to the identical Alabama manufacturing facility that builds the vehicles.)
Yoon Joonwon, a fund supervisor at DS Asset Administration Co. in Seoul, advised Bloomberg that sourcing high quality could make a distinction right here: “It’s troublesome to inform at this level whether or not Farasis batteries are the issue, however there’s a normal sentiment that the chance is increased with smaller battery makers than main producers like CATL or Korean makers,” he stated. In different phrases, it appears unlikely that U.S. EV batteries are implicated right here; lots of the e-bike fires which have prompted chaos in New York Metropolis, for instance, have been tied to batteries from cheaper, lower-cost Chinese language sources fairly than higher-grade automotive ones.
In keeping with Hyundai and Kia’s web sites, batteries are sourced from Korean giants LG and SK On, in addition to CATL.
Lastly, Hyundai Motor has introduced updates to its Battery Administration System (BMS) that ought to assist monitor irregularities and alert homeowners if any are occurring. “When the BMS detects any malfunctions, it instantly assesses the chance stage and initiates car security management measures,” the Korea Occasions reported. The irregular knowledge is transmitted to distant help facilities of the carmakers, which then mechanically ship a textual content message to the shopper.” Updates will likely be utilized to new autos and ones at the moment on the street by the tip of this yr.
The automaker added to native information shops that it doesn’t consider “overcharging” was a supply of any battery fires, saying the BMS already screens that scenario and that “the chance of points attributable to overcharging is near zero p.c.”
“Hyundai Motor Group’s EVs incorporate a complete vary of security applied sciences developed primarily based on the experience and expertise amassed to date,” an organization official stated. “We’re dedicated to making sure that clients worldwide can really feel secure driving our EVs.”
The automaker had higher hope so. EV gross sales in its house market have been down just lately regardless of important development globally, and the most recent spate of fires—although solely restricted to 2 recognized incidents to date—have despatched gross sales and costs plummeting. It is actually not a scenario Hyundai Motor desires because it escalates an EV push designed to tackle Tesla, China and the remaining worldwide.
We’re reaching out to Hyundai and Kia within the U.S. to see if any of those insurance policies or updates are coming to American-market vehicles. No fires from both model, or Mercedes-Benz, are recognized to have occurred just lately; just a few thousand 2022 Kia Niro EVs have been recalled just lately over fireplace considerations, however Hyundai Motor’s largest fire-related recall was for gasoline-powered vehicles.
Extra on this as we get it.
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