Worldwide recall according to this 11 Oct news item.

Some took place while the cars were AT a charger. That doesn't mean they were charging. That's the difficulty with troubleshooting. There are so many variables and most of them are difficult if not impossible to observe or tease out. Hell, if Hyundai can't do it with ALL the information then what hope do we have?

 

OK, that may be. So we can say that as a precaution, unplug the car when not charging. What's the downside?

Some of us have hypothesized that the fires are caused by over-charging of an individual cell in the battery - possibly caused by a pack that was out of balance. Hyundai's previous BMS update tightened up the specs so the car would throw faults for an out of balance pack. The update that they are now pushing out in Korea seems to pause charging - they haven't come out and said what the purpose of this is - my own theory is that they pause to allow the BMS to attempt to rebalance the battery pack.

Most of the thoughts about what we should do come directly from Hyundai. I would add to the list checking the pack balance yourself with a smartphone app if you have that ability.

 

Aside from the annoyance of having to go out and unplug the car the potential downside I worry about is the 12 volt battery monitoring. Since the BMS update my car lights up pretty frequently, apparently running the 12 volt top-up routine. When that's happening my charger's ring light goes green so I assume it's pulling power from the cord at that point. If it's unplugged I wonder if my 12 volt would go flat. I drive only once every two weeks since Covid and that seems an opportune time for the 12 volt to croak.

 

NCM622 vs NCM811 (Hyundia vs Kia battery chemistry)
I’m certain Kia will be watching this very closely indeed.

NCM811 is used because it’s more energy dense again, but, more prone to thermal runaway and requires multiple sintering passes during production making it more expensive and harder for quality control to produce properly.

With all thing being equal (capacity, battery reserve, charge and discharge rates) NCM811 is less safe than NCM622.

Perhaps Kia with higher density for the same physical size is able to have a larger reserve safety margin thereby making their NCM811 a safer battery?

NCM811 is all about increasing energy density, using less expensive materials (cobalt and manganese) and not about increasing battery safety.

I was very pleased that the Kona is NCM622 and NCM811.

https://roskill.com/news/nickel-sulphate-in-high-nickel-batteries-safety-comes-into-question/

https://www.x-mol.com/paper/1285639650726821888

 

So the update will, I suppose, increase charging time buy up to 20 minutes if you're below 75%? One pause at 80%, another at 90%?

I mean, it's better than the alternative, but I wonder if the charge time estimator will take that into account...

 

No, I think what they are saying is it will pause at 75% or 90% depending on the SOC when plugged in, so only 10 minutes in either case, but it does mean you are better off not charging above that SOC on stations where pricing is per minute.

 

You're probably right, but -- as seems to be a common problem for Hyundai -- their wording is not 100% clear. They really need to do better.

 

No it isn't.

 

Indeed. My car is plugged in very rarely as I don't drive a lot. It happily charges its 12v whenever it needs to. Not anything to be concerned about.

 

It seems that Hyundai have now changed the "Description of Defect" submitted to the NHTSA - removing the reference to the BMS being at fault.

Does this make me feel any happier (having had service campaign 960 on my car), or does the cynic in me think that this may be an effort to shift liability.

Original:-
Description of the Defect : The high-voltage battery system in the subject vehicles might contain certain electrical deficiencies, such as internal damage to certain cells of the lithium-ion battery and/or faulty battery management system (“BMS”) control software, that could increase the risk of an electrical short circuit after fully charging the Li-ion battery. Hyundai is continuing to actively investigate this condition for identification of a specific root cause.

Revised:-
Description of the Defect : The high-voltage battery system in the subject vehicles may have been produced with internal damage to certain cells of the lithium-ion battery increasing the risk of an electrical short circuit. Hyundai is continuing to actively investigate this condition for identification of a specific root cause.

Documents here.

John.

 

This makes me wonder if they have seen some damaged cells.

I am sure that LG won't be happy with this, and they will no doubt push back.

 

I think the main purpose of the BMS software update is to catch and ferret out all possible battery cell defects, no matter what the cause. And to catch them before they can cause another fire. By inspecting a defective cell group that hasn't burned up will also help them identify what the root cause is.

I think they are doing the right thing. Time will tell.

 

So is this 10-minute self-diagnosis the permanent fix? Adding 10 minutes to a charge isn't the end of the world, but it'll get old fast if you're doing a lot of fast charges.
And what about if you're charging at a per-minute rate? Presumably you'd paid for those 10 minutes and get no energy. And since you're draw no electricity, would the charger think you're done and end the session? And/or start billing you for idling?

 

The interesting part is that https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2020/RCLRPT-20V630-7305.PDF still says "Hyundai is also planning on updating the BMS software to allow for detection of abnormalities in the high-voltage battery system while parked", which I don't care about. 10 minutes additional charging time (and money !) at 80% is not acceptable.

https://www.insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/recall-kona-ev-bms-update-and-20-reduce-cell-capacity.9707/page-6 also showed the diagnostic happening at 62% battery ?

That basically rules out using EVGo/Chargepoint chargers in California over 80%, that's $3 you're giving to EVGo while not charging your car.

 

Pretty ridiculous that Hyundai Australia is ahead of all other markets in communicating to customers.

 

Because multiple markets are larger and got the Kona many months before Australia did.