Disconnecting charger cable of Kona while being charged? Simple answer?

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Harold said:
... They replaced the whole charger port assembly. They indicated that the issue was with the electrical latch not releasing as it should ...
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Having to replace the charge port assembly is not that uncommon for the gen-1 Kona but the reason is more often that it fails to latch.

After six years on the road the list of reported defects I'm seeing on the various forums have been consistent around a small number of items.
a) The charge port lock,
b) the charge port flap lock and ring lighting colours,
c) the wheel of fortune duo - the GRU and motor,
d) various functionality issues with the HVAC caused by the compressor, battery pack chiller and the evaporator/condenser (behind the grill),
e) and Check-EV system errors, which are triggered by either out of spec cell balance or an isolation fault which could be caused by any of the several items that run directly off high voltage, meaning the PTC-type heaters for the battery and cabin along with the HVAC compressor.

These are items that are certainly all due to design defects but ones that Hyundai don't appear to acknowledge. I'm ignoring the blue coolant issues because they have been good about dealing with that fiasco and no owner has ever reported being billed for repairs. Nearly much the same with the wheel of fortune - reports of owners having to pay for this repair could be counted on one hand so far.

There was a report recently from the German TüV authority regarding what cars most commonly fail biennial safety inspections. Germany requires this test after the car is 3 years old. NZ is similar but ours are annual after 3 years. The Kona was near the top of the list for being the most reliable. This link is the article from a NZ newspaper that links to the German site.

I'll note that the issues that cause a safety-test fail tend to be confined to those that the owner doesn't notice before taking the car in. The problems that the Kona typically have are not typically of that type, while the Model 3 suspensions issues are.

On the other hand, well-put-together EVs include the Hyundai Kona Electric with a defect rate of 4% and first-generation Mini Cooper SE with 4.4%, followed by models including the Volkswagen ID.3 (5%), ID.4/ID.5 (5.9%), and Peugeot E-208 (6.4%).
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$800 for a coolant change is a bit excessive for basically remediating what is a design fault. And I have never had a car which so easily goes out of alignment.
On the whole I am happy with the car and would definitely not go back to ICE.
 
I don't think it was a design fault that brought on the low-conductivity coolant but more a preventative reaction resulting from the Kona fires when Hyundai was at a loss to explain why they were happening.

The gen-1 Kona and Niro, like most EVs with liquid-cooled battery packs run coolant plumbing inside the pack to the heat-exchange surfaces in contact with cells.

About the same time as the 22 or so Kona fires it was also discovered that some crash test EVs were self-combusting several hours after the impact due to coolant leaking which led to wetting of the cell terminals.

The blue low-conductivity coolant was an easy change to make in production with seemingly no disadvantage other than placing substantial additional maintenance costs onto unsuspecting owners.

Hyundai then discovered that the fires were primarily due to an unfortunate production shortcut in some LG Energy factories that more-easily enabled dendrites to pierce the separator under stressful conditions like high SoC. That was a very expensive mistake but LG and Hyundai did the right thing without as much squirming as similarly-affected GM.

But they didn't reverse the blue coolant change as they could have. I have little doubt that conventional coolant could be substituted without any operating issues. However, starting with the IONIQ 5 all Hyundai/Kia EVs now place the entire battery cooling system outside the battery pack for safety, with a conventional coolant. As best as I'm aware only VW do the same, in the iD range of EVs.
 
KiwiME said:
I don't think it was a design fault that brought on the low-conductivity coolant but more a preventative reaction

But they didn't reverse the blue coolant change as they could have. I have little doubt that conventional coolant could be substituted without any operating issues. However, starting with the IONIQ 5 all Hyundai/Kia EVs now place the entire battery cooling system outside the battery pack for safety, with a conventional coolant. As best as I'm aware only VW do the same, in the iD range of EVs.
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Thank you KiwiMe, Very informative as always. Still pissed off about the coolant cost though.:)
 
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