Another fire accident in South Korea

I was just thinking today that we hadn't heard of any post-recall.

The back seat is of course where the battery is accessible in order to reach the isolation/fuse plug, and the pressure-equalizing vent is in that plug as well.

Thanks for keeping us up to date, Sean.

 

What struck me most about this fire is this:

"The vehicle has a history of being recalled in December last year. The owner of the car purchased the vehicle back in June 2018."

So, it can be said that the current BMS update cannot prevent fires. It just leads to a false sense of security that it does. Not only that, the BMS update can brick your car without warning. I am so glad that I did not do the recall.

The common denominator for most of these fires is this:

Fast charging. I will stay away from fast charging.

As for charging to 100% while fast charging in causing these fires, we will need more info. But I don't charge over 80% even when I am not fast charging.

 

If my understanding is correct, the owner of the exploding Kona in Montreal have yet to receive ANY compensation from Hyundai. Hyundai has yet to admit liability, and it is his homeowner's insurance that is covering the cost of repairs. Has ANY of the Kona EVs owners that caught fire in Korea been compensated at all from Hyundai???

OK, now I have to wait and see how this recent poor owner will be dealt with by Hyundai, even thought he had been a good little boy and underwent all the recalls like he is supposed to. I will doubt very much he will be compensated either.

Hyundai can blame alot of things when your vehicle is up in smoke even though you went through all the recalls. Hyundai can say, "You should sue LG Chem instead, because it was a battery problem." If your car was fast charging when it went up in smoke, they can say "Maybe Electrify America's charger had something to do with it."

You get the point. The root cause for the fires has yet to be known. Hyundai had been investigating for well over a year, and we never got an answer.

As for selling the vehicle, I will be very hesitant in private deals. I don't think I can stomach any legal ramifications if the car goes up in smoke after selling it, whether it had undergone all the recalls or not. The person you sold it to can sue not only the manufacturer, but also you. I will sell it back to the manufacturer instead....and eat any loss. You cannot expect to get the car's full resell value, when most buyers know that your vehicle has problems with catching fires.

 

You are correct.

Over discharge, over charge and heat slowly damaged the membrane between the layers of the battery. Once the membrane is breached a fire occurs. Damage is cumulative and can occur over several years. You can detect some anomalies but you cannot prevent a fire caused my membrane breakdown over many months/years.


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Recall that one of the first fixes was to the battery cooling. Before the fix, the compressor would come on, but no chilled water entered the battery. So there could have been some damage right at the start if people were using DCFC in the summer before they got the 1st fix.

 

Agree and if it was just a few instance of damage it likely isn’t an issue now that no further damage is likely to occur post update. It’s the batteries that were pushed near failure before the update that can’t be expected to have no further risk.


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I suppose their hope was that they could flag any damaged batteries with extra checking. It costs them a small fortune to replace a battery pack, but that's still way better than a battery fire.

We are assuming the most recent car had in fact been updated, but it is also possible that it never had any updates. Unfortunately Hyundai is unlikely to tell us much of anything about what they find.

 

Agree.


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I wonder if there's a difference in charging infrastructure in South Korea than over here in the States that's causing this. Do they do more fast charging over there?

 

True because it's happening more there than US+EU combined. And I would say that , for now, less bricked Konas after the BMS update here in Europe, compared to the US (and Corea of course)

 

Have they changed battery manufactures between 2018 and now?

 

The Kona won't draw any more than 75kW from a DC charger (assuming the charger can deliver that much).

 

Is that just for the battery, or in total? I.e. if battery and cabin heat are running, will that push it above 75kW from the DC charger?

 

I think folks in South Korea have a tendency to fast charge to 100% a lot more than folks in the United States from looking at the comments in the forum ? Lots of people being upset by the "pause" at 90-94%, and I've never had the patience to go over 85% here even when paying by the kwh.

 

The problem with the whole EV market is advertising the range taking the battery from 100 to 0. If the industry was honest they world advertise the “Recommended” range as 80-20% capacity with a “flex/emergency” range of 100-0%. But they won’t... That would bypass emotion with logic.


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