Now the whole EV world knows about the fires in the Kona due to a folded anode tab in the battery, there’s no doubt something urgent needs to be done. Whilst Hyundai and LG are battling it out as to who’s to blame, we who drive the pre-March 2020 models (including the Ioniq) are in a waiting game. Nobody from Hyundai or our dealers have officially contacted us to say to only charge the car to 90% as a precaution against fires. It’s only by reading in our trusted INSIDEEVs website that I became aware of this serious issue. Then on top of it all I read about the already world shortage of EV batteries. Where are they going to urgently get those 81,701 batteries from? Kona:75680, Ioniq:5716, and 305 Hyundai Electric City busses. Perhaps it would be safer and cheaper for Hyundai to buy back the existing faulty vehicles, or offering an alternative financial solution. If I (or anyone else) wanted to sell their existing pre-March 2020 Kona or Ioniq we would have trouble in doing so. I am not happy owning my beloved Kona at the moment!
I understand that some people might have a harder time going to sleep at night. I look at it this way: there was about 10 fires out of 80.000 cars. A chance of 0.0125%. However, if you don't charge your car to 100% it is most likely (almost certain) that you're going to be just fine. So I'm going to enjoy my car. I will even go as far as charging it to 100% if I have to, because I happen to live in an area being extremely sparse of EV charging infrastructure. That's not on a daily basis, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over the issue. Once it's my turn with getting a new battery I'll gladly accept the fact of an increased value of the car.
See this post: https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/what-is-the-final-fix-for-the-battery-fire-recall.10363/page-8#post-124541 The NTHSA Recall link should answer at least a couple of your questions
Fair enough, but I actually DO lose sleep over a 12v battery issue that’s been going on for months rather than the fire risk that’s mentioned earlier. My dealer too is puzzled as to why the 12v battery is being topped up at regular intervals. I’m on battery number three in two years, the latter being a more powerful one. The yellow light inside the front badge and the ring inside the charging port (also yellow) comes on at frequent intervals whether the car is plugged in or not. I fully accept that electronics are at work even after the car has shut down for several hours. But why does it keep going on and off after being parked for three days without using the car? Obviously for some reason something is being drained as the high voltage battery is feeding the auxiliary battery (battery saver+?). I managed to talk with the mechanic who worked on my car, and he had contacted Hyundai for advice, but the electronic readings were within the accepted tolerance recommended by them. They were actually better. I will copy and paste this thread into the Kona forum. Have you heard about this problem before? All the software is up-to-date.
Well, not saying it's not strange. I didn't have any 12V battery problems for 2 years until it was dead recently. I charged it (left car in on) and all "seems" to be fine for now. I do have a small starter pack at home (not specifically for the Kona), so I had no problem starting it. It took me less than 5 minutes. It can be a pain in the behind, but I'm not losing sleep over that either. I've had ice cars I can't even remember how they stayed running. Worst case it's getting a new battery at some point.
Just got a call from my dealer (Kelowna, BC, Canada) to book the software update limiting max charge, and was told battery will be replaced in about a month. Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
