What is the "final" fix for the battery fire recall?

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The replacement program for the Kona has started here in India, and the first batch of 100 battery packs reached last week. All are manufactured by LG.

I wonder if they were shipped with all the odds and ends needed to do the replacement job. INCLUDING the hydraulic jack and "a full set of single use bolts". ;)
 
Once the defect has been identified I don't see that it matters who makes them.

LG is one of the largest EV battery manufacturer in the world. The key is to find the source of the problem. Then it can be fixed. I think there may be some posturing between Hyundai and LG. Both want to 'save face'.
 
If they offer some kind of buyback, I would be all over it.. I love the Kona and I'm NOT worried about the battery as it seems to affect only a very low percentage of cars... but I really want to get a Tesla Model Y for the Supercharger Network.. I have been holding off taking my car to South Texas as there are no Level 3 chargers in the Rio Grande Valley :(.. I've been waiting and waiting and they are not adding any Level 3 chargers there.. However, there are Superchargers on the way from Houston to McAllen.. There seem to be no plans to add any chargers between Houston and McAllen.. There isn't even a single Hotel in that area that offers J1772 charging..

Wasn't your stance on the corvette forum that EVs were perfect, charging stations were everywhere and there were no compromise to owning one?


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I wouldn't worry about the brand. It's totally possible this was not actually a battery issue, just batteries damaged by poor battery management.

Possible - one of the original bugs they fixed was that BMS wasn't keeping the batteries cool.
 
Possible - one of the original bugs they fixed was that BMS wasn't keeping the batteries cool.

The pause they seem to have implemented near full charge is telling. Seems like they suspect they were subjecting certain cells to over voltage conditions. That is known to incrementally damage the "separator" as does heat and crystals that form from over discharge. Over discharge however does not seem to be in play here.


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I wonder if they were shipped with all the odds and ends needed to do the replacement job. INCLUDING the hydraulic jack and "a full set of single use bolts". ;)

Yes all in place. The first few cars are back with the owners now. They are replacing at the rate of 2 cars/day/service center, followed by a few days of on road testing for a few cycles of 20-80%
 
Wasn't your stance on the corvette forum that EVs were perfect, charging stations were everywhere and there were no compromise to owning one?


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Well, you can travel to everywhere with an EV, just not the one I have... I'm not going to stop driving EV's.. I'm going to just change to another one.. There are very few regions with lack of Level 3 chargers for non Tesla.. For Tesla (if you have the Chademo adapter), there isn't a single region that I'm interested in where I can't go.. Yes, there are drawbacks for a NON TESLA EV but not for EV's in general as Teslas are EV's as well..
 
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Well, you can travel to everywhere with an EV, just not the one I have... I'm not going to stop driving EV's.. I'm going to just change to another one.. There are very few regions with lack of Level 3 chargers for non Tesla.. For Tesla (if you have the Chademo adapter), there isn't a single region that I'm interested in where I can't go.. Yes, there are drawbacks for a NON TESLA EV but not for EV's in general as Teslas are EV's as well..

The situation will change in no time. Volkswagen and GM will take care of that. There is an other "fly in the ointment", charger reliability.
 
There is still no definitive news for Hyundai to verify the width of the battery replacment.
The article does quote a Hyundai spokesperson, which wasn't the case in previous ones... I agree that I'll believe it when I see on Hyundai's recall website, but this is looking more and more inevitable as days goes by.
Still hope they will offer buyback options.
 
The article does quote a Hyundai spokesperson, which wasn't the case in previous ones... I agree that I'll believe it when I see on Hyundai's recall website, but this is looking more and more inevitable as days goes by.
Still hope they will offer buyback options.

I agree that this outcome of battery replacement is inevitable but only because the Korean authorities are forcing their hand. I would love to believe that they would have done the right thing and fixed a hardware problem with an appropriate hardware solution and not just deploy potentially future crippling software solutions but I don't.
 
You guys sure are a cynical and impatient bunch. I have no doubt that Hyundai will not hesitate to spend billions if necessary to make things right with their customers and preserve their reputations. I would say this, for not just the SK corps, but also the Japanese corps. I have been to both SK and Japan on business, and can tell you they are a very, very proud people and take these kind of failures very, very seriously. BTW, I would not say the same about our domestic corps.

If you think of how these battery failures/fires happened, and the actions that Hyundai took (software updates to catch them before they totally failed), I think they did the right thing. No doubt the SK govt was all over them, too, as they should. But I think we are now seeing some very good progress towards a final fix.

And this is coming from a guy (me) who has had both his reduction drive and motor replaced, and now facing a possible battery replacement. However, I knew this was a new model, and they all have new technology risks. Yeah, maybe some companies (like Toyota) are better than others with their quality control. But for me, I am still hopeful that in the end all the problems will be fixed, and we will enjoy the car that we thought we bought for a long time to come.

And I still can't help comparing our Kona to my son's Tesla M3, which in so many ways is a far inferior car, yet cost a lot more.
 
I've been on a bit of hiatus and not driving much, and in the meantime have received another letter and
a somewhat pleading call from the local dealer wanting to set up an appointment. One of these is
about the braking thing, yet another reflash for them to screw up. My stance is unchanged: I'll think
about it when I see Hyundai come clean about what these various issues really are.

_H*
 
That one seems to go without a hitch and apparently the aux battery does not have to support the process.
 
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