- 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 onerous to extinguish.
- The concerned automobile firms are making a variety of adjustments in an try to revive buyer belief.
It is a state of affairs no electrical automobile proprietor needs to consider: A automobile catches fireplace for inexplicable causes and causes important collateral harm earlier than it is lastly extinguished. It is also a headline no automobile firm that makes EVs needs 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 mentioned 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 rapidly. But it surely got here on the heels of a much more devastating fireplace involving a Mercedes-Benz EQE in an Incheon storage that despatched two dozen folks 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 practically 200% as homeowners rapidly search to dump their vehicles amid fireplace considerations, in response to native information reviews.
That is a state of affairs the Hyundai Motor Group clearly needs to get forward of. So final week, it launched a free inspection program for homeowners of Hyundai, Kia and Genesis EVs within the residence market.
“The inspection targets all passenger and small industrial electrical automobiles from Hyundai Motor Firm, Kia Motors, and Genesis, and a complete of 9 gadgets associated to the security of electrical automobiles are inspected, together with insulation resistance, voltage deviation, cooling system, harm to connecting cables and connectors, underbody impression/harm [and] incidence of fault codes,” the automaker mentioned in a information launch. “Prospects who want to use the service could make a reservation by choosing the specified date and placement on a weekday or Saturday by way of every firm’s buyer heart, after which go to the service heart.”
The automaker additionally mentioned that its Hyundai and Kia manufacturers are offering residence chargers (together with set up, in Hyundai’s case), one way or the other guaranteeing the residual worth of used vehicles and supporting homeowners if a complete loss occurs on account of an accident inside one 12 months. 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—a degree of rivalry amongst homeowners who wish to know if their specific batteries are tied to any particular fireplace incidents. Throughout the trade, it is typically very onerous 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 domestically made batteries close to the identical Alabama manufacturing unit that builds the vehicles.)
Yoon Joonwon, a fund supervisor at DS Asset Administration Co. in Seoul, instructed 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 basic sentiment that the danger is greater with smaller battery makers than main producers like CATL or Korean makers,” he mentioned. In different phrases, it appears unlikely that U.S. EV batteries are implicated right here; most of the e-bike fires which have precipitated chaos in New York Metropolis, for instance, have been tied to batteries from cheaper, lower-cost Chinese language sources relatively than higher-grade automotive ones.
In accordance 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 danger stage and initiates automobile security management measures,” the Korea Instances reported. The irregular information 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 automobiles and ones at the moment on the street by the top of this 12 months.
The automaker added to native information retailers that it doesn’t imagine “overcharging” was a supply of any battery fires, saying the BMS already screens that state of affairs and that “the chance of points brought on by 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 collected to this point,” an organization official mentioned. “We’re dedicated to making sure that prospects worldwide can really feel secure driving our EVs.”
The automaker had higher hope so. EV gross sales in its residence market have been down just lately regardless of important progress globally, and the most recent spate of fires—although solely restricted to 2 recognized incidents to this point—have despatched gross sales and costs plummeting. It is actually not a state of affairs Hyundai Motor needs 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; a couple of thousand 2022 Kia Niro EVs had 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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